Knowing oneself does not figure on the topmost list for many. It’s common to find articles targeted to find your dream date or attract a relationship that actually lasts. Yet, many forget the most important thing we need in our life - “How to be happy with yourself.”
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Building the best relationship with self is the first step you can take to open up more opportunities for you. Mindfulness acts as a medium to set that foundation to create a better relationship with self. We need to peel off our internal layers to know what’s truly beneath.
New to mindfulness? Read more about mindfulness here .
Mindfulness helps us reflect on our ways, be rooted in the present moment, and disallow external factors to influence our thinking. If you’ve often felt distressed with relationships that go nowhere, or a career path that is unfulfilling, and cannot understand your decisions - then, it is time to fix your inner turmoil. Dr. Paras, Life Leadership Coach and Mindfulness Practitioner shares how mindfulness is useful to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself using these 5 ways.
Mindfulness and the Art of Loving Oneself
1) Develop Awareness, Focus and Look Inward
When you begin a basic mindfulness meditation practice, you learn to pay attention to your own self. You concentrate on the present moment while allowing greater clarity to seep through that gives a direction to build a new path. Regular mindfulness meditation practice helps you realize that the happiness and contentment you seek is all within. You release negative patterns and install new thought processes. The awareness levels are increased and regular practice makes you live in the present moment. You learn to focus where the awareness lies, and your experiences are centered within. Your energy flows where the focus goes. You learn to ask yourself, “What do I need? What is bothering me?” as your awareness levels increase.
Here, you begin to understand what you truly seek, where your passion lies, and what areas you need to focus on. This is the first step to knowing oneself.
Improve Self-Talk, Tone Down your Inner Critic
“What is wrong with me? Can’t I ever do something right?” Sounds familiar? Our mind is full of countless thoughts.
What kind of conversation do you have with yourself every time something goes wrong in life? Building a better relationship with self also includes having conversations that are healthy. It’s about tuning out the negative chatter to create conversations that empower you to think better and love yourself in a new light. It’s easy to blame ourselves for things gone wrong. Regular mindfulness meditation keeps a check on these thoughts. You release yourself from the negative trap by avoiding the need to rehash things you cannot control. You curb that self-talk which pulls you down.
Self-love is not selfish, it should be your priority.
When you face emotional distress, you can change your self-talk and say, “I’m a brilliant person. Yes, today I could have done better. I will keep exploring each day with a new zest for learning.”
3) Make Self-Love your Priority
Before you think this is selfish, please wait for a moment. You cannot pour from an empty cup.
Have you ever stopped to pause and wonder what honestly makes you happy? How many times do you do these activities in a week? Months? Years? Mindfulness meditation is about looking inwards and also being connected to your body’s mind, body, and spirit and taking care of your physical and mental strength. It’s easy to forget looking after yourself when your mind is conditioned to be too busy to please others. What we mean here is to take some time out to know what activities bring you joy, which career is closest to your passion, and what kind of people you need to surround yourself with. Apart from nutrition and sleep, you also need to set time aside for mindfulness meditation - the first step towards self-care.
Once you care for your needs, everything falls into place.
4) The Art of Letting Go
It’s easier said than done. (This is what most people feel.) It’s not easy to let go of a relationship that is toxic but still dear to you. It’s not easy to let go of a well-paying job that does not fulfill you. So often, we fear to let go because we have less faith in our abilities and more faith in our fears. A regular mindfulness meditation practice develops the art of letting go. You become skilled at knowing what to cherish and what does not work for you. Meditation techniques limit your reactions and your insistence of clinging to things that do not matter. You learn to face your fears, look them in the eye, and let go. You let go of judgment, habits that no longer serve your purpose, and stress that does you no good.
Once you let go of the baggage, you automatically love yourself more.
5) Make Powerful Choices
We’ve all done that. Made bad choices that impacted our lives. Our faith in ourselves need not waver based on these choices. Mindfulness meditation makes you focus on the type of choices you’ve made and learn a lesson from them. You meditate to focus on the situation by stepping outside the frame. With time, you unlearn what you know only to install new thoughts that give clarity to your future choices. After all, you are reading this blog out of choice. And, that’s a choice to empower your life! Mindfulness makes you choose what is important to you, what brings value and gives you the wisdom to eliminate what you do not need. You focus on a direction that is useful for you.
A good choice leads to an improved outcome.
You are one step away to be in a lifelong relationship with yourself. Download the Mindfulness Practitioner® App to begin your sessions. Interested in being a practitioner? That’s great! Write to [email protected].
