May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This month we’re focusing on mindfulness coping strategies that help alleviate stress and anxiety.
Today, like last week, we’re teaching you how to expand your point of view in part 2 of our Point of View series. In our previous courses and lessons, we’ve called this technique Remote Viewing and/or Corner of the Room.
If you’d prefer to skip ahead to this week’s meditation, start this video at 4:47.
Reflection
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”
– Marcel Proust
“Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”
– Eckhart Tolle, “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”
Mindfulness lesson
Embracing uncertainty: make uncertainty your friend. Embrace the power of now. Remember the Eckhart Tolle quote: “Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”
Chunk problems down to make them more doable. Don’t try to fix a big problem all at once. Break down conflicts or issues into bite size pieces. Making small, doable changes leads to big resolutions and ultimately, sizable changes.
Practice looking at your world from different perspectives. For instance, imagine seeing and feeling a problem from someone else’s shoes. Then practice looking at the problem from your own perspective. How does the problem look differently from both perspectives?
If you tend to get stuck in your feelings, practice perceiving differently. If you’re focused on other’s needs and wants before your own, focus on defining what your needs and wants are. This will help you manage situations and events that might have felt overwhelming and distressing in the past. The conflict or problem will begin to shrink in size and have less power over your thought process.
Viewing conflicts from a different perspective empowers you to change the result of the conflict and approach it from a more neutral, less reactive position. Physical perception matters. Where do you see the world from? Practice seeing the world from your knees like a three-year-old. Things look very different from three feet off the ground. If you’re looking at your world from the perspective of your big toe, it’s going to look different than if you’re seeing it from your belly or your heart. Practice noticing when you’re looking straight ahead, down, or up. Notice how that changes how things look.
Mindfulness exercise
When thoughts become unmanageable, look up at the sky or out into the horizon. Practice changing your point of view.