Finding Your Center In Minutes Amidst Political Turmoil
How can we maintain our balance and inner peace in today's tumultuous world? This episode of The Mindful Coach Podcast explores a powerful technique for cultivating resilience amidst life's storms.
As your host, I share a simple yet profound practice that can help you navigate the challenges of our current political climate and the constant barrage of disturbing news. This practice is not about escaping reality, but rather about finding a stable center from which to engage with the world more effectively.
The Centering Breath Practice
At the heart of this episode is the centering breath practice - a tool that can help you:
- Calm your nervous system
- Expand your awareness
- Increase your resilience
I guide you through this practice, offering insights on how to incorporate it into your daily life for maximum benefit.
Why Centering Matters
In a world where outrage and anxiety seem to be the default states, I explain why cultivating a sense of center is crucial:
- It prevents burnout
- It allows for more effective action
- It connects us to our deeper nature
Balancing Engagement and Self-Care
This episode tackles the challenging question: How do we stay engaged with the world's problems without becoming overwhelmed? I offer perspectives on:
- Accepting reality without resignation
- Finding inspiration in difficult times
- The importance of beauty and grace in our lives
A Call to Action
I conclude with an invitation to listeners:
- Commit to regular self-care practices
- Develop your capacity for centered engagement
- Be an effective force for positive change in the world
Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by current events or simply seeking ways to enhance your resilience, this episode offers practical tools and inspiring insights to help you navigate life's challenges more easily and effectively.
If you're interested, you can make use of my free mindfulness meditations by texting the workd CENTER to 425-584-5883
Takeaways:
- In this podcast episode, we discussed the importance of effective communication in professional settings.
- We explored various strategies for enhancing interpersonal relationships within the workplace environment.
- The episode emphasized the need for continuous learning and development to achieve success.
- I articulated the significance of emotional intelligence in fostering collaborative team dynamics.
- We examined the impact of leadership styles on organizational culture and employee motivation.
- The discussion highlighted practical techniques for managing stress and maintaining work-life balance.
Transcript
Foreign hello and welcome to this edition of the Mindful Coach Podcast.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Brent Hill, and I want to invite you to just take a breath and connect to what's true for you right now.
Speaker A:Just take a moment, take a breath and take a moment to just check in with yourself.
Speaker A:I call this just like a quick check in.
Speaker A:What's true for you now?
Speaker A:Maybe you're anxious, maybe you're disturbed, maybe you're happy, maybe you're thrilled.
Speaker A:Whatever it is, just notice.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what's true.
Speaker A:I'm freaked out about politics, I'm happy about my career, I'm looking forward to going home, I'm stressed with tasks.
Speaker A:Whatever is so just naming it and noticing.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what it's like for me right now.
Speaker A:Just noticing what that feels like in your body, in your heart and your mind, and letting yourself just be present with the truth of that.
Speaker A:This is what I call the truth of your experience.
Speaker A:Knowing what's true for you now.
Speaker A:Now for myself, when I do that, I take a moment to take a breath.
Speaker A:I have a set of practices around that where I find what I call center.
Speaker A:I just think to myself, center.
Speaker A:And when I do that, because I've practiced this enough, that it just kind of comes into focus for me as a somatic experience.
Speaker A:By that, I mean it's in my body.
Speaker A:I experience almost like if you can imagine being on a balance beam, but really.
Speaker A:And you think about a balance beams, oh, if I move a little bit right or left, I'm gonna fall off.
Speaker A:But this is a different experience than that.
Speaker A:It's like there's a sense of center, a refined balance, but it's very solidly balanced on this line of centering this beam.
Speaker A:In.
Speaker A:In the analogy I'm using taking a breath and feeling myself centered.
Speaker A:And when I do that, I begin to calm down a little bit.
Speaker A:My nervous system relaxes somewhat.
Speaker A:I feel a little more expansive.
Speaker A:And in that few moments, that centering, breath, exercise can help you be more peaceful and calm and resilient in the moment.
Speaker A:This now, the advice I give to people and I give this to clients all the time, is to do this all the time.
Speaker A:Just take a moment, centering, take a breath, center.
Speaker A:And it can help if you can walk through space, physical space, with a sense of this center, like being a center in your body, like, where's your center of gravity?
Speaker A:I had some martial arts training back in the day and really helped me understand the notion of a physical center and what it feels like to walk in through the room with a sense of that.
Speaker A:Now you can.
Speaker A:There's an actual center of gravity in your body.
Speaker A:But when I say centering, it doesn't have to be that physical center.
Speaker A:It can just be like maybe you center in your heart.
Speaker A:Center in your, like your stomach area or sometimes called the hara or the lower solar plexus area.
Speaker A:Center.
Speaker A:Sometimes people can think about the center.
Speaker A:I did a lot of meditations in the past where I thought about the center as the center of the head.
Speaker A:So it's just like center, center of the head.
Speaker A:It's not so important where as it is that you have a location that feels naturally easy for you when you do this.
Speaker A:You develop a relationship to it.
Speaker A:Take a breath and maybe there's a gesture you can see for those of you on video, I have this gesture that I do where I kind of put my hand right in the center of my body, sometimes both hands, if I'm really wanting to zone in on it.
Speaker A:Center.
Speaker A:Take a breath.
Speaker A:Center.
Speaker A:Sensing into what it feels like to be in a centered place, or let's just say in the direction of a more centered place, might take a little while to actually develop.
Speaker A:Well, inhabited place of center.
Speaker A:Something that feels really like it's got something in it, rather than just an idea.
Speaker A:Center.
Speaker A:Now why.
Speaker A:Why do this?
Speaker A:What's the point of it?
Speaker A:The point is that this is a skill that you can develop that you can invoke at any time when you don't feel.
Speaker A:When you feel like you're out of control or you feel like the world is coming at you too quickly.
Speaker A:And the main reason I'm bringing this up today is because there's a lot of bad news in the world for those of us who are unhappy with the politics of the day.
Speaker A:And there's a lot to be like, really, truly concerned about.
Speaker A:And as I said in a previous podcast, we cannot live in a constant state of outrage.
Speaker A:You just can't function there.
Speaker A:That is justified in a lot of rational ways.
Speaker A:But we have to really, really, really commit to profoundly practicing self care during these times.
Speaker A:I was reading a little bit about Eckhart Tolle, or from Eckhart Tolle, who someone had asked him, like, what do you do with challenging people in your life?
Speaker A:And he said something I thought was pretty, pretty cool, which he often does, and that was that when you have someone in your life or events in your life that are challenging, you use those events as a way to become more conscious.
Speaker A:So here we are in a world where there's a lot of bad news.
Speaker A:It's a lot of anxiety in the country.
Speaker A:There's a lot of people who are truly concerned, and rightly so, about what's going to happen to their jobs, to their futures, to their careers, to their families, to their, those people in Social Security, Medicare.
Speaker A:Prices are going to go up because of, you know, just announced tariffs and all.
Speaker A:And for a lot of people, you know, that's a big deal because people are struggling financially.
Speaker A:So all these things, as I say, these things you can almost feel, oh my God, it's like scary, right?
Speaker A:And it's true nonetheless.
Speaker A:There is a part of us that is connected to a place of being, to a place of manifestation of now we're really kind of going deep within what is it mean to actually be alive?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you can take a breath, relax, center and find yourself in a more relaxed place.
Speaker A:Even though these things are true and those are the skills that we need to be able to inhabit, to have at our fingertips.
Speaker A:This is a very powerful one for me.
Speaker A:So I like to just give it away to anybody who cares to practice it.
Speaker A:Taking a breath, noticing your center, relaxing and then sensing into that sense of relaxing and just kind of letting yourself have that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:And while it's true that there's all this unhappiness that's going on in the world right now, for me I'm in touch with this deeper sense of peace than I had before.
Speaker A:That's not escape, it's not saying that's not true.
Speaker A:These other things aren't true.
Speaker A:It's not saying that I don't care.
Speaker A:It's not saying that I won't take action to improve the world.
Speaker A:It's just saying that I am a human being and I can't be constantly agitated all the time.
Speaker A:Well, what's happened is you're going to burn out, you're going to get sick, you're going to disconnect, you're going to fall apart.
Speaker A:And the more challenging the world becomes, the more resilient we need to be.
Speaker A:So I'm calling on those people.
Speaker A:If you're listening to this and you're feeling stressed and anxious about the state of affairs these days and a lot of people are to really take on seriously a practice of self care more than you do now or more than we have done in the last few years, because it's, you know, the world is.
Speaker A:Our world has always been a little, has been more stressful than it should be.
Speaker A:By design we could have crafted a world the humanity could have crafted a world that was a lot easier to be in than the one we built.
Speaker A:Nonetheless, here we are.
Speaker A:These are the facts.
Speaker A:So acceptance of the truth of what is happening or accepting the truth that these things are happening is, can be really helpful because it's like, do, do we wish that the world was a better place?
Speaker A:Do we wish that our government was in.
Speaker A:Tuned a lot more to the humanity and heartfelt capacity of our resources to be able to create a world where we all can thrive, that's supportive, where we have each other's facts instead of advocating for a world where, you know, we kind of have to be at each other's throats like survival of the fittest and the winner takes all and the superhero who conquers the massive hordes and only the rich and the successful deserve the.
Speaker A:The benefits of those lives of not being wage slaves for the rest of their lives.
Speaker A:And if, and if you are, then there's something wrong with you.
Speaker A:That whole mythology is, is a burden that you is optional to carry in terms of the emotional bags.
Speaker A:And we still have to, you know, you have to wake up in the morning and make a living.
Speaker A:And that's, you know, the world that has been created.
Speaker A:You didn't create that, and I didn't either, but here we are.
Speaker A:And so when I say acceptance, I don't mean being okay with.
Speaker A:I mean simply acknowledging the truth of the moment that this is happening, these things are happening.
Speaker A:We have an administration now that is scary and, and that has an impact on the nervous system.
Speaker A:And you can, you can sense it in the world.
Speaker A:It's like very, very tense, unnecessarily so.
Speaker A:And so it's up to us to redouble our efforts, take a breath, relax, center.
Speaker A:Because peace and beingness is not dependent upon external scenarios.
Speaker A:I mean this in a very deep way, very profound way.
Speaker A:Yes, of course, if someone is knocking on your door and arrest you or, or you have distress because you can't make your house payments, you're going to lose that.
Speaker A:That's very real.
Speaker A:But I refer you to, like, Nelson Mandela and others who've been in extreme scenarios and been able to find places where even under captivity, he was trying his best to connect to a place where he said, my biggest concern was I would become like my captors.
Speaker A:And he wanted to be in a place where he could be in a space of loving kindness regardless.
Speaker A:And if you look at the teachings of the great masters and of the mysteries of the world, they all say the same thing, which is at our core, we are a manifestation of emerging presence, A presence that emerges and in that.
Speaker A:And that is an unconditional quality of peace loving grace that we can connect to.
Speaker A:And you know this is so because you feel it when you connect to those qualities in the natural world.
Speaker A:You look at a mountain or a beautiful forest or a tree, or a lovely little moment of a little bug climbing a leaf, you know, little simple, silly things like that can be extremely profound.
Speaker A:And when you connect to the beauty and the grace of those small moments, what you're really doing is you're connecting to the beauty and the grace within you.
Speaker A:And that resonates with this larger presence of nature because it is the same thing.
Speaker A:And you are manifesting the same sort of.
Speaker A:Not same sort of.
Speaker A:You are a manifestation of that same thing.
Speaker A:It gets complicated because there's the structure of what is Brett, what is the character of Brett, and what's the character of you and your life?
Speaker A:What were your life experiences like that are unique to you.
Speaker A:You grew up in a specific place, in a specific time, in a specific way.
Speaker A:And you have a particular kind of nervous system that makes you unique.
Speaker A:And that is truly what I call your instrument.
Speaker A:I think about it sometimes as people are instruments in like a symphony.
Speaker A:And you have your own.
Speaker A:You're your own instrument and, and you manifest your voicing of that instrument in a specific way that's unique.
Speaker A:But what I'm talking about is the nature of music itself that manifests through that instrument is not a singular expression.
Speaker A:And when you connect to that within yourself, it's kind of like what is that which emerges from me?
Speaker A:And if you don't know what that is, it's in the direction of what happens when you take a breath, you relax the center you, or you connect in those same moments, you connect to something beautiful and peaceful in that direction is alignment with this essential nature.
Speaker A:It's really important these days that we engage frequently and often in activities that give us the best chance we have to, to experience that now.
Speaker A:Because there's a lot of chances to not experience that now.
Speaker A:I was really inspired and really what inspired this particular episode is something I heard from RuPaul who said very beautifully, you can look at the darkness but don't stare at it.
Speaker A:I thought, oh, wow, that's, that's really quite nice.
Speaker A:Because it's like, yeah, we don't want to, obviously.
Speaker A:And I'm not talking in any way about hiding from or escaping from or spiritual bypassing.
Speaker A:No, rather than, rather than that, it's the opposite.
Speaker A:It's like immersion in the world through immersion in the true self.
Speaker A:And when you do that, you find that you are far more capable and engaged and effective in the things that you do.
Speaker A:So there's a lot to do.
Speaker A:There's a lot to help with.
Speaker A:Another quote that is one of my mainstays these days is from Ram Dass, who said, the first day of the Apocalypse.
Speaker A:Whether it's the first day of the apocalypse or the last day, the apocalypse, the task remains the same, to relieve suffering.
Speaker A:And for those of us who are called to help other people in this way, that that remains true.
Speaker A:It's sort of like there's always.
Speaker A:There's always suffering.
Speaker A:There always has been and there always will be.
Speaker A:And so there's a.
Speaker A:There's a tremendous amount of suffering on the planet all the time.
Speaker A:It's just a matter of how do you organize around being a sensitive creature on the planet who has the desire to be healthy, happy, good, helpful, and in a world where you need to take care of yourself.
Speaker A:And also, there's an unlimited amount of suffering.
Speaker A:Similarly, there's an unlimited amount of beauty.
Speaker A:Those of you that have heard me speak before, you know, I say this often.
Speaker A:There's an unlimited amount of beauty in the world, and there's a limited amount of suffering in the world.
Speaker A:So who do you choose to be?
Speaker A:We don't want to be someone who's just like, escaping into, you know, mountaintop bliss 24 7, as an escape from the unpleasantness of the world.
Speaker A:And at the same time, we don't want to immerse ourselves into the unpleasantness of the world 24 7, because it will destroy you.
Speaker A:Somewhere there's a middle ground where you can be and experience the peaks and you can be of service to the needs.
Speaker A:And in many ways, I feel like that is the actual challenge of a mature human.
Speaker A:And that is to be of service to that which is needed and connected to the greater good at the same time.
Speaker A:To not get swept up in retribution, vengeance, anger, any more than you.
Speaker A:You can avoid.
Speaker A:Because, I mean, you know, it's hard not to, because it seems ra.
Speaker A:It seems like a rational response to what is happening.
Speaker A:Because we, you know, we want to stop unnecessary suffering.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of just really cruel, unnecessary suffering happening.
Speaker A:And it will happen, and it matters.
Speaker A:So I'm inviting you, as well as myself, invoking the wish and the charge, to commit to taking care of yourself so that we can be effective actors in the world to help relieve the suffering and do good.
Speaker A:And so that's really it for this session today.
Speaker A:It's a little bit short, but it's an.
Speaker A:It's an invitation to reconnect, to continuously practice connecting.
Speaker A:This has been about the centering, breath practice or many others.
Speaker A:But find something that you connect to that you is simple and easy and direct, that feels good, takes you to your source and really inhabit that.
Speaker A:Let it somatically inform your system, let it inform your limbs.
Speaker A:As a teacher once said to me, notice what it's like to really be more connected to that and lean into that and, you know, kind of let it be true in your bones.
Speaker A:Really let yourself have that goodness.
Speaker A:Because we need people who are actors in the world these days who are truly connected to that, who have the capacity to sustain their engagement.
Speaker A:That's really what's called for.
Speaker A:So please take care of yourself.
Speaker A:Reach out to me.
Speaker A:At the moment, I have a series of meditations that you might be interested in.
Speaker A:If you'll connect with me, I'll give them to you for absolutely free.
Speaker A:And then, you know, I'm trying to develop some of the content as well.
Speaker A:So thank you and blessings to you.
Speaker A:Bye.
Speaker A:The Mindful Coach Podcast is a service of the Mindful Coach Association.
