As someone who got started on her mindfulness journey out of a desperate attempt to fix the feelings of not good enough I carried with me into my life and relationships, the idea of mindfulness, that I was simply supposed to accept negative thoughts and feelings, didn’t make sense.
I wanted to change those feelings and thoughts, not offer them a place in my head and my heart.
I wanted to be different and do differently not accept where I was.
Mindfulness was supposed to make my life better, not keep it at a stand still.
All of these barriers to BEing in the moment with myself as is, good enough, stemmed from a misunderstanding of how a mindfulness practice could create change in my life and help me feel better about myself.
This is what I was missing:
Mindfulness + Action = Intentional Change
In other words, my mindfulness practice was the start of making change in my life, NOT the end of it. It was through the subsequent actions I took, grounded in love and acceptance that actually gave me the power and space I needed to make changes in my life.
To that end, if you want to make changes in your life rooted in self love whether those changes are feeling better about yourself or something totally different, mindfulness AND action need to work together for you to grow.
Mindfulness + Action = Intentional Change Model.
Mindfulness is the Soil of Good Enough
Mindfulness practice is the beginning of taking action to build a more loving relationship with yourself. It is the soil of mindfulness into which you planted new, concrete habits of how you choose to show up in the world. It is the soil of mindfulness that allows what you planted to grow roots and become a new sustainable, thriving way of relating to yourself and your life.
In other words, your mindfulness practice creates the conditions of love, compassion and acceptance. These concepts are inherent to any mindfulness practice as they are the outcome afforded to you when you apply to your moment by moment experience, nonjudgement.
As Christina Feldman author for Lion’s Roar writes,
“The essence of mindfulness is to see, to understand, and to find freedom within everything that feels intractable and clouded by confusion. Mindfulness is a present-moment experience, concerned with embracing and understanding the entirety of each moment with tenderness, warmth, and interest. In the light of this engaged attention, we discover it is impossible to hate or fear anything we truly understand, including the judgmental mind.”
Mindfulness opens the doors to a new relationship where you can feel good enough about yourself in a way where what is critical or self effacing is met with self understanding.
To that end, imagine the soil, or conditions, you currently see yourself through, what is the make up–harsh words, shame, self deprecation? What would you like that soil to be composed of-love, nourishment, support? When you let go of judgemental awareness in favor of nonjudgmental awareness such kindness is afforded to you.
Action is the Seed from which Good Enough Grows
BUT, as much as mindfulness can shift the way you see yourself, allowing feelings of good enough, it is not the end point. Mindfulness is NOT a forward, analytical, goal directed entity. It is a BEing mode of congition. Mindfulness is a perspective, a goal less, lens through which you can practice seeing the world.
To that end, it is in action, purposeful, responsive, intentional action, that over time shifts the habitual patterns of your life. Action is the planting of a seed that can grow roots and one day thrive because it is action that is forward moving and goal directed.
Action can be something as simple as taking the time to show up daily for meditation practice where you get to train your brain to perceive the world with more presence and non-judgment. But action could also look like tangible steps to apply the self understanding that you gain from a mindfulness practice to other areas of your life.
John O’Donahue in Anam Cara writes, “You may wish to change your life, you may be in therapy or religion, but your new vision remains merely talk until it enters the practice of your day” (p129).
It is action grown from consistency that actually cultivates change in your life. In this way, what do you want to plant? What types of behaviors and ways of thinking do you want to bloom?
Mindfulness is the soil into which action can be planted.
Mindfulness and Action TOGETHER Create Change
To give you an example of how mindfulness and action work together here is the following from my own life:
A few years ago I struggled in relationships due to having a hard time navigating conflict. I would often lash out in angry self defense at people, especially my partner, when even the slightest bit of conflict was present (perceived or actual). Apart from the defensive attitude, I also had a deep fear that conflict of any kind would last and last and escalate rather than be resolved.
Through my daily practice of mindfulness I was able to become better at noticing when anger or fear was present in my body and mind and was able to more compassionately make space for it to exist. I also started to better understand through my mindfulness practice (and therapy) where these feelings of fear and anger were coming from and how deep down there was a lot of shame that I wasn’t good enough if problems, no matter how small, were present in my relationships.
My mindfulness practice offered self understanding and self love but it was the consistent, subsequent, actions I took during conflict that helped me actually make changes to how I was feeling and thinking.
I could through mindfulness notice the feelings in my body and notice the thoughts in my mind but then I could forgive myself, give myself compassion, step away from the situation to calm my nervous system down and communicate differently.
Forgiveness is an action. Giving compassion is an action. Stepping away from the situation is an action. Communicating is an action. I would not have noticed that I needed to take such action without the non-judgemental awareness mindfulness afforded me, but without action I couldn’t actually change how I was showing up to conflict.
Overtime consistent, intentional action created tangible change.
Creating Healthy Ecosystem for Good Enough to Take Root
Mindfulness and action work in tandem with each other to create a sustainable and supportive ecosystem for you to make changes in your life. Where mindfulness helps you BE with yourself, in your life, good enough, actions helps you DO in your life what you need to do to actually live from a place of enoughness.
This dynamic mindful awareness + intentional action = supportive changes is something that can be used time again to shift how you relate to yourself and your life. By shifting your understanding of the purpose of mindfulness from the driving force of personal growth to it’s catalyst, you can make room to BE as you are, while also taking ACTION to arrive where you want to go.
Ready to nourish the soil from which change rooted in self love can grow? The Art of BEing is here to help you build a foundation of presence through a daily mindfulness practice.
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