Keep Your Cool - All Through the Day (A Mini Practice)

Hi there,

Lovelies.

I'm Ilya Grace.

I'm the founder of Meeing.

And if I could share only one practice with you,

It would be this one.

It is the most effective practice that I know of to help you change how you go through your day and to be able to stay in an elevated mood all through your day.

And it comes really from this idea that there was a study out of Harvard from 2010 that says mind-wandering is the thing that leads to unhappiness.

So the more our mind wanders,

The less happy we are.

And yet most of us go through most of our day thinking about things that are not where we are.

So whether we're future forecasting and worried about what's coming in fear,

Worry,

Or doubt,

Or whether we're regretting something that happened,

Whether it's 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago,

We don't often find ourselves really grounded in the present moment.

And so this practice changes that.

And there are three steps to it.

But there's a little bit of preloading that we do before we do the practice.

So the preloading goes like this.

Somehow we need to catch ourself while we're in autopilot,

Whether we're spiraling or we're going down some negative road or we're overthinking.

How do we get ourselves out of that?

So if you know that you might get there,

What you can do in advance is there are a couple of things.

Number one,

You could set a timer on your watch.

And I found that this worked really well for me in the past.

You could set a timer on your watch.

You could potentially move your watch to the different wrist.

Often I'll do that.

I'll look down at when I'm looking for the time and when I remember why I've moved my watch,

Then I can remember I need to come back to presence.

Or you could wear a piece of jewelry that might serve as a reminder for you.

Or you can set up reminders or notifications on your phone and that can serve as your reminder.

I call it an all through the day practice.

And the reason is because when you practice this all through the day,

It really can change how you go through your day.

So what is the practice itself?

So the practice involves three steps.

The first step is to come back to presence.

And how do we do that?

One way to do it is to use our senses.

So if we can look around at what's around you and you can remember where you are by looking at the things that you see in front of you.

Another thing you can do is you can use hearing.

Do you hear anything in your environment that can help to bring you back to the present moment?

Or you might touch your clothing or touch your skin.

And that also can serve as a reminder to really bring us back to the present moment and to help ground us here.

The second part of the practice is to take a deep breath.

I find that breathing really helps to ground me in the present moment.

So why don't we try that together?

So we'll just take one deep breath in,

Inhale.

And exhale.

And just a simple breath can bring you back to the present moment.

And then the last step is what I call meeing.

And what I mean by meeing is coming back to who you really are.

Because who you really are is not the one who gets lost in thinking,

Who is overthinking,

Who might be worried or in fear or doubt or regret.

That's the part of you that just likes to think things.

Who you really are is the part of you underneath that has the ability to change your thinking.

You are the watcher or the person who is aware of your thinking.

So to ground yourself in that knowing,

You could say something to yourself like,

I am the one who watches my thoughts and I have the power to change my thinking.

So saying a little affirmation and really finding yourself outside of your thinking can help you to ground you in this presence,

In this being moment.

And that's the practice.

It really doesn't have to take long.

You can do this in under 30 seconds.

I invite you to carry this practice with you every day,

Or if you like,

All through the day.

Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with me today.

I'm Elia Grace.

And until next time,

Trust in your practice and in your own inner guidance and allow the universe to work its magic.