Tag: mindfulness

A Month of Gratitude

On By bmwilliamson1Leave a comment

This is definitely a delayed post this month and it’s been a big eye opener and point of reflection for myself in my life. For over a week I have had friends visiting. We have been spending an abundance of time in the mountains climbing 14,000+ foot summits. 7 in 7 days with countless hours of driving mixed in.
Out of my normal routine I find it so easy to slip away from the habits I’d.been creating at home. My journaling stops. I stop meditating. And I almost decided to stop this year goal for missing a week, but then realized why? Missing a week, or even more, in the grand scheme of things is so small and definitely not a reason to stop.
Gratitude for this last month was magical. I tried different guided meditations for it, some based on visualization, some had you visualize people or things you feel gratitude for then expand that feeling through out your body. I also did gratitude journaling almost every day and loved the simplicity of it.
I think, for me, focusing in gratitude is one of my favorite meditations because it takes me little to no time to be able to step into the energy of gratitude. Just focusing on something for 15-20 seconds I can feel gratitude within myself and sit with it. I love that it doesn’t take 10-20 minutes to get into. I can write one thing I’m grateful for and feel it and it’s a beautiful thing.
I practiced it, when I remembered, on some of my hikes. When I was over it and still had miles to walk I thought about how grateful I was that my dog and us had made it down safely and injury free. And that shift helped me keep going.
I think my favorite way to feel into gratitude was just to close my eyes and feel and hear nature around me. Nature brings me so much peace and gratitude and feeling it around me just zaps me into the gratitude frequency so quickly.

For this next month I’ll be trying out different variations of breathwork practices. I am starting a week late so I may carry it into the next month as well, or not….who knows.
The breathwork will include box breathing, breath of fire, diaphragmatic breathing, single nasal breathing, and maybe some more intense styles of breathwork as well if I feel called to it.

In thanks for my month of gratitude I will share a few things I’m feeling grateful for:

My beautiful healthy mountain doggo

My strong resilient body that puts up with so much of my crazy activities

friendships and connections that blossom with adventure

nature. Nature and nature.

Having time to myself to reflect and honor myself.

Warm weather and sunshine.

my self improvement book club that keeps me wanting to grow into the best version of myself.

My job for providing me income to live in a beautiful place and have adventures.

My past, for showing me how to stand up for myself and have my own back.

What are you feeling grateful for today?

Into the Heart: 30 Days of Deep Heart Connection

On By bmwilliamson11 Comment

When I decided to do this year long meditation journey, I was nervous about sticking to it without having any accountability, but it has actually been quite easy. Being able to think about it as 30 days at a time, rather than the big goal of a whole year, has shifted my perspective and makes it all feel easy to reach as a goal.

Since I already have a daily practice with journaling, somatic movement, and such adding in a specific meditation has been relatively easy. However, there are days that I certainly do not feel called to sit tall and go through a meditation, but I have and it has been a beautiful journey thus far.

Diving into my heart was what I chose for this month’s experience because I wanted to create a deeper connection with myself. I recently let go of my business that I spent 2 years trying to get some momentum with. I still sense that there are many pieces of my life puzzle that I have yet to find the place for, and instead of continuing to try and force answers and direction I just simply wanted to be. I wanted to just spend time with myself without trying to figure something out in the process.

I have spent time this month connecting with my heart daily through meditations focused on the heart chakra where I am visualizing a light in my heart and spreading this light to those I love, I have done heart coherence meditations where I use my breath to connect to my heart by imagining I am breathing through it. I tried, and enjoyed, a Kabbalistic Awaken Heart Opening meditation I found that feels soothing to my heart. During all of these I found that my greatest joy during them is when I am holding my heart and myself.

To me it feels like I am giving myself a giant hug and so much love. As I place my hands on my heart and breathe, I feel more gratitude within my body, and my inner child feels nurtured. It has brought me more peace and acceptance. I have found that I am getting less agitated at work, but it certainly doesn’t mean that I never do, I am just able to accept shitty things easier.

If someone screws me on a tip instead of letting it ruin my night, I let my frustrations out briefly and then move on with the mindset that someone will treat me nicely later. I also feel that I am more energetically open to receiving gifts from the universe.

I knew coming into this that visualization meditations were a struggle for me. I am never actually able to really visualize anything and I expend so much effort and energy trying to visualize that it doesn’t allow the meditations to be as calming as I would like them to be. That was still the case this month, but I did stop trying to visualize it, and just listened to the words of the meditation and went with it. But, I do tend to enjoy more the somatic, body sensing techniques used, as well as soft quotes and words that soothe me.

This next month I still feel a desire for my heart to open and expand even more so I am going to do 30 days of Gratitude and Acceptance meditations with some affirmations added in. For example, “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe, may I live with ease.”

I am really trying to take this time in my life to do things I love, that bring me joy, and bring me to life, and allow this to lead me onto the path of an aligned future. So gratitude and acceptance for what is, is huge for me right now and something I want to focus on. Rather than spending my whole life only focusing on what I want to change.

Sending you all so much love on your own journeys!

Britt

A New Challenge for A New Perspective

On By bmwilliamson1Leave a comment

I started a book club with some of my amazing girlfriends, and some strangers, and it has been amazing. We are two books in, but having the accountability and ability to discuss and learn more through others has been really enjoyable to me. I also have a friend who I am doing a book with just the two of us and we are connecting weekly to discuss our action steps and continuously learning more about ourselves.

I am bummed I have been missing out on this for so long! But, why I am here is to share my new “challenge” that was created based off the book we just finished reading. We just finished “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin. To be honest I didn’t love the writing, but I loved the concept and the idea behind the experiment and the book.

In this book Gretchen shares her experience of creating a project in her life to boost her happiness without having to make a drastic change. For those of you who know me personally you know that I love to make big changes, move to new parts of the US, travel for years at a time, walk for 2,600 miles straight in nature, etc. So to me, it was a good reminder that I don’t need to take these big jumps to make myself happier in my life. I love that Gretchen took small habits and did them for a month and then assessed them. She picked a different topic, or theme, every month to focus on with some specific tasks and goals.

I was thinking during my practice the other morning that I have tried a lot of things to boost my spirituality, mindfulness, happiness, etc and that I have yet to find one that just really grabbed ahold of me. Something that felt just right to me, and I realized while I have tried a lot of things I haven’t tried them consistently. I do it once or twice then switch off, so I have yet to give a practice the opportunity to really take a hold of me. (Very similar to my reflections on my relationships, but now is not the time for that haha).

I decided that I want to do my own project for the next 12 months, starting in May. During this time I will update my blog to share my experiences, thoughts, ideas, etc. And i hope you may be interested enough to follow along, or even join me for parts of it!

For the next year I am going to dedicate each month to a different style of meditation or mindfulness practices, and I will do my best to do that practice 30 days every month, again consistency is what I am going for here! There practices will range from breathwork, to visualization, to heart opening meditations, manifestation, embodiment, etc. I am not going to set each one in stone, but picking 12 styles and each month I will choose the one that feels the best for me in that moment to go for.

What am I hoping to gain with this? Hopefully a new perspective, more clarity on what works best for me, a deeper understanding and love for myself, gratitude, and the accomplishment of sticking with something that I know will be really good for me.

For May I am going to focus on heart opening and connecting meditations and connection to cultivate more self-nurturing and self-love. I hope to leave this month feeling like I have my own back and that my heart is open to receive all the dreams I have for my life.

If you wish to follow along make sure you sign up for my newsletter on my website so you can stay up to date as new blogs are posted! I will be hoping to get some ideas and hear stories from you all as well during this journey!