TheMindfulWayPodcast Urvashi Patel

Show Notes

In today’s episode, I would like to address emotions. How we usually deal with them and how meditation can help?

There are two ways we usually deal with emotions.

1. We completely avoid to feel the emotions by keeping ourselves busy with work, social media, going out for shopping, eating , watching endless tv. That way it becomes easy for us to not feel the emotion we know exist in ourselves.

2.We drown in our emotions. We lock ourselves in cry, dramatise it by recalling painful events, victimising ourselves thinking why it happens to me and why I am the only one. In this case we are drowning with our emotions

Both these ways are the reaction to what emotions we are going through.

But reacting to emotions will simply grow it bigger. When we suppress or drown with emotions it will grow and it is not the healthy way to deal with emotions.

Imagine emotion is a fire and it will grow wild when you put fuel to it. Reaction to emotions is that fuel that only grow that emotions.

When we feel the emotion , it is best to meditate on it. Sitting with the emotions , feel all of it and slowly it will melt.  When you are meditating on it and observing your emotions it loses its power and slowly you will be able to let it go.

But one thing to keep in mind is being compassionate towards yourself when practicing this. It won’t be possible always to meditate on emotions but do it as much as you can tolerate and remember some of the emotions will be strong to feel. So take a step back and come back to meditate when you feel ok. Self compassion is must in practicing this.

Pain is inevitable, things doesn’t always go our way . But with meditation we can make decision how much we want suffer. Suffering is our choice.

Releasing Pressure Meditation at the end of the episode.

Show Notes

In today's Episode I am sharing 7 common myths about Meditation

Sometimes we mistaken or misunderstand mindfulness and think it is same as meditation.

Mindfulness is a state of heightened awareness and deliberate focus on present moment. We can be mindful of our breath, emotions, thoughts. There is not set formal process to practice mindfulness.

On the other hand Meditation is more focused internally and have formal techniques. Meditation helps us to make our mindfulness practice more deep.

7 myths about meditation

1. I don't know how to do it

When we decide to start practicing, we get overwhelmed thinking the exact process to do it. Many people fear that they are doing wrong. Let me tell you there is no right or wrong way. Stay relaxed. Just focusing on breathing is the process.

2. To meditate , I Have to stop thinking and empty my mind.

Empty our mind is like stopping wind.So don't get frustrated with it. Just stay with your thoughts but go along with them. Let your thoughts move and you stay there with your breath. Imagine thoughts as clouds which moves and you stay there watching them as they pass.

3. Meditation means sitting in straight posture

No this is not a requirement , you can practice it sitting relaxed in a chair, sofa or even in bed.

4. Meditation is Religious or woo-woo

Meditation is not religious practice, it is practiced my scientists, sports person and many more. It is a scientific process. Yes meditation has been mentioned in many religious books but it is not considered as religious practice.

5. Some thinks mediation means chanting OM.

No, chanting is another form of meditation. You don't have to chant any mantra or use Male beads to meditate. You can simply focus on your breathe. Or You can even have your own personalised mantra to focus on.

6. People who meditate are always happy and peaceful.

This is another myth. No this isn't true. They have difficult, challenging situations in life as we all do but the way they respond to is the results of mediation.

7. You have to be calm nature to practice meditation

Some people think that to practice meditation, they have to have calm, zen kind of nature. This is not true, anyone can practice meditation. As meditation helps us feel more calm it's not the other way round.

Now you know about the myths regarding mediation and there is a difference between both.

Ok, that's it for today guys. I will be back next week. Have a lovely week beautiful minds.

In this episode I am talking about finding mindfulness in any activities you love.

Show Notes

In today’s episode , I would like to share my mindfulness practice with art. As per my first episode, Art led me to mindfulness.

It’s not about just art, it could be anything you do and love. It’s that thing when you do you lose track of time and you are in the complete zone. For me it is art, for some it could be playing sports, creating crafts or composing music.

Doing one Thing you love everyday will make you feel more calm as you will feel you are more mindful of whatever you are passionate about.

Let me share how I paint - I paint feelings which are inspired by the music that I hear in nature and life. Even in silence I could hear the music.

Most of the time when I am painting , it is complete silence. No music, nothing. I can hear the sound of my brush, water, mixing paint and these sound is the music to my ears.

Sometimes, I put something on like a random Youtube video or podcast but in few minutes that noise goes in the background and I am completely mindful about my each brush strokes, colour selection, mixing and blending.

Try this with anything you love, observe the feelings without judging them as good or bad. Just notice what’s going on when you do the activity you love.

When I came across mindfulness, I was amazed as I knew exactly how painting makes me feel.

In mindfulness, we let our thoughts come and go and don’t try to stop them. Or attach to them. Same way painting teaches me not to get attached with the outcomes.

Other way I feel art for me is mindfulness practice is because the way I observe and notice things around me itself is the practice of mindfulness. I love watching clouds from my office window, I see birds flying over office roofs, sometimes I observe how the airplane moves in the cloud.

I have no words what feelings these kind of activities gives me but I know I feel something. It helps me to take a pause at work.

All these inspire me to paint. Infact, I am watching plane in the sky right now.

I hope you feel inspired to pick up the activity or hobby that you always wanted to do. Go ahead and make a start. Soon you will start practicing mindfulness. Also, whenever you feel you are stuck or artist language we call it artist block, try to do some other things like photography, dancing or anything you like. Because I found that we learn something new , our brain becomes more mindful to learn that thing and suddenly it unlocks my creativity. So never stuck in a rut. Keep switching with new things to take break.

Ok, guys it’s time to say good bye and I will be back next week. Have a lovely week beautiful minds.

In today’s episode, I will be talking about finding difficulties in meditating. I knew meditation at an very early age. It was introduce by many to me and one of my friend and honestly, I used to think it’s crazy.

I never understood how sitting still can help. The process didn’t make sense. Quietening my mind is impossible as my brain is thought producing machine. I am most of the time

In different world.

When I grew a bit older, I thought it’s waste of my time. Now I feel, I was so much ignorant.

I even tried it many times but felt frustrating as I read and heard people saying they see white lights some say they see purple lights and I can’t say I see nothing but darkness and it’s suffocating.

Yes I felt suffocated when I closed my eyes. But now, meditation makes me feel so good.

These were the reason I found it hard. There are 5 common reasons

1. I am too busy.

Well, again this is the excuse our brain makes it which appears to us that other tasks are more important than our health. That’s the reason we skip exercise, going to gym. I am raising my hand as I am guilty of that.

We spend more time in doing things that doesn’t matter like scrolling on Instagram, reading news , surfing on internet etc.

If we really want something , we make time for it. Yes, we have busy lives with kids, work, family and never ending to do list but prioritising is needed.

To start meditating 5 minutes or even less is enough to get the ball rolling

2. I need a quiet place to do it

We have this fancy picture of finding a beautiful quiet space for meditation.

So often we make excuse that as we don’t have access to this space, I can’t meditate .

For meditation we don’t need quiet exterior but we need to find it inside ourselves. If there is noise around, be it there and still your mind. Don’t go with that noise. Try to practice with it. Let the noise be there , keep breathing and focus on your breathing. This way you can train your mind how to not be affected with outside noise.

3. I feel so bored

This one is funny. For a restless mind sitting quiet and still is boring as they are always used to doing stuff. They think keeping themselves busy all the time is productive. I feel we often keep ourselves busy to escape from our thoughts. We are scared if our mind slows down , we have to face the reality.We feel bored as we are not use to it. Remember let yourself feel that boringness as from it you will find gold.

Slowing down by doing nothing is ok sometimes for our mind and soul to rejuvenate.

4. I can’t sit still

Well, we have this perfect picture of meditation . Again you don’t have to sit still. You can meditate while walking , while eating, while driving.Meditation is about being still in your mind and again this is about being mindful of our thoughts and emotions.

Spending time in nature, walking your dog and painting or creating are all different forms of meditation.

5. I can’t keep my mind quiet

Well, this is challenging, trying to keep our mind quiet and thoughtless is like lifting a mountain with a finger or trying to stop the wind.

In meditation, we hear people saying we need to quiet our mind and we can’t we feel frustrated.What if I say, it is not required anymore? Yes, it is ok for thoughts to come and it is natural. Let me tell you a story, I watched this series on Netflix about BuddhaWhich shows. When Buddha was about to reach enlightenment, so many thoughts dame to his mind in different forms. He let those thoughts be there and not tried to fight with the or stop them. When we try to stop, it increases it’s power over us. So let our thoughts, emotions come and they will feel powerless with time.

Trying in small bits can help to start meditating. Also removing all expectations will make it easy to

Practice without judging.

In this episode I will be sharing some research and personal story which shows how brain changes structure with meditation.Let's start with the benefits of meditation from scientific studies

Enhanced ability to pay attention

Stress reduction

Enhanced the ability to pay attention

Reduced symptoms of depression, Anxiety, pain and Insomnia

I used to think how could sitting doing nothing can help, how can yoga poses lead us to more calm?

I would have never know until I started practicing Yoga and Meditation myself. Well, I was surprised how calm it made me feel. It increased my resiliency.

Once I experienced these benefits, my curiosity started growing. I started reading researches done by different research bodies and found out about neuroplasticity. For e.g. when we learn new thing we train our brain and it changes our brain structure. I watched one video about it on YouTube and learned how this works.

There was an experiment where people were asked to juggle for 3 months and when they came back their brain structure was changed. It increased the grey matter in their brain. similar experiments were performed on meditators. They found that it slows aging. In one such experiment 50 year old meditator had cortex same as 25 year old.

They have seen improvement in different parts of the brain of the meditator. for e.g In left hippocampus which assists in learning , memory and emotion regulation there was increase in gray matter. Less gray matter means depression.

So in a nutshell, our brain changes when we practice meditation which helps in enhancing our memory, slow down ageing and overall feel happier and calmer.

Now, the issue we face starting meditation is time and routine. Our brain is trained to not have time. We usually compromise health with an excuse of not having time.

I will leave links to the video from where I learnt about our brain and an article

These research backed my experience of meditation and mindfulness practice which is helping me to be more creative, calmer and understanding different perspective of life.


Links Mentioned in The Episode

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rRzTtP7Tc

https://www.nextavenue.org/meditation-cognitive-function/

In today’s episode , I will be talking about traffic stress , 5 signs of it and how it’s the best opportunity to practice mindfulness.Traffic Stress is becoming so common that health psychologist David Moxon, identifies a new condition named Traffic Stress Syndrome (TSS).Have you experienced this? Have you ever thought why you feel angry on road and in traffic?Traffic Stress is becoming so common that health psychologist David Moxon, identifies a new condition named Traffic Stress Syndrome (TSS).

Watchout for some signs of traffic stress taking over and how we can be mindful of those signs?

1. Gripping stearing wheel hard to try to overtake someone driving slow with anger. I am not saying that you shouldn't overtake, you can with calm mind and considering safety of yourself and others. But when you catch your brain doing this and you caught that reaction, try to take a deep breath in and exhale. Do this few times and when you feel the calm , overtake with care and wise mind.

2. Changing radio or songs frantically.

We feel stress when stuck in heavy traffic and we have to get somewhere on time - In this scenario try to give your self more time and leave early from home. When stuck in traffic, we can't do anything so feeling anger is not going to help.This can only lead to stress and affect our brains. When you find yourself panicking or changing radio or songs quickly and you caught your behaviour that is the sign of being mindful and now when you become mindful, sit relaxed in your car and focus on vehicles around you. Just observe all your bodily sensations and start breathing mindfully sending your breath to the areas of tensions in your body.

3. Looking at the phone when traffic is dragging. This is another sign of boredom which can soon turn into anger and bad mood.When you find yourself looking for phone - Just try to resist that urge and do something else. Look at all the cars in front of you, observe the sensations in your body. May be you can listen to a good Podcast or Song you like. This can reduce the anxiety. Keep your focus on breathing in and out.

4. Someone else's actions create your reactions - You may feel anger and frustrations if someone behind you is honking or trying to come closer. This is the sign of bullying on road.

But instead of being affected by their behaviour and ruining your mood is not wise. Let them be. It's their mental condition which shouldn't trigger our behaviour. Keep breathing deeply and exhaling reminding your mind that it's ok, I am driving following all the rules and not doing anything to harm anyone. WHen you are mindful of that it can calm your nerves down. If you are someone who is behind the slow driver, then remember it’s not about you, that person could have their own reasons. So take deep breathe and don’t let your rage take over your beautiful mind.

5. Someone shouting at you or showing rude gestures. Again best opportunity to practice mindfulness. If I hadn't found out about mindfulness. I would be the one responding anger with anger. But since I started driving which is in my 30s I leanred to drive so my priority is safety of others and me, even the safety of animals, birds on the roads count. This simple thing is fixed in my mind and this helps me control my behaviour on roads. But slowly I am understanding the inner working of my mind. When I fond myself about to react, I catches my mind and this is the beautiful gift by mindfulness.

Intro and Outro Music by Ilya Truhanovfrom Fugue from https://icons8.com/music/author/ilya-truhanov-1