Ways mindfulness has improved my life this month

And reasons I’ll be meditating this week 

When I was new to mindful living, I heard a mindfulness teacher describe all the ways his life was different now he meditated regularly.

So I’ve always endeavoured to do the same with my writing – inspire you to live mindfully through hearing how it genuinely impacts my life.

But because I like to be transparent, I’ve added in something else here too; the reasons I want to be MORE mindful this week.

It’s a strategy I use with my coaching clients, where we look at the week ahead and say “how would being more mindful make this week better / easier / more enjoyable?”.

And then it provides a great motivator to keep improving.

1. Having the confidence to go for a promotion in my role as a university lecturer AND not panicking when I didn’t hear anything back for 10 days after the submission date.

Mindful Me applied for the position then literally forgot about it until a family member asked.

Turns out things were busy with management (nothing new there!) and so they were late sending out emails to those who applied.

Old Me would have worried about nothing and got myself all worked up, which would have harmed my chances if I did go to interview 🤦‍♀️

(BTW, I still don’t know if I have the job or not, but I’m feeling calm and proud about it. If I don’t get it, it’s not meant to be 🤷‍♀️).

2. Not beating myself for being an awful mum when I scheduled Matilda’s vaccines in the same week as her nursery settling in sessions.

She’s been crying a lot at nursery and I’ve inadvertently made that harder for her because she has to deal with the (mild) side effects from the vaccines.

But I didn’t do it deliberately – I actually scheduled the vaccines on a day off from nursery because I thought 24 hours would be sufficient for her to feel better 🤦‍♀️

Mindful Me doesn’t feel fantastic, it’s horrible having to hand over your little one to someone else when they’re crying, but I’m not beating myself up about it either and I feel at peace about it.

I know there’s nothing I can do differently right now and so I’m not using my energy worrying or feeling bad about it.

3. Cancelling a yoga class I’d already paid for because I recognised that what I actually needed, was a quiet night in doing nothing.

I’d have gone and I’d have felt even more tired after, then spent several hours in front of the TV to try and relax, making me feel even more tired.

1. To continue the calm feeling about Matilda at nursery.

I know that if I don’t stay mindful, Old Me will raise her ugly head and make me feel bad.

Prevention is better (and so much easier) than cure.

I want to be able to stay calm and positive when I take her nursery, which won’t happen if I let guilt get the better of me.

2. To enjoy the me-time that’s coming up!

I’ve got some time on my own when the girls are at nursery and I really want to make the most of it!

Old Me would plan time like this to the minute to do as much fun stuff as possible, but I know that when I do that, I feel stressed and get upset if things don’t go perfectly to plan.

So the first thing I’ll be doing on those days is meditating, to get me in the right head space 🙏

3. To maintain the calm feeling I have right now.

I went on a 2 day retreat in January and it was SO rejuvenating – I hadn’t realised how busy my mind had got.

With a calmer mind, I’ve been finding more time to do the things I enjoy (like writing here, journalling, drawing, reading) while also getting pockets of joy from the day-to-day things in life (anyone else enjoy cleaning the bathroom while listening to a podcast?).

I feel really happy right now and so maintaining that feeling as I enter a new challenges (I’m back to lecturing part time as well as the mindfulness coaching in 2 weeks!), is a big motivator to keep prioritising my mindfulness 🥰

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