Mindfulness As Self-care, Part 3: Connection

This is the third and final episode in a 3-part guided mini retreat series. In this one, you’ll have a chance to slow down and reflect on what it means to be connected to yourself, others, and the world. I’ll share some tips for improving your ability to listen, and guide you through three practices that you can use anytime to feel more at peace with yourself and with others.

Transcript

All the joy the world contains has come through wishing happiness for others.

All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for one's self.

Shantideva Welcome to episode 3 of Mindfulness as Self-Care,

A three-part podcast series focused on introducing you to the essentials of mindfulness and how it can be incorporated into your life in order to feel more focused,

Intentional,

And connected.

For those of you who don't know me,

My name is Anne and I'm your host.

I'm a meditation teacher featured on a variety of health and wellness apps and also a behavioral health coach where I help people make meaningful changes to thoughts and behaviors.

Today we'll be delving into connection.

What does it mean to be connected to yourself,

To others,

And to the world?

And what does connection have to do with mindfulness?

We'll discuss the benefits of connection and also be talking about some related things like mindful listening,

Loving kindness,

And self-compassion.

Throughout today's episode,

I'll be guiding you through three mindfulness practices specific to improving your sense of connection.

If you haven't already listened to episode 1 and 2 of this series,

Which was all about focus and values,

I highly suggest doing so.

The knowledge and information from the first two episodes will be helpful for what we're going to talk about today,

The final episode of the series.

So as always,

Make sure you're in a comfortable space where you're not likely to be distracted.

Turn off your phone,

Tell all the people you love you'll be busy for the next little bit,

Whatever you need to do to make this a little retreat for yourself.

This is time for you to relax,

Peek into your mind,

Move through a few exercises that are tried and true for improving your sense of connection,

And absorb information that will help you to step out of the turbulence of life and remember who you are more often.

Grab your journal or pad of paper,

Whatever you're taking notes on.

Without changing anything,

Just casually bring mindfulness to what's going on for you.

Bring mindfulness to both your external and your internal environment.

Notice your surroundings,

The furniture,

The lighting,

Any people you may be around,

Any sounds coming in.

Now tune inward,

And if you'd like you can close your eyes for a moment.

Tuning into what's happening,

What sensations do you feel?

Maybe you feel the sensation of your hips on the chair,

Your feet on the ground.

What about emotions or thoughts?

What is the quality of your attention?

Alert,

Calm,

Somewhere in between?

And what about your mood,

If you could sum it into one word?

Now if your eyes were closed,

Go ahead and open them,

And first take a look at the list of feelings.

As you skim through the list,

See if any of those feelings listed match up with your internal experience.

Go ahead and make note of those,

Circling them if you have a hard copy or writing them down on your piece of paper.

If you don't have a list of feelings to reference,

No worries,

Simply scan your internal environment again and write down what feelings are present for you.

Now pick the one or two strongest feelings,

Or the ones that feel most important right now.

Give those feelings a voice.

If those feelings could speak,

What would they ask for?

This time,

Reference the needs inventory,

Or use your own internal inventory,

And see if you can connect to what you feel you are needing in this moment.

Circle or make note of those needs on your piece of paper.

Great job!

As you're probably already aware,

That exercise was meant to bring you closer to yourself,

To bring you into connection with what's going on.

It's an exercise in listening to yourself,

Something that seems easy in theory but actually requires all three skills emphasized in this series.

Mindfulness,

Focus,

And connection.

Okay,

So now I'm going to introduce a third definition of mindfulness.

We've already gone over two and I'll recap them now.

The first definition that I talked about in episode one is to remember.

Mindfulness helps us to remember that which isn't us.

Anxious thoughts,

Turbulent emotions,

Worries,

Ruminations about the past and future.

It doesn't mean those things aren't helpful sometimes and doesn't mean that they're bad,

But it's definitely helpful to remember that you're not those things.

The second definition of mindfulness that I talked about is non-judgmental awareness.

The ability to become aware of what's happening in any given moment and not add additional crap to it.

Judgments about whether or not what's happening is good or bad,

Whether we are good or bad,

Etc.

And the last definition of mindfulness I'll offer up in this episode is a simple one-word definition.

Intimacy.

Mindfulness is becoming intimate with oneself and it therefore opens the doors to become intimate with all of life,

Which is an amazing and great feeling many of us crave and don't get enough of.

Babies are actually an amazing example of a creature that is intimate with all of life.

Babies are curious about everything.

Everything is an opportunity to learn and grow.

They are super connected to how they are feeling and what they are needing,

They just lack the language to express it.

Sure,

They don't like when their diaper is full or when they're hungry,

But when they get their needs met,

The crying generally stops,

At least for a little while until another need emerges.

We could use to be a little bit more like our baby selves in some ways.

Connected with ourselves,

Our needs and feelings,

And connected with the world,

Engaging with it in a kind,

Curious kind of way.

This is intimacy and it feels great.

One of my favorite quotes on this topic is from the movie Lady Bird.

Lady Bird is a high school student in Sacramento,

California and she goes to speak with Sister Sarah Joan at her school about college options.

In the beginning of the movie,

It seems clear she doesn't like Sacramento and wants to move away.

And in her college essay,

She writes about Sacramento.

Sister Sarah Joan says,

Lady Bird responds,

I do.

And Sister Sarah Joan writes,

Well,

You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such care.

And Lady Bird responds,

I was just describing it.

Sister says,

It comes across as love.

Lady Bird says,

Sure,

I guess I pay attention.

And Sister's response is,

Lady Bird says,

Sure,

I guess I pay attention.

And Sister's response is,

Don't you think maybe they're the same thing?

Love and attention.

This is what we've been working up to each episode.

We cultivated focus or our ability to sustain attention on something in episode one.

In episode two,

We worked on what it is that we want to sustain our attention on in life,

Our values.

And in episode three,

We'll go deeper.

Love,

Connection,

Attention,

These skills and practices bring us back to what's most important.

Back to our childlike self where everything is amazing,

Interesting,

And lovable.

And the things that aren't are things that we can learn and grow from,

Also to be curious about.

You might be able to see how by practicing mindfulness and focus,

Our ability to connect and to love are greatly increased.

This is the good stuff we're going to be getting into today.

Let's move through a few definitions that will help support your understanding of this episode.

The first is mindful listening.

My favorite definition of mindful listening is thinking someone else's thoughts rather than your own.

Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to other people because everyone seeks to be heard and understood.

It's a fundamental need of ours.

You'd be surprised the impact of simply listening,

Hearing what someone is saying and not thinking about how you're going to respond or how what they're saying is making you feel,

But really truly listening to them and even reflecting back to them what you heard so that they can know that they were understood.

Loving kindness is the next thing that we'll talk about and it's a very common word in the meditation world.

It's a combination of benevolence,

Friendliness and goodwill toward others.

The phrase sending loving kindness means that you're wishing that person well,

That you care about them and what happens to them.

Loving kindness meditation is a specific technique we'll actually do at the end of this episode and it's a powerful one that has been shown in multiple research studies to actually delay the aging process when done consistently,

Which I find amazing.

The mechanism of this is that the meditation technique actually slows down the shortening of telomeres in our chromosomes and the shortening of telomeres is one of the biomarkers of aging for those who are interested in sort of the subtle science of these things.

Loving kindness toward ourselves and toward others not only reduces aging but also helps us remember that we're all the same in that we want to be happy and we all struggle sometimes.

It supports a lovely feeling of interconnectedness.

And the last word I'll define is self-compassion.

Self-compassion is the ability to hold your own suffering with kindness.

Self-compassion is a kind of self-parenting during difficult times.

It goes against our natural reaction to judge ourselves for what's happening and instead accept it and offer kindness toward the suffering we're experiencing.

Self-compassion strengthens resilience,

Willpower,

And has a myriad of other surprising benefits in the research.

Some may think self-compassion is selfish and soft but similar to self-care it's actually quite the opposite.

It takes courage to look inward and it's not exactly easy to forgive yourself and to not judge yourself as you may have already seen throughout the series during our meditation practices.

Because the ability to connect and to love others and the world so often requires us to first be at peace with ourselves we'll start off with a self-compassion meditation.

This one is called the self-compassion break.

So go ahead and put everything aside and set up in a comfortable seated position preferably with your spine elongated and the bottoms of your feet placed on the ground.

Close your eyes.

First do a brief check-in of your feelings and needs where they are right now.

Has anything shifted for you since the beginning of the episode?

What's happening in your internal environment?

Now bring your attention to an anchor to focus on either the breath at the nostrils the belly or sensations in the palms of your hands.

Seek to find a balance between alert and calm as well as right effort not over or under working to focus on the task at hand the anchor.

Notice where your attention is.

Without judgment bring the puppy of your mind back to the anchor.

Now bring your attention to the clouds.

Many clouds will come by throughout this meditation.

Thoughts,

Hindrances,

Weird sounds in the environment,

A lot of different things and they cloud your view of the great big beautiful sky.

But don't let that worry you.

You are not the clouds.

The clouds are just passing phenomena you can watch with curiosity as you orient your attention again and again and again toward the anchor.

For the next two breaths,

Just the next two breaths,

How focused can you be?

Now bring to mind something mildly to moderately stressful or difficult for you right now.

First just bring the details of this situation to your mind.

What is the situation?

Who is involved?

What does the situation make you feel and what's hard about it?

There are three components to practicing self-compassion.

The first is mindfulness.

Mindfulness is becoming aware of the situation without distracting or numbing yourself.

Imagine that you are deeply listening to your friend.

The mindfulness piece of self-compassion is seeing the situation for what it is and not adding any judgments,

Labels about whether what's happening is good or bad,

Etc.

The second component of self-compassion is called common humanity.

For this step,

I invite you to imagine all the other people who have experienced or are currently experiencing something similar.

This step isn't to mitigate the impact of this stress around your life,

But more so to remind you that you're not alone.

To feel that this is part of the human experience To feel that this is part of the human experience and as much as it sucks,

It's a wave many others have endured and one that you might endure later again.

The last step of self-compassion is self-kindness.

Developing a sort of kindness action plan for yourself given your struggle.

This kindness action plan isn't meant to try and get rid of the stress and anxiety,

But rather to soothe those feelings,

To make you feel cared for.

Sometimes as a byproduct,

This level of self-care will help to relieve those feelings,

But don't go into it with that expectation.

If you have a lot of trouble being kind to yourself,

You might like to imagine how you would offer kindness to someone you care for very much,

Even the kind of care you provide to an animal.

Or you can even imagine someone who loves you very much,

How they would support you in this moment and imagine giving yourself that same kind of love and support.

Again,

This may be a totally foreign concept to you,

But I invite you to keep an open mind and go with it so you can really decide for yourself if this is something you'd like to add to your toolbox.

What would offering self-kindness look like for you in this instance?

Would your self-kindness action plan be as simple as placing a hand on your heart or thigh and imagine sending love to your entire body?

Maybe it's just taking three deep breaths,

Imagining relaxing on each exhale.

It could also be a phrase that you say internally to yourself.

Feel free to use your own words,

But something like,

Oh,

This is hard.

I'm so sorry that you're going through this.

Or even just,

Man,

This is really difficult.

Continue to hold this situation with kindness in whatever way feels most soothing and mindful to you.

If you like,

You can extend that self-kindness action plan to other people.

And imagine something you can do later today to further support yourself through this difficult experience so you can show up in the world more fully and more vibrantly.

Remember,

This self-kindness action plan isn't about trying to get rid of the feeling.

It's about supporting you and offering yourself kindness as you work through this.

Maybe for you,

That means taking an hour to do something you just plain enjoy later today.

Maybe it means calling up a good friend to talk.

How can you meet a potentially unmet need that is behind this difficult situation?

For a few moments,

Zoom out.

Zoom out and see how much you can watch what's happening around and within you,

As if from a third-person perspective.

Breathe,

Relax,

Feel,

Watch,

And allow whatever is happening in this moment.

When you're ready,

Take as much time as you need to open your eyes and reorient to the space around you.

Take a few moments to stretch and jot down any insights or notes from that meditation that came up for you.

And feel free to pause as you do this.

Let's take a deeper look into connection,

Now that we've experienced it a bit in relation to ourselves and what it's like to listen to ourselves and become intimate with the struggle we're experiencing.

Everyone likes benefits,

So let's talk about the benefits of this kind of work.

First of all,

Most notably,

The quality of the connections in one's life is the number one predictor of health.

And this is shown again and again in studies that have been replicated.

Feeling like you belong and having people you connect with contributes to better emotional regulation,

Is a protector against depression and anxiety,

Leads to better self-esteem and ability to empathize with others,

Which strengthens our immune system.

And this makes sense on an evolutionary level,

Because back in the day,

Someone who was ostracized from the tribe was actually more likely to die.

More bodies meant more people to collect food and hunt.

Being with the tribe meant better protection against danger.

Being left out was basically the same thing as having a death sentence.

And our brains honestly haven't changed much since then,

So you can imagine why rejection hurts so much and being alone sucks so much.

Why it's difficult,

Even for those of us introverts,

To be lonely.

You may be able to rationally know you're not going to die when you feel lonely,

But to our still primitive brains stuck in a modern world,

It's not so convinced.

Unfortunately though,

For many of us,

I don't think it's just me,

But connection is becoming more and more difficult in an increasingly technological world.

Although social media does allow for us to stay in touch with friends and family around the world,

And even to connect with strangers that we can end up becoming good friends with,

There really is no replacement for crying on someone else's literal shoulder,

Or even just sitting face to face across the table from a good friend.

When we're in person with people,

There are unconscious things our nervous system picks up on that allow us to connect with the person next to us and feel like we're with them,

And to feel like they understand us.

Things like smell,

Body language,

Eye movement,

All things that are difficult or even impossible to perceive,

At least at this point in our brain development,

In DMs or video calls.

Again,

This isn't to say that social media is bad.

It's certainly better than nothing and can be incredibly helpful,

But if our sole source of connection is through a metal device,

It's probably going to cause problems in the long run with our mental health.

Connection with others is also difficult because in order to connect with others in the way many of us crave so deeply,

We need some level of connection and intimacy with ourselves.

How are we going to be there for someone else if we aren't there for ourselves?

If we constantly escape our own feelings,

How are we going to feel comfortable being there for someone else when they're struggling with their feelings?

How are we going to listen to someone else if we haven't practiced listening to ourselves?

Meditation can help us feel more connected to ourselves and others via its ability to strengthen our ability to focus.

Remember,

Attention is love.

Meditation helps strengthen our ability to pay attention to ourselves and to others,

Akin to love.

Consistent meditation also helps to soften the ego.

I like to define our ego as the part of our mind that wants to get our way,

Wants to be the best,

Wants to be known by everyone,

And or wants to be famous even at the expense of others.

I'm currently reading the Harry Potter series again,

And I have to say that I'm pretty sure Lord Voldemort is supposed to be a commentary on a part that is within all of us,

Some to a greater degree than others.

But regardless of how much Lord Voldemort,

Or your ego,

Is within you,

There's always the possibility of softening it a bit,

So the good stuff we tend to value more and find more fulfilling comes out.

Again,

Just like social media,

The ego isn't all bad.

The ego helps us stand up for ourselves,

Achieve success,

And honestly be a functional member of society.

But the ego can get in the way of listening to others,

Making and keeping friends,

And feeling happy if it's too strong.

And meditation helps balance out the ego with other parts of the mind,

Such as the witness that we practice during one of our episodes in this series.

Meditation also helps with feeling connected by helping us see the ways in which we cause ourselves and others suffering.

And when we can see this without the judgment of the mind,

Without the,

Ugh,

Why do I do this,

Our hearts begin to break a little bit,

Not in a bad way,

And not only for ourselves,

But for others.

This is the human condition.

We all have egos,

And we all do this to ourselves and to others.

We realize we are all the same in this way.

This is called common humanity,

And when we get intimate with our own minds and our own suffering,

We recognize it in the whole world.

And lastly,

Meditation dissolves the boundary between our small selves and others' selves.

This is called interdependence.

Let's move into a meditation on interdependence,

A loving-kindness meditation.

So begin by finding your comfortable seat,

Preferably where your feet are touching the ground,

And close your eyes.

Allow yourself to feel supported in your seat and regal,

Yet also relaxed.

Begin by bringing your attention to your breath without changing it in any way.

You might notice what the breath feels like in this moment and label it in your mind's eye.

Short,

Long,

Shallow,

Easy,

Etc.

Now consciously deepen your breath from your low belly all the way to your chest and throat,

In and out of the nose.

Each time you exhale,

Imagine a wave of relaxation washing over you as you go deeper and deeper into awareness of your body breathing.

Now gently let go of any need to deepen your breath,

And bring your attention to the area where your heart is in your chest.

Feel this area naturally expand and contract with each breath in and out.

Now imagine that you are in the most beautiful place in the world.

It can be a made-up place that intuitively comes up in your imagination,

Or a place you've seen in a picture or in real life.

Feel your senses interact with this place.

What do you see around you?

What smells or tastes might you experience here?

What sensations?

What can you hear?

Invite into this beautiful place someone in your life who is easy to love,

Imagine their full presence next to you here,

And really see them.

Imagine sending them wishes of loving kindness.

May you be happy and healthy.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be free from suffering.

May you be happy and healthy.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be free from suffering.

May you be happy and healthy.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be free from suffering.

And imagine them saying these words back to you as well.

Feel free to use any different phrases that feel more authentic for you.

Now invite into this beautiful place a neutral person in your life.

Someone perhaps you don't know very well but see frequently,

Or someone you've just seen once or twice and don't have any feelings necessarily one way or another toward them.

A cashier,

Someone who's in your neighborhood,

Someone you work with,

Etc.

Really see them and recognize that they really see them and recognize that they,

Like you,

Have struggles and joys.

Have them see you as well.

Imagine sending them wishes of loving kindness just as you did with the person you love very much.

May you be happy and healthy.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be free from suffering.

Imagine them saying these words back to you as well and repeat a few more times.

Next,

Allow someone who you don't like or who you have difficulty with come into this beautiful place with you.

Really see this being and recognize that they,

Like you,

Are human and have struggles and joys.

Have them see this about you as well and imagine sending them wishes of loving kindness.

May you be happy and healthy.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be free from suffering.

Imagine them saying these words back to you as well.

Now,

Send these same wishes of well-being,

Protection,

And happiness to yourself.

Now,

Send these wishes to everyone that has entered your beautiful place and to everyone in the room or the building that you're in.

Invite into your beautiful place everyone in the city or town that you're in,

Everyone in the state,

And everyone in the country not leaving anyone out.

Imagine the whole world being filled up with loving kindness.

Gently let go of the image of your beautiful place and return to the awareness of your body.

When you're ready,

You can guide yourself out of this meditation and feel free to write down any questions you may have.

Now,

Take a moment to let go of the image of your beautiful place and return to the awareness of your body.

Now,

Send down any reflections you had during this meditation.

Thank you so much for tuning into the Mindfulness as Self-Care series.

Hopefully,

You've gained a greater understanding of how mindfulness and meditation can support the life that you want to live,

How they can help you focus,

Act in ways which are in alignment with the kind of person you are and who you want to be,

And to connect on a deeper level with yourself,

And with the world.