We each possess deep wells of wisdom, understanding, and greatness. Every struggle is not meant to hold us back but instead push us further. No matter who you are or what position you occupy in this world, you’re here on a hero’s journey – one in which you grow through your life experiences.
But sustainable personal growth cannot be achieved by motivation alone. We all have subconscious programming that gets the better of us. We need to have a strategy to create sustainable growth. This includes mindfulness, self-awareness and viewing problems as opportunities for development work towards long-term change.
The Role of Mindfulness
Sustainable personal growth starts with mindfulness. Being mindful means to be fully in the present moment while noticing without judgment everything that takes place within ourselves and in the external reality. MIndfulness connects us deeply with the possibilities in each moment and with our deeper wisdom.
It also enables us to recognize our habitual patterns and responses so that instead of reacting automatically we can choose how to respond consciously.
A relatively new understanding in brain studies is called “Default Mode Network” (DMN) which is the activity that happens in our brains when we aren’t mindfully focused on something. That’s when our DMN kicks in and automatically begins running familiar, habitual thoughtforms.
And guess what – for most of us, the thoughts that tend to habitually come up lean towards the negative: criticisms, ruminating and worrying about past or future. In other words, dwelling on all sorts of “what if’s,” remembering unpleasant stuff and often projecting it into the future. This is why mindfulness is essential.
Mindfulness Techniques
Meditation: One of the benefits of meditation is that it starts to quiet our habitual monkey mind or DMN and create new pathways in the brain. Over time, our awareness increases so we recognize those negative habitual thought patterns and can interrupt them more quickly.
We let go of old repetitive pessimistic conversations and start creating new, more positive possibilities. Meditation helps us see through our own illusions – those scary or negative scenarios – and literally create a new order within ourselves.
Meditation has long been a meaningful component in treating depression and countless research studies have shown how it helps in lessening depression, anxiety, addictions and chronic pain. It even changes our brain’s structure, expanding the area responsible for learning, memory and emotional regulation while lowering brain cell volume in the amygdala, the center of our fear, anxiety and stress.
If you aren’t already practicing some form of mindfulness/meditation, then it’s time to start. Nothing is as effective in naturally settling your system down. When we look out and only perceive Danger! it’s hard to feel safe anywhere and thrive. Meditation offers a quieting path no matter what is happening around us.
Begin meditating for a few minutes daily then gradually increase time spent meditating once comfortable doing so.
Breath Awareness: You don’t need to sit in a chair with your eyes closed to be mindful. Meditation is essential as a tool of transformation, consciousness expansion and self-healing – but the ultimate goal is for us to be as mindful as we can throughout our daily lives.
Focusing on your breathing throughout your day helps you stay anchored within your current environment/situation/setting/moment. You can do this exercise anywhere – as you work; as you go for a walk; wait for your train; even as you have a conversation with a friend.
With each breath that you take consciously, you are expanding your awareness and growing.
Body Scan: Regularly scanning your body for tension allows you to connect more deeply physically while also helping reduce stress levels overall. You can pause every now and then throughout the day to check yourself and you can also do beautiful practices such as Yoga Nidra before bed to help relax your body.
Building Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is absolutely key to growing. Without self-awareness we can go through life’s challenges experiencing all the pain and none of the wisdom. We also can find that our challenges keep repeating until we get it. Until we change our methods, we cannot get better results, can we?
Your meditation practice and all the mindfulness practices above will help you greatly increase your self-awareness. Here are a few more that are helpful.
Journaling: Putting your experiences, thoughts and feelings into words helps you become much clearer about yourself and your life, and helps you see beyond your initial strong emotions in your circumstances. In one of her books, Brene Brown suggested that when we feel emotionally very charged around a situation, we write down our toddler’s version of it. In essence, we throw it all in there exactly as we feel it, without any editing, judging, criticism. That is your first draft of your take on you experience. Then you can move toward diving deeper.
Learning About Yourself: As human beings, we have a unique design — anatomically, neurologically, hormonally and chemically. While it’s perfectly possible to go through life without knowing a thing about our physiological equipment (our “hardware”), some insight into understanding normally inaccessible parts of ourselves can be very helpful. Understanding the role of your nervous system for example goes a long way.
Therapeutic Relationships: Working with a therapist, coach or healer can be tremendously helpful. Building a support network goes a long way. And if you cannot afford hiring someone to work with you individually, you can now get a lot of free quality content that helps you guide yourself.
Reflective Practice: Embed a reflective practice in your day – it can be a few minutes at the end of the day. And make it a habit to have a self-reflective practice and process around any major life event.
Seeing Challenges As Opportunities For Development
I see this as key to ongoing growth and navigating life with peacefulness. Every problem faced presents itself as an opportunity for learning something new or growing into higher level human beings than before.
Choose to Embrace A Higher Perspective: Instead of being discouraged by challenges ,view them through lenses tinted with appreciation toward valuable lessons learned after going through tough times together forever changing personhood forevermore until death do part us!
Focus on Solutions: When confronted with adversity brainstorm multiple solutions while considering possible outcomes associated with each alternative approach taken towards resolution attainment thereof.
Our challenges continue no matter our age or status; life is forever calling us forward to grow and the means for our growth often seems to come from situations or relationships that we feel least able to manage. And yet – within every painful moment, within every resistant thought, lie the seeds of recognition, reconciliation and transformation.