You’re Not Your Best When You’re Stressed.
“When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking.
Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it.
Do not be bothered by anything.”
Shunryu Suzuki
Burnout often begins as self-neglect disguised as discipline. When we've got a lot on our nervous system fires into fight or flight and we get things done.
But when we never slow down, the nervous system stays switched on. Everything feels urgent, stress becomes the default, and if we don't respond we burnout.
Rest isn’t weakness — it’s necessary.
These two meditations are designed to help you slow down, reconnect with your body and mind, and reset so you can show up more fully for your people, your projects, and yourself.
Guided Meditation on the Mind
Guided Body - Scan Meditation
Compassionate Self Leadership, Part 3.
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Knowing your priorities and have considered how you want to honour them is a potentially powerful step.
For the potential to be realised though, you must act.
CONSIDER THIS:
What’s one thing you can do this week for each of the areas in your life that are important to you?
When will you do the thing?
Engage wholeheartedly Legend - This Is Your Life
Compassionate Self Leadership Part 2
Put your compassionate self leadership hat on
Having stated your hopes and dreams and you fears and concerns for each role in your life.
How would a compassionate leader approach the multidimensional life you live?
If you were coaching yourself from a place of courageous compassionate leadership how would you plan and prepare the week ahead?
Compassionate Self Leadership Part 1
"Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing.
It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us (& ourselves)."
Rachel Naomi Remen
TRY THIS: Name 3 - 5 roles you play in life that are meaningful to you.
These could be roles you have a chosen and want to be great in (like the athlete part of you or the student) or roles that you have to play as part of life (for some of us work).
For each of these roles take some time to get in touch with
What are you hopes and dreams for that area of life? What is your ideal for that particular role you play? If it were really great what would it look like?
What are your fears and concerns for these roles?
Your Environment Shapes You Will
"yes, perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment."
James Clear.
If you can do something at the same time in the same place consistently enough when you get to that time and place you will be primed to do the thing.
This way you've built a habit but also external cues to remind you and encourage you to maintain that habit.
The key is front ending the discipline, the focus, the commitment and the consistency to do thing you set out to in the time and space you’ve chosen.
TRY THIS: Pick a habit you want to build - journaling, meditation, stretching, etc.
Where will you practice that habit?
When will you practice that habit?
How can you prepare yourself and your environment to make this happen
with as little friction as possible?
PATIENCE IS YOUR SUPER POWER
"no quality is more needed by the spiritual aspirant than patience and single-minded perseverance"
Swami Vivekananda
Meditation is a personal journey.
The practice itself is not a hard one.
Follow the instructions as best you can, learn and grow.
Patiently and persistently, come back to the practice, moment to moment day to day and you will be changed.
The challenges that most people face is building a habit and falling for thoughts.
Beyond both of these challenges is growth.
Building a habit is practice of discipline, autonomy and honouring you word.
Seeing through the illusion of thoughts and beliefs is a path to self discovery, personal freedom power and ultimate freedom.
TRY THIS
*Choose a time and place to train your mental fitness everyday for 3 - 15 minutes this week (choose a time you are sure you can commit to and a place you are unlikely to be disturbed that you can access easily)
*Choose something to focus on for that time - could be external like a candle or sound or internal like the breath or a word.
*Focus on that as best you can and if you notice your distracted refocus (don’t give up).
*When the timer goes on write for 1 minute about what you noticed.
Step Out of Elsewhere.
“True meditation is the fixing of the whole memory process at the present moment.”
Swami Vivekananda.
Remember to be here.
Do you know what it feels like to be elsewhere?
Worried about the future, ruminating about the past, freaking about what’s happening out there in the world.
This can be a very disempowering state.
It can lead to feelings of frustration, fear and hopelessness which can rob us of the motivation and drive to engage with what we can control so we live a lives we love.
A simple antidote to the trap of “elsewhere” is presence.
The practice of coming home to your body, your breath and the world around you.
A practice of stepping out of your mind and into a more whole way of being, a practice of re-establishing your personal power from a place of centred calmness.
TRY THIS
*Take a moment to notice where you are…… what can you notice around you? what can you hear, see, smell, taste, touch?
What are you thinking? What thoughts are running through your head right now? Just watch them and see what it’s like.
What are you feeling? Where do those feelings reside?
How’s you body feeling - from the tips of your toes to the top of your head - what do you notice?
Notice your breath…… where can you feel it. Is it deep or shallow.
How does it feel like to have take the time to do this exercise?
You Become What You Practice
“I will form good habits and become there slave.”
OG Mandino
A habit is something you do so consistently, even when you don’t feel like it, that it becomes part of you.
Habits of thought shape your mind
Habits of behaviour shape your body
Habits of work shape your career
Habits of communication shape your relationships
Habits of inspiration shape your soul
CONSIDER THIS:
What’s one area of life that’s important to you?
What’s one thing you’re doing consistently that’s holding you back or keeping you stuck in that particular domain of life (bad habit)?
What’s one thing you could do consistently that would improve that area in your life (good habit)?
When will you switch the bad habit for the good?
Be More Than You Are
"When not preoccupied with our selves, we actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are.
Loss of self-consciousness can lead to self-transcendence, to a feeling that the boundaries of our being have been pushed forward."
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow
Your capacity to focus
To fully engage in the task at hand
Is a pathway to being more than who you are. A way of moving beyond self limited beliefs and the limits of a self conscious perspective and into a fuller circle of potential. This is why meditation is often called a path of transcendence.
When the task at hand is simply being and noticing your experience
You get exposed to who you think you are and to the reality that you are much more. This realization can be profoundly freeing and impact how you relate to yourself and the world. It can allow you the space to be less reactive and stuck in old patterns and more of who you want.
The jump between practice and positive change isn't immediate or guaranteed but if you're able to take lessons, insights and wisdom from your practice it will be a life long teacher.
This is why I'm launching the Art of Being Yourself.
A course using mind/body techniques to reduce stress and reactivity and increase personal power & inner peace.
In 8 weeks you will be less stressed, more inspired and have the tools to be at your best more often.
If you’re ready to be more than who you are email billy@thetigerandthemonk.com
Change Your Mind Change Your World
"When the mind changes just a little, The world quickly becomes different, too. Is this not true?"
Hung Ying-ming
When your mind changes, your world changes.
3 ways to change your mind
Get into your body -a workout, a yoga class, a walk in nature, dancing, swimming, running - getting into your body is a great way to change your state, change your perspective and change your mind
Meditate - spend 3 - 15 minutes focusing on your breath - this can have an immediate impact and if practice consistently lead to lasting change.
Listen - listen to understand, listen with your whole being, listen with curiosity, listen not just to your own thoughts about what’s being shared but listen to other points of view and ideas.
FLOW INTO GREATNESS
"Flow helps to integrate the self because in that state of deep concentration consciousness is unusually well ordered. Thoughts, intentions, feelings, and all the senses are focused on the same goal. Experience is in harmony. And when the flow episode is over, one feels more “together” than before, not only internally but also with respect to other people and to the world in general."
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow:
Greatness is achieved by surrendering to something bigger than you.
By letting doubt, distraction and excuses fall into the back ground and bringing the task at hand into the foreground.
CONSIDER THIS
What will you focus on today?
If you’re interested in harnessing the power of your mind you might try this simple meditation.
WHAT MATTERS TO YOU???
"One of the reasons champions succeed is because they tune out what doesn’t matter and lock in on what does."
Michael Gervais
You either choose your priorities (what you will aim your time an energy at)
Or life will choose them for you
Your best self is likely to be more meaningful if it rocks up in areas of your life that are important to you
CONSIDER THIS
What are your priorities?
What are the areas of your life where it's important that you're at your best?
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR BEST SELF
"Awakening to the truth is a deep realisation of what you are as an experience."
Feel it. Sense it. Welcome it."
Adyashanti
The best version of you exists
You might be familiar with that version or it may exist only in your imagination.
It may exist in reality or only in potential
But it exists
This is an invitation to get to know it more deeply
PONDER THIS
What do you notice when you're at your best?
What is your experience when you're performing at your best?
What do you notice when having a peak experience?
THE POWER OF PURPOSE
"When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable."
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow
We are more powerful when we have a goal, a sense of purpose.
A worthy challenge that harnesses our focus, energy, attention and drive.
This can be a long term project or an act of everyday excellence.
CONSIDER THIS
What will you focus on this week?
Is it part of longer term goal or simply an expression of everyday excellence?
How will you prepare yourself and your environment for the task?
What will you do to recover so you can refocus on whatever's next?
ARE THOUGHTS EMPOWERING OR BS?
"Whether you think you can or think you can't - you're right".
Henry Ford
This is a very powerful thought & it's also B.S.
If it empowers you it's powerful if not then it's B.S. Thoughts, positive or negative, only have power if you let them.
How you respond to thoughts and your opportunities is what defines your wellbeing, health and levels of success.
It might be empowering to do so from a place of confidence and belief
But it might be just as empowering to overcome doubt & excuses.
The truth is you get to choose only when you go beyond thinking and into reality.
Otherwise you thoughts can keep you in fantasy land
TRY THIS
MEDITATE ON THE HEART
- Set a timer for 6 - 21 minutes and tune into the physical sensations of breathing in the rib cage. Allow your thoughts to rise up and float away. Stay connected to your breath and the beating of your heart. If you get drawn into a thought or distracted redirect your attention to the sensations of breathing and the heart beating.
DO SOMETHING PHYSICALLY CHALLENGING
- choose a safe but challenging workout that is going to take you to the edge of your comfort zone. Hear all the voices in your head as the workout unfolds but focus on the task at hand.
DO WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO.
- set intentions at the start of each day and bring them into existence. At the end of the day reflect did you do what you set out to? If not what thoughts stopped you (what thoughts took you of path)? If so what thoughts didn't stop you (what were you thinking just before doing the thing?)
If you do this consistently you will begin to realise you're more than your thoughts
AMPLIFY GRATITUDE
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
John F Kennedy
If you count your blessings consistently
You'll realise you're blessed.
Once you realised your blessed you feel fulfilled and whole And start to live from a place of appreciation and purpose.
Your drive comes not to fill a void or finally be worthy
but to share your gifts, honour your greatness and celebrate life.
TRY THIS
30 Days of Gratitude
*Everyday for the next 30 write down 1 - 3 things you're grateful for
*spend at least 90 seconds exploring what feeling come up with each of the things on the list.
*consider one small thing you can do to honour that which you have to be grateful for.
5 Questions on Harmony
"Thoughts, intentions, feelings, and all the senses are focused on the same goal.
Experience is in harmony."
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow
How many harmonious moments do you experience each day?
How often is your body, mind and soul aligned with the task at hand?
How often do you practice deep, engaged focused work or play or learning or teaching or living?
What might life be like if you were to have more of these moments?
What will you devote yourself to today?
ENERGY FLOWS WHERE ATTENTION GOES
“If you learn how to withdraw your attention from all objects of distraction and to place it upon one object of concentration, you too will know how to attract at will whatever you need.”
Paramahansa Yogananda,.
The Law of Success:
Using the Power of Spirit to Create Health, Prosperity, and Happiness
What you focus on (with your thoughts, words & actions)
Shapes your experience.
When you focus on your intentions You are more likely to notice opportunities that you would otherwise miss.
When you focus on your priorities You're more likely to be fulfilled
When you focus on the path Your goals will come to you When you focus on you blessings You will realise you're blessed.
TRY THIS
*Count your Blessings - think of 3 things you’re grateful for.
*Choose that to focus on - set your daily intentions
*Notice when you're distracted - REFCOCUS or REST
FOCUS LEADS FLOW
"Anything great you ever want to do requires focus.
That applies to the gym, your vision, and your relationships." Arnold Schwarzenegger
What will you aim at this week?
