One Simple Tool for Positivity and Mindfulness
This requires next to no time on any given day.
People are busy.
I don’t know anybody who isn’t almost constantly on the go. Between work, errands, socializing, and a general societal need for near-perpetual motion – people seldom pause for more than a moment or two.
Even when forced to take a break – like during the Pandemic – people mostly didn’t emerge with greater respect for themselves and their time.
This is part of the mental health crisis I feel has not been addressed. The world drastically shifted because of a global pandemic – and the levels of uncertainty experienced were beyond compare. And that doesn’t take into account those impacted by long COVID or those who lost friends, loved ones, and others to COVID.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, was impacted. But that’s been largely shunted away, buried under a false narrative about “returning to normal”. A normal that, frankly, wasn’t very healthy.
Look at office culture and how the pandemic exposed it for utter bullshit. How many jobs work perfectly well – if not better – when done remotely? Must the 8-hour workday remain the standard when people get more done in half the time under less pressure and unnecessary supervision?
And yet – the grind demanded you and I return to it. Now people are even more stressed out and negative than they ever were before – and nobody’s talking about it.
There are lots and lots of tools available to address this. But I’d like to offer one that is simple, repeatable, and requires next to no time.
One simple tool for positivity and mindfulness.
Breathing.
The amazing power of intentional breathing
Everyone is of 3 minds – unconscious, subconscious, and conscious. To summarize:
The unconscious mind is body functions like breathing, your heart beating, digestion, and so on.
Your subconscious mind is your operating system, and the home of your beliefs, values, habits, memories, and the like.
The conscious mind is your present, mindset/headspace/psyche self. It can be passive and active, but is of the present, here and now.
Breathing largely falls under the unconscious mind. You live, you breathe. This is a necessary function of the human body to power all your organs and keep you going.
But breathing can be done consciously. As opposed to the automatic, regularly unconscious breathing that you do, conscious breathing is intentional breathing.
This is an amazingly powerful tool that can build positivity, increase mindfulness, self-awareness, balance, and hone all your senses for greater clarity.
The act of intentional breathing can change a negative situation to a neutral situation, and even shift to positivity.
Intentional breathing can impact your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing. It can settle butterflies and an upset stomach, slow down a racing heart, make thoughts and feelings clearer, and allow you to center yourself.
Intentional breathing can do wonders. It’s amazing. And you only need 2 minutes to use it effectively.
Two minutes with one simple tool for positivity and mindfulness
All that you need is a timer (smartwatches and smartphones are great for this) and a relatively quiet space. Really, your space just needs to be free of distractions that might interrupt you. Sitting or standing for this is best (lounging might be fine, but I don’t recommend lying down).
Set your timer for two (2) minutes.
Start your timer.
Breathe in, nice and deep. Try to breathe from your diaphragm. Then, exhale your breath all the way.
Repeat the breath in. Repeat breathing back out.
Do this for the full 2 minutes.
That’s it. One simple tool – and it requires little to no preparation. You don’t need purpose-specific special pads, chairs, or cushions. This can be done anywhere at any time.
It may not seem like much, and it might appear far too simple. But trust me – it works.
I don’t know anyone that can’t carve out 2 minutes, just 120 seconds of their time, on a given day.
Why and how does this empower you?
Empower yourself through intentional breathing
How much do you/can you control on any given day?
Your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions are always yours to control. Apart from certain conventions (dress codes for school and work, for example) that you might or might not follow, how you dress, wear your hair, make yourself up or not is yours to control. When/what you eat and drink, who you spend time with, and so on are also at least somewhat in your control.
Every single one of these can be impacted by outside influences. Shit happens that causes a visceral reaction of anger, someone might make fun of what you’re wearing or change a dress code, food allergies change, and sometimes people you want to spend time with become people you want to avoid.
With so many things that can be out of your control via the unexpected, it’s easy to feel disempowered.
Intentional breathing, however, is controlled wholly by you. You, and you alone, can make the time, find the space, and take the action for the whopping 2 minutes to practice deep intentional breathing.
That 2 minutes – 120 seconds – of just breathing can create calm, a sense of peace, a renewal of purpose, and any number of empowerments. Why? Because you have full, complete, and total control of your deep breathing practice.
And let’s face it – control is hugely empowering.
One simple tool. You can empower yourself through intentional breathing virtually anytime, anywhere you choose. How amazing, positive, and empowering is that?
Recognizing the one simple tool for positivity and mindfulness isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you can find and/or make 2 minutes, at least once, on any given day – you can practice intentional breathing. Knowing that intentional breathing is utterly healthy and good for your mind, body, and spirit – as well as your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health/wellness/wellbeing – you can use this to increase positivity and mindfulness.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way to open more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you’re of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-ninety-fifth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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