Hello hello, this is Sabrina Amina and I'm the host of the Feelings Pod. This is a
podcast where I share about feelings and emotions and how we can navigate them a
bit more mindfully. Today's episode is about improving our inner dialogue and
how we can create more supportive self-talk with mindful attention to our
thoughts and emotions. There are four access points that we learn about when
we first start practicing mindfulness and the first access point is the breath.
Being aware of your breath in this moment brings you fully to the present
moment. You can't take a future breath, you can't take a past breath, the only
breath you can take is right here right now, which is such a profound meditation
if you think about it. The second access point is the body. The body can be more
accessible often because again the body is right here right now, it's living,
breathing, moving and when we bring our attention to physical sensations in the
body that are present at this moment and we become aware once again of the
present moment. Our lives exist solely in this present moment. I can't really tend
to a past version of my physical body, I can simply be with the body I have right
here right now. I can tune into my five senses. Now you might be wondering what
does this have to do with self-talk? Well often emotions come up as physical
sensation in the body and sometimes those emotions create thoughts. Other times we
have thoughts that come up in the mind and it's hard to say where those thoughts
come from. Some might say it's a product of the emotions that we're feeling or
perhaps the emotions that we're feeling are a product of the thoughts that
we're feeling. So thoughts and emotions are the other two access points for us to
practice mindfulness. So they're all intimately interconnected right? Like your
breath, your body, your emotions and your thoughts. So in order for us to build the
awareness of our thoughts we have to build our practice of being here in the
present moment and usually the most accessible way to start for someone who's
just beginning a mindfulness practice is simply to tune into the breath or tune
into the body. So in today's episode we'll do some short mindfulness practices
throughout. If this is your first time listening usually I offer a practice at
the end of the episode. Today we're doing things a little differently. So let's
start with tuning into the breath. If you can find a comfortable seat where you
can safely bring your attention to your breath. If it feels good for you to close
your eyes I invite you to do so. Otherwise you can simply place your gaze
steadily on a point in front of you and try to soften the gaze. And in this
moment take a deep breath in to in through your nose. Feel the belly fill and
rise on the inhale. And once you've taken a big full deep breath go ahead and exhale.
Just observe how that feels to take a full conscious deep inhale and exhale.
Let's do that twice more. Take a deep breath in and this time as you're
breathing in notice where you feel the breath in the body. Notice the lungs
expand, notice the belly rise. And when you've taken in as much breath as you can
pause and exhale. Notice the sensation of the breath leaving the body. Notice how
the body moves as you exhale. And one last time take a deep breath in.
Pause and let it go.
I often tell my students that your breath is magic. It really is this powerful
tool that's available to you at any time in any moment. And when we build our
practice to the point where you can notice I'm feeling activated. I'm feeling
something challenging right now and I'm gonna take a few deep breaths. This is a
really empowering place to be because instead of feeling like a slave to your
thoughts and emotions you can have a dialogue with your thoughts and emotions.
You can embrace them more readily. You can even have a fun dance with them. You
can be more playful in your approach just by noticing. I often like to compare our
emotions to a small child and if you're a caretaker of any kind, an educator, a
parent, a pet owner, a plant owner, I'd argue we're all caretakers because we're
caretakers of our own human experience. So in whatever way that you're caretaking
in this life, imagine whatever you're caretaking as a small child and when that
small child has a tantrum, a caretaker who is attuned will help the child de-escalate,
help the child settle. And how do we do that? We do it by reflecting, we do it by
validating the experience, we do it by joining them in that moment, by being with
them and this happens if we're well resourced, if we have the capacity to be
with whatever we're taking care of with full presence and love and compassion.
This is the practice and sometimes we're not fully resourced, we don't have the
presence to attend in this way. So our mindfulness practice helps us build the
capacity to be more fully present to our experience. So if we notice an unruly
emotion coming up within us, we can offer it compassionate love, care, tenderness.
And if those things don't feel entirely accessible, attention is a really powerful
form of care. Just giving the object of our care, in this case our challenging
emotions, just offering those emotions a bit of care and attention is a loving
act in and of itself. So taking time to turn towards the discomfort, the pain, the
sadness, or even the joy, elation, euphoria, this is a wonderful practice for
any emotional experience. And not only does it have this wonderful effect of
helping us navigate some of our more challenging human moments, but it
also helps us really feel into and more fully expand the pleasurable moments
that we sometimes wish we could live into forever. And guess what? We can because
we are in this present moment forever. So as long as we're fully present in the
here and now, we can be forever present to the joyful, loving, pleasurable
experiences of our human at any time. And we can draw those in and recall them as
we build our practice. So I talked about the second access point of our body. So
just we'll do our another practice in this moment and find a comfortable seated
position and we'll do a brief body scan. So allow your feet to rest flat on the
floor if you're sitting on a cushion, perhaps your legs may be crossed. Let the
shoulders relax down the back. Imagine that your head is as light as a feather
kind of floating toward the sky. And begin to breathe. Notice the top of the head.
Bring your attention to your forehead. Notice your eyes and their sockets.
Notice all the muscles in your face and just allow them to relax, soften. Allow
all expression to leave your face. Take a deep breath in and draw the awareness
down to your throat, your jaw. Notice your neck, your shoulders.
Scan your attention down your biceps and upper arms, down your forearms. Notice
the hands. And here I invite you to bring the palms together and just rub them
together gently until you feel a little bit of warmth from the friction. Once
you've created a little bit of warmth in the palm of your hands, gently place the
palms over the heart. Take a deep breath in here and let it out.
Continue to bring your attention and awareness down through the belly. Bring
the awareness to the hips and your sit bones. Notice where your body comes into
contact with the support beneath you. Notice your thighs where they meet the
seat. Notice the tops of your thighs. You may wish to gently place your hands here.
Take a deep breath in and let it go.
Notice the knees moving our awareness down our shins and calves.
Notice the ankles, the tops of your feet, your tend toes, and the bottom of your feet.
Notice the arches in your feet. Notice your heels.
And take a deep breath in, drying it from the bottom of your feet all the way up
back, all the way up to your eyes, your forehead, and the crown of your head. And
let it go with a sigh.
Enjoy this moment of quiet stillness and just observe the body in this moment.
Take one more deep breath in. As you exhale, allow the eyes to flutter open,
come back to the room. And just let's do a check in here. Let's notice how are you
feeling in this moment? What emotions are present?
Are there any thoughts that are present?
Now, in demonstrating the breath and body practices, are you noticing that perhaps
we have more presence and more access to what's coming up in our emotions or our
thoughts? When we're in our practice, we get to notice with more wisdom what's
coming up in our thoughts and emotions.
Now, when we can be present to the thoughts that come up that maybe aren't so
supportive, we get to dialogue with these thoughts. We get to question them. We get
to choose different thoughts. Thoughts are interesting. Where do they come from?
Sometimes thoughts are just like, are we thinking or are we being thought?
So, with our mindfulness practice, we can think more consciously. And this really
brings us to my greater point about having more supportive self-talk, which is really
the way we think about ourselves. The way that we listen to our thoughts, the way
that we engage with our thoughts, can have a really profound impact on how we
feel about ourselves on our self-concept. And it comes up in really subtle ways
that sometimes we don't even notice. And oftentimes it comes up in our speech.
Sometimes I listen to the way my students speak to each other, to one
another, or even to themselves. And they'll call themselves names like, oh, you're so
stupid or oh, I'm such an idiot. And these are, these, this speech is, you know, a
manifestation of our thoughts. The reason why it's so important for us to bring
attention, conscious awareness to our thoughts is so that we can catch ourselves
before we start speaking to ourselves in such cruel, uncaring ways. What would it
feel like to make a mistake and instead of falling down a shame spiral, you can
say, um, oops, I made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. I'm feeling a
little bit embarrassed right now, but that's okay. And that's just, and everyone
in this process and practice has to find language and words that resonate with
themselves. I highly recommend Kristin Neff's work on self-compassion. Her
teachings are about practicing mindful self-compassion and learning how to
support yourself with kindness and tenderness, building awareness of our
thoughts and emotions so that we can love ourselves more fully at the end of
the day. Why do I share these practices? Because learning how to be kinder to
myself, learning how to speak more kindly to myself has made my life better in
all areas of my life. Like it's made me a better parent, it's made me a better
daughter, it's made me a better teacher, it's made me a better friend, and it's
made me a better caretaker. Not just for others, but primarily first and foremost
for myself, because as I'm more fully resourced in my, in this home that I live
in, in this body, in this brain, with this heart, with this breath, as I'm more
fully resourced, as I'm able to speak to myself with more gentleness, more kindness,
more gratitude, more love, I can show up in this way with others. This work is so
important to me because it's life-changing work and it starts with us. We are
living in a time where we could all use a little bit more tenderness, softness,
care, joy, connection, and really we make space for that when we make space for
ourselves and our own experience. So thank you so much for practicing with me
today. Thank you so much for listening and tuning in. If you'd like to learn more
about mindfulness, you can find me on Instagram, underscore sabrinaamena
underscore, and I look forward to sharing with you next time. Thank you again for
tuning in and thank you so much for the gift of your time and attention. Have a
wonderful day.