Mindfulness in Personal Growth

Today on Pure Possibilities, we navigate the non-linear journey of personal growth, exploring how grace, rest, and self-compassion play crucial roles. We'll also discuss changing habits and the power of mindful curiosity in transforming our beliefs.  Don't forget to reach out and share your experiences or questions—we're in this together! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Personal Growth and Self-Care Journey
• 10:12 Changing Habits, Personal Growth, Empowerment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Welcome back to the Pure Possibilities podcast. I'm not sure how long this episode is going to be. Today I've got a few things to talk about and, of course, we're going to pull a card from the Magic of what If? Card deck. So you know, I believe that if you're listening to this show, you are either a little curious and tired of where you're at in your life and how you're feeling, or maybe you are already at the point where you're at in your life and how you're feeling. Or maybe you are already at the point where you've gotten radically honest with yourself and have decided that you need to change something. Or maybe you have already started on your journey and just need a few reminders. So today I want to talk a little bit about the personal growth journey, whatever you want to call it. Some people call it personal development, some people call it. I had an ex. He used to call it self-help bullshit. So you know, whatever you choose to call your journey, this journey of life that we're going through, first I want to tell you that, since you are here listening, I think that's one of the first steps, because you have a curiosity and an awareness about yourself that you want something to be different in your life and, as much as we like to deny it, we really do have the opportunity to create the life in our lived experience. It all comes down to the decisions and the choices that we make on a daily basis and as you continue to progress through changing your life or changing your current lived experience, it's really important to do that in a nonjudgmental way, and there are going to be so many ups and downs. I mean I wish I could sit here and tell you that you set a goal, you decide you're going to change something and you get to that goal and finish it and everything is perfect and wonderful in your life, and it's just not true. It's not true. I mean, we can create a better lived experience than what we're currently living. However, there's going to be ups and downs and there's going to be times where you're moving forward and you're doing things and making changes and making shifts, and then the old part of you is going to try and pull you back, and then you're going to take a few steps forward and then it's going to pull you back and it's just like this movement back and forth that we go through, but every time you are starting again or resetting or whatever you're choosing to do and to not judge yourself where you're at or to not judge yourself for the things that you have been doing. I'm going to give you an example.

Speaker 1: 3:29

I share a lot of stories about my life in hopes that you can relate to it a little bit. But I consistently did yoga for gosh, I think, over a year. I did it every month. I did I do yoga with Adrian on YouTube and I started doing it. I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. And it was less about the physical part of it and more about the mind, body and soul connection and I fell in love with doing it. And I did it for well over a year almost every day.

Speaker 1: 4:00

And then I stopped and then I tried to get back and I did it for a couple months and then things were happening and I was prioritizing things outside of myself and I would try to get back and I would stop and I would try and get back and I would stop, and that happened multiple times and then I just kind of stopped. I stopped trying and I I had been feeling the impact of that in my mind and body connection, so I decided that I was going to restart, a friend of mine was like, hey, they have a certain thing that they're looking to accomplish. And then, knowing that I want to get back into doing yoga, so we're both doing movement and we're being accountable to each other for the month of September, and so I went to go do it on the first and I was going to go back to the one, the one practice that I had kept trying to do, and then I was like, huh, you know what I would get halfway through it and I would stop. I got like 15, maybe 17 days was the max that I did out of 30. And I was like, clearly this one is not a fit for me. So I went back to one that I actually know that I love doing and I did it and it was called ease. That was the first. Well, it's yoga with Adrian revolution, but the first practice was called ease and I felt so good after doing it and I'm really excited to be back at it.

Speaker 1: 5:28

But for me it was really important to not judge the fact that I hadn't been doing it, because we just pick it up, we just pick up and start again, and we do it as many times as we need to times as we need to, you just keep going and allow your intuition, your higher self, to guide you and follow the things that do feel good for you. Each of the challenges that we face are a lesson and we're starting from a different space, not from where we first began. So just remember that and allow yourself some grace as you continue down this path, depending on where you're at Like I've been doing some deep dives into some pretty heavy stuff. Working through those things, you have thoughts, feelings and emotions that are coming up, and allow them to come up and feel them and express them. And when you are intentionally making this decision to whether you're looking to change a habit or usually it does come down to habits. A lot of it is habits or working through things from past relationships or childhood or whatever you're working through.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Self-care is really, really important, and rest. There are gonna be times when your body is cuing you into rest and it's like am I resting or am I being lazy? And that's a question that I ask myself am I being lazy or am I just allowing my body to rest? And most of the time it's that I'm allowing my body to rest. So allow yourself time for rest. We're always so, so busy and going and going and going and sometimes we do need to just rest and it's okay, and be really present in the moment of what's going on. I had something else that came up for me and then I just totally lost it, so I guess it wasn't meant to be said today. Okay, maybe it'll come back to me. Let's pull a card and see if it comes back to me. Oops, I lost a couple of them.

Speaker 1: 8:00

I think allowing ourselves the opportunity to really connect to ourselves and connecting to yourself you know you can do that in so many different ways. Some people do it through exercise, some people do it through meditation, some people do it through meditation, others do it through. Like I've been pulling Oracle cards every day and that's been kind of a fun they're actually the psychic tarot cards and that's been kind of fun to just kind of sit and connect with myself and connect through the cards. But right now I'm going to pull a card from the magic of what if? Card deck.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So today is what if? What if the freedom I seek is actually the freedom to simply be myself? What if the freedom I seek is actually the freedom to simply be myself. That is so important and we try so hard to please people around us and do the things that we think that they want us to do, and behave in a way that we think is going to make them happy, when, in fact, if we simply be ourself, we can allow others to actually get to know us, and then we don't have to be on guard all the time and watching what we say and watching what we do and what if you can just be you? Talk about freedom, just be yourself. There's definitely some freedom in that. I remember. I remember what I was going to talk about. It was another story.

Speaker 1: 9:29

So a couple of weeks ago, I posted a reel about how often do you wash your hair. Because I have always had a belief because whether it was a belief or just something that I did, I don't know I would get up in the morning and y'all know I shake my ass, I get in the shower, wash my hair. I wash my hair every day, or at least I used to. So my hairstylist has always told me Shannon, you shouldn't wash your hair every day, and I have purple highlights in my hair and so it obviously washes out if I wash it more regularly. So she's always told me, even before I had the purple, that I shouldn't wash my hair every day, and I never listened to her. It continued to wash my hair every single day.

Speaker 1: 10:13

So, anyway, I posted a reel and I said how often do you wash your hair? And I could not believe the responses that I got, and I was shocked to find out that most people only wash their hair like once or twice a week. If that it blew my mind. I was like really, and so I have had to be very intentional about changing this habit of mine and it saves me a ton of time. It's incredible, like no wonder people only wash their hair a couple of days a week, but I'm having to train my hair to not be washed every day. So I started that I don't know, probably like a month ago, and I found that I ha, I do have to be intentional because it's a habit for my whole life I'm almost 50 that I've been washing my hair every single day, you know. And so when we are changing a habit, we got to give ourselves some grace and be intentional every day, and it's, I do believe, that it gets easier. It's not like it's this journey that is exhausting because it's not but there are times where it's going to maybe feel a little bit heavier and then you're going to move into areas that are a little bit lighter and as you continue to evolve and change and expand, things are going to become more natural to you and your awareness is going to be elevated. And when you're aware of what's going on around you or within you, that is what helps to continue to move you forward.

Speaker 1: 12:03

If you're just living life, allowing it to just happen around you and happen to you, and you stay in that victim mode rather than taking that personal radical responsibility for your life, and that you get to make choices and decisions to change things if you choose to. When you take that personal, I mean things happen in our lives and we're not always responsible for what happened, but we are responsible for how we respond and how we allow it to impact us, and that we can work through and create the change and learn to let go and learn to move forward and not allow ourselves to sit and dwell and stay there, and we can move forward and create the life that we want to live. That is what I have for you today. My friends, get curious, allow yourself some grace, remember that there are going to be ups and downs, and be kind to yourself when that's happening.

Speaker 1: 13:05

Rest when you need to Express and feel and work through whatever is going on and remember that a thought is just a belief that you keep having over and over and over again, and you can shift those beliefs. It blows my mind how many beliefs that have come up for me that they weren't even necessarily mine, that I had taken on, whether it was from my family or people around me. But I'm shifting beliefs like crazy and it's so cool because I can do that, and so can you. If you have anything you'd like to share, any experiences or questions or anything you'd like to share any experiences or questions or anything, feel free to text the show. No-transcript.