Bringing stillness into your life
Jun 28, 2022Hi ladies, and welcome to the podcast.
I am going to be talking about how to bring more stillness into your life today. And the reason this came up, because I was coaching one of my clients, and this comes up a lot with my clients. They often have so many thoughts running in through their brain and often the reason why they are overeating is because they are trying to run away from those thoughts instead of going towards them, instead of actually seeing what is there.
So the reason I was thinking about talking about this on the podcast is because it affects so many of you. So many of us are on this hamster wheel of I've got so much to do, I've got to be a certain way for me to approve of myself. I've got these expectations of myself that I, if I don't live up to, then I'm not gonna be good enough. I'm not gonna be worthy. And even though we may not be using these kinds of words, that's the essence of so many of my clients. So I want you to think about what are the thoughts that you are thinking so often?
for me, it's often things like I have to be a good mom. I really want to be a good wife. I want to be a good daughter. Good. Daughter-in-law it's often to do with other people cuz one of the things that I'm working on is my people pleasing. Right. And I'm much better at it, but there's still room for improvement.
It still comes up now and again, but I was just like thinking a lot of the things that come up for me. I don't want other people to think a certain way about me, but actually when I realised that I can't control what other people think anyway. So that's just basically mindless, chatter in my brain.
I can now remind my brain of that. but before I would constantly be worrying about what other people thought of me when I'd gained weight as a weight loss coach, I would be thinking, oh my gosh, what would they be thinking of me? Oh, they're gonna be thinking that I'm not really very good at what I do because of this.
And I just realised that they may be thinking that, but that doesn't impact my ability to coach my clients and get them awesome. Right. it doesn't even need to be a thing that I worry about if I'm able to respond back to my brain. So if you haven't heard, the podcast on how to be aware of which part of your brain is talking to you, then make sure you go back and listen to that.
So having more stillness is what I was talking to my client about. I asked her how many times. In the day. are you comfortable with just being with yourself and she's like, what do you mean by that? I'm like where there's just no distractions at all where you are just with yourself.
There's no kids around. There's no radio on there's no TV. There's no reading a book. There's no doing housework. how often in the day are you literally just by yourself. And she was like, like there's no time for that. And I asked her why and what came out from the coaching is because she didn't feel comfortable being with her own thinking.
And that's because she was so damn hard on herself. She's always telling herself she's not doing well enough that she needs to be doing more. That, everyone else has their shit together, but she doesn't that she's failing as a mom, she's failing as a wife that she's just not doing the things that she said she was going to.
so of course, if that is the thinking that she was having, of course she's gonna wanna run away from it. Of course, she's gonna wanna have the radio on all the time so that she doesn't have to focus on her own thinking. Of course, when she's washing the dishes, she's gonna you know, listen to a podcast instead of just being with herself for a bit.
Now it's different. If you actually listen to a podcast and then put it into practice, but a lot of, what my clients do and what you guys are probably doing is listening to it thinking, yeah, it's great, but actually not putting it into practice. So I want you to, think is that me, if that is you, I want you to maybe even allocate some time that, okay, I'm gonna listen to this podcast and then I'm gonna, you know, do what Amruti suggests in the podcast.
I'm actually gonna start putting it into practice. And listen, if you have trouble with this, you are 99.9% of the population, and that's completely, okay. Nothing has gone wrong at all because you've got that human brain and you've not been taught how to overcome that primitive part of your brain and how to talk to it, which is the reason why I have this podcast and the reason why I have the group coaching program so that you are able to actually put it into practice.
So remember, if you are interested in joining the August group coaching program, go to my website, www.amruticoaching.com/group to be added onto the wait list because when you're added onto the wait list, you'll get first, dibs on the consults, all the information about the group coaching program.
So make sure you join. Okay. So I was talking to her about what is your brain fearing when it's left to think its own. And the thing she said to me was that those thoughts that I'm thinking would be proven true, found that really interesting because a lot of us think that when we notice our thinking, that's gonna make it true.
But what I wanna offer to you is when you are thinking a thought again and again, and again and again, without questioning it, that's, what's proving it true because it's your thoughts that create your results. So when you are not questioning your thinking, you're just gonna keep creating the results that you've always, created.
So when you are thinking, for example, she was thinking I'm not being a good mom. She felt disappointed when she felt disappointed, she would take the actions of pushing away the thinking and, you know, shouting at her kids and then beating herself up for doing that. And then she would just keep showing herself that she's not being the mom that she wants to be.
She's not being the person that she wants to be. And then it would keep proving that thought. True. So she'd just get stuck in this loop. So what I suggested to her is to bring a bit of stillness into her life, on purpose start, noticing what she was thinking. The only reason she wanted to escape her brain was because her thoughts were going at a hundred miles an hour.
So the only way to stop that is to bring some stillness. So she could actually be aware of what was going on in her.
So how can you start doing that? Remember you have 60,000 thoughts a day and we're already so stressed about so much that's going on in our lives. We're already so busy. So bringing some stillness will just allow you to have some downtime, some calm in your life. So how can you bring some stillness into your life?
I love. The practice of meditation. Now, a lot of you may be frowning at meditation thinking, nah, it's not for me, but the way I think about meditation is just being with my own thinking and just being an observer of my own brain. So thinking about, okay, I'm just gonna let my brain think, whatever it's thinking and just not judge it, just start becoming aware of what's going on in my brain.
And when I can do that, it's basically like imagining, my brain is the TV and it's just going on and on and on. And I'm then on the sofa watching what's going on in my brain. So watching what's going on in the TV, that's how you can become an observer of your own brain. You can decide that I'm just gonna, see what's in there.
I'm just gonna decide that, I'm just not gonna judge what's going on in. because only when I, am aware of what's going on, can I do something about it? So how I do my meditation I'm and I will start bringing meditation into my daily routine more often, because I notice that when I do meditate, It's only like five, 10 minutes.
I don't do like a very long meditation, but I just feel so much calmer. I feel so much more in tune with my own body. paying attention to my hunger signals are easier and feeling my urges, easier feeling my emotions are easier because it's allowing me to be at one with my own body, be at one with my own brain.
So it's like combining the brain and body together. So how I do it is I just sit quietly in a. and I just let my brain think what it's thinking. I don't repeat any mantra or anything like that. Just let it think. And then when I notice that I'm judging or anything, I just bring it back to You can have something that you focus your attention on. It could be a candle or it could be something that you've got in your room. You could close your eyes, whatever works for you. I would use that. some people like the meditation apps, if that helps you, I would use that.
Whatever helps you to kind of like really be at one with your body and allow your brain to think what it's thinking. That would be useful. I really like some of the meditation, music that I've listened to on YouTube. So you could just find one that, that works for. but sometimes what I do is literally have nothing on and just allow my brain to think what it's thinking.
So you wanna try and create this practice. That's actually gonna be fun for you rather than, oh my gosh, meditation is the most boring thing I've ever done. Because if you're thinking that then you are gonna feel resistant to doing it and you're not gonna do it. And then you're not gonna get the benefits from being still.
Now, if you think meditation's just totally not for me, you don't have to do that. There's so many other ways of bringing stillness into your. One of the ways is having some device free time. So we're so addicted to our phones and our tablets and our radios and our, laptops. What would it be like if you literally had no TV time?
Like no, phone time and you literally just did other things, you just.
I often use this when I don't feel like doing something at work and I'm like, Ugh, I'd rather just check my phone and scroll on Facebook. that used to happen a lot to me. And it still does, but I've initiated a no device time when I'm working. so that I'm actually literally just talking into the microphone when I'm recording a podcast or I'm not allowed to check my phone or check my notifications on my iPad or whatever, because they are just distracting me from the actual tasks that I want to do.
So maybe you could do that when you have a no device zone or device time, how would you. then pass your time. What would you do? Another thing that I really like doing is just bringing moments of calm, and stillness into my day. So before I start any coaching call, then I'll just fill my emotions.
I'll just tune into my body. Notice what sensations are there in my body. When I am brushing my teeth, I do the same thing when I am. starting my thought download in the morning or the evening. I do the same thing. Another thing that I do is I notice that I can get quite restless when I'm driving and it might be my dyslexia, where I can't concentrate on what the kids are saying and the radio, and what's going on in the, world, around me when I'm driving.
So what I noticed is why don't, I just turn off some of those input. I can't stop my kids from talking and all of that so they can, you know, that's fine, but I just turn off the radio sometimes. And I often do it on my way home from dropping very, to the nursery so Rick said to me, why'd you keep turning the radio off?
And I said to him, I'm just really enjoying the peace and quiet. He's like, oh my gosh, that's so weird. And I'm like so interesting that he thought it was weird because I often tell. How often are you at one with your own thoughts and feelings, and you're just being there with yourself.
he's actually really good at it, actually, because he can put his phone away for hours and hours on end and just check it once a day and then, and, and not be an issue, but he does like the TV on and the radio on and things. So. I often tell him it's because he doesn't like what's going on in his brain.
And he doesn't like me telling him, but like sometimes I just drop in a few coach, like speak I just can't help it. But what I wanted to say to you is that you can just turn off the, radio on your drive home as well. Just notice. I noticed I did it this morning and I was just much more present with myself.
I was more accepting. I was calmer on the road. I let people go. It wasn't a big deal if people didn't say thank you. And previously I would've got really annoyed cuz I would've thought they should be saying thank you. I just waited for a whole minute.
But if they don't say thank you, that's on them. Nothing to do with me. I'm not gonna let myself get annoyed about that.
so you can do this when you are starting to eat your food as well. You could just tune into your body and just notice what are my hunger signals right now? You may actually decide I'm just not gonna listen to any music or a podcast or talk to anyone whilst I'm eating. Now, you don't have to do this all the time, but you may notice that even if you do it once you may start noticing, oh, this is what hunger feels like in my body.
All right. Okay. having that stillness allows you to really pay attention to your body and you start losing weight, paying attention to your body, not paying attention to, and listening to what your brain wants. Cuz remember, 96% of your brain is your primitive brain is always gonna want you to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how you are.
Right. So. actually like doing nothing and paying attention to those hunger signals is really useful paying attention to what sensations you are experiencing in your body. Are you getting vibrations? Are you feeling warm? Are you feeling hot? Are you feeling any pain anywhere? Now this let allows your brain to just relax. And I know for so many of you, this sounds like bliss, because you just want freedom from the mental chatter about food and the mental chatter about the derogatory thoughts that you're thinking about yourself all day, every day. So no wonder when you're thinking that way, you just want freedom from that.
You just want your brain to just relax. But I just want you to know that because you've been distracting yourself for so long. your brain is likely gonna feel uncomfortable about doing this. You may have thoughts like I'm being lazy. I've already got so much to do. This is just adding to it.
This is self indulgent. This is boring. I'd rather eat or check my Facebook or watch my Netflix. Whatever is coming up in your brain. It's completely normal for those thoughts to come up because it's your ative brain trying to keep you safe. That's when you can answer your. that's when you can start noticing, oh, okay.
This is what my brain's thinking. Of course, it's thinking that way. The more comfortable you are with being with yourself and your own brain and noticing what your brain's thinking without just distracting yourself, the easier your weight loss will be because you won't be running away from your mind and distracting yourself with more food and more false.
so the solution to that is to be with yourself to notice what your brain is thinking to allow stillness into your life. So what I urge you all to do is to just. Bring even a few minutes of stillness and see how that affects you. Notice what your brain is thinking. Notice how you are judging yourself, notice how you are talking to yourself.
And if this is not how you want to be talking to yourself, how can you change one slight thought to something that's slightly better? Because don't underestimate the effect of a slightly improved thought. Doesn't have to be anything huge. It could just be something simple. you don't have to go from, I hate myself to, I'm the best person in the world you could just go to, this is one small thing that I like about myself.
If you can't even find something that you like about yourself, you can draw on other people's opinions of you. And you can maybe look for this is one thing that someone had said to me that made me feel. proud of myself because I was thinking, yeah, maybe I am good at this. Right. So you can draw upon other things, but it doesn't have to be going from you know, that all or nothing.
Like I'm the worst person in the world too. And the best person in the world, it doesn't have to be that drastic. It could just be something slightly better. Cuz when you are thinking something slightly better, you're feeling slightly better. You're gonna take better actions and you're gonna create better results for yourself.
Because that's what you truly want. Right? You're listening to this podcast because you wanna feel better. You are listening to this podcast because you wanna lose the weight for the final time and not have your brain take over your whole life. You want to be able to control your brain. You want to be able to eat too enough.
You want to be able to feel your urges and you want to be able to make a plan and stick to it. You wanna be able to be that person who sets a goal of weight loss, and actually follows through. So. This starts with you, being with yourself, not running away from the thoughts that are in your brain and actually allowing them to be there and then slightly shifting them to something that feels slightly better for you.
Okay. So if you want more help with this, I have five one-to-one slots open. So if you're thinking, yes, I want to, work with Ty one on one, then send me a message. my email address is [email protected] and I would be honored to give you more information about my one-to-one coaching packages. And, if you're thinking actually I'd really like to go and join the next group, then join the waiting list.
The waiting list address is www.amruticoaching.com/group. Okay, I'll speak to you next week. Take care. Bye.