Help! I keep forgetting to do mindfulness!

You talk a lot about neuroplasticity and how we train our brains to be positive or negative, but I keep forgetting to do the mindfulness! Like I've just trained my brain to always default back to stress. If neuroplasticity is the reason I keep worrying and forgetting to practise mindfulness, then how do I remember long enough to change my neuroplasticity?! I don't have time to meditate!!

Oooh this was a gooden to receive last week! And yes, exactly, how do you rewire a brain one way that is conditioned another way - given that the very conditioning you're trying to undo will keep pulling it back to its comfy default. We learn everything through repetition, including remembering to remember.

I'll be covering the “how” extensively when I get back to teaching. But, in the meantime, here are three easy-peasy ways to help you remember to prioritise mindfulness in your day:

1. Commit. And commit knowing that mindfulness isn't something we “do” and it isn't a state. It is what we are. It is what's left, our true awareness and essence, when all thinking ceases. It's always there and will always be there. By tapping into it, we reap benefits from more peace to less panic - we also get to know our true selves more. It's our natural state of deep relaxation, yet also deep insight. And once known we can't un know it. Every time you “practise” know that what you are actually doing is stripping away, getting back to base - not adding anything at all.
2. Get out the post-its. To create a habit we must practise (a habit takes three weeks to form). I know, yawn. But just like scheduling the gym three times a week, we need to build it in. But no sweat, all this mini “mind gym” takes is a little post-it practice. Soon, you'll start to feel the shift. You'll find yourself in presence without prompt. Dare I say it, little moments of happiness may begin to tickle your day. And the magic starts to happen.
   1. Put a post-it note or sticker on a few objects you interact with every day: the kettle, the front door, the keyboard. Each time you see your sticky prompt, take a few moments to tune in: notice what you can feel, hear, see, touch and smell. Notice any resistance. It might be boring, calming, numb, nothingy, annoying. But that's not the point. The point is the practice (the bench press to get the six pack) - working the 'mind muscle' in your brain. The less you feel like it, the more benefits you'll reap from doing it (weightlifting for the soul).
3. Harness your breath. It's your go-to anchor that's always available to bring you back to presence. Set the reminder “Am I still breathing?” on your phone three times a day. Every time you see the reminder stop, consider the question and observe the feeling of your breath coming in and out for a minute or so. Even just observing one breath a number of times a day has a compound effect.

Now I know it's not that sexy. I sometimes think of it as the “eat a balanced diet” advice we get from the NHS (boring!). Because we want the goji berries that eat croissant fat, the new fad, the quick fix (the next high). Unfortunately we can't rely on a conditioned “thinking, worrying, ruminating” brain to just remember, we have to plug it in. It took me a while to realise the point of mindfulness isn't to enjoy mindfulness, sometimes we very well might and sometimes it's the bench press with a broken arm on a hangover with flu.

It's about what happens in between practising.

The six pack six hours after the last bench press.

By setting a few little regular reminders we train our brains to exist more in the natural blissful state that is our birthright.

Now... how pink is that post-it?

Love, Jo x