On Thursday, January 26, 2018, I’m releasing my newest book so I want to give you a sneak peek into what you can expect from it. It is called “45 Day Mindfulness Challenge: Experiments to Know Yourself Better, Tap Your Own Wisdom, and Change Your Life” (edit: you can get it here: http://amzn.to/2DMjssJ ) and I am so excited to share it with you!
Changing it Up
What we think we need is in fact often a habit, a pattern. Slowing down to take care of ourselves lets us see these patterns, lets us get to know ourselves better.
A few times a year, I go to retreats where nothing is in my control. What’s cool is I get to see that it doesn’t matter so much if I eat lunch at 11:30 or at 1:00, aside from experiencing hunger.
My usual lunch pattern gets a shake-up, but I still get to eat. And you know what? It doesn’t totally kill me. I continue to be surprised by that because I love to eat!
Where it is really interesting to pay attention to is when I think something I do is “good for me.” The rollercoaster ride from being on board to resistance to being back on board to resistance takes a good long while sometimes to get through. The better it is for me, the grouchier I get. What I’ve noticed, though, is when I keep with something long enough to develop a new habit or pattern, there is this beautiful unfolding.
It’s like standing in line for a ticket to the movie you’ve heard was the best movie of the year. You wait in line. You wait and wait. Then you get into the theater, the only seat you find is too close, the sound is off-kilter, and the popcorn is too salty. Finally, the film starts. It’s slow, uncomfortable. You find yourself wondering if the reviewers were high. You decide to stick it out. After a bit, you don’t care about the popcorn, they’ve fixed the sound, and you’re fascinated by the characters. By the end, you’ve laughed, you’ve cried, you’ve fallen for the movie and can’t wait to tell your best friend about it.
The challenge today is to shake things up. Do things out of order. Go to bed early and see what the sunrise feels like. Change your habit of a glass of wine after work to a cup of hot tea and see what that feels like. Take a different route to the store. Play around with this.
Whatever you notice as a pattern, a habit, a thing you can’t live without (at least not happily), try something new today. Be with the experience, then take a bit of time to write about it.
You’ll bring awareness to what is a mindless habit or if it is really taking care of yourself. What part of your day can you alter today to experience this?
I hope you’ll give it a try. I’d love to hear how it goes for you so feel free to share in the comments!
This post is a taste of the challenges and experiments you will find in the book. If you want a bigger taste, sign up for the FREE 5 Day Mindfulness Challenge today in the box below!
Until next time,
Andrea
I'm ready!
Take me to my happy place!
