My 3 Favorite Ways To Manage My Mindset

Mindset is something you normally hear in entrepreneurial or self-help circles. That's unfortunate. Mindset is important in all our day-to-day lives. Mindset governs everything we do, say, think, believe, and every decision we make from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed.

We all know certain things help us to be our best, such as exercise, meditation, good sleep, and nutrition, and these can often be used at a moment's notice. But how can you change your mindset in minutes?

The first step to think of is HOW you want your mindset to be different. When my pain is bursting through the roof or I'm feeling sorry for myself, how can I feel like my "real" self again? How can I always feel like my "real" self?

Your "real" self is the one without pain. You are still "you," whether or not you feel pain. The pain is its own separate entity; it's not you. You are not the pain you feel. When you change your mindset, you change your relationship to the pain and allow your real self to shine through, even on your worst days. If you practice changing your mindset enough, your new mindset can take hold in a more permanent way.

How do I know pain does not belong to me or my body? I know because I can now enjoy the things my body and mind can do even when I hurt the worst. When you are able to feel and believe this yourself, you will have changed your mindset and given yourself the opportunity to feel it on your own.

My three favorite ways to improve my mindset at any time are movement, meditation, and journaling.

Movement

Movement can be transformational! Even on your worst day, it is likely you can move some part of your body. To calm your mind and body when you are having a bad pain day, move slowly with the breath. You want this to feel good. When you move slowly, you move with intention. This way you can be careful and not hurt yourself more.

Engage your mind during the movement. Close your eyes and feel your muscles moving, stretching, lengthening, and relaxing and contracting, Take advantage of this mind/body connection.

Here is some movement I enjoy that can be done sitting or standing. Important: Keep your spine straight and your head in line with your spine at all times. To protect your knees, keep your hips facing forward and still, with your feet facing forward, and keep your shoulders relaxed. If you are sitting, please follow these same instructions. This is not to be "exercise." It's movement.

I invite you to try each of these movements three to five times. If you can do each only once, or only one of these movements, let that be enough. There is no movement shaming here.

1. Plant your feet about six or eight inches apart when standing, or your sitting bones onto the front half of the seat of a chair, while practicing good posture. Inhale and stretch your arms up, exhale and slowly bring your arms to a "T" while twisting to the side by moving at the waist. Inhale the arms up, exhale your arms back to a "T" and twist to the other side.
2. Now inhale the arms up, bend the knees (if you're sitting, keep them at 90 degrees and plant your feet onto the floor). Exhale and walk the hands down your legs, bending slowly only to where it's comfortable. On your next inhale, walk your hands back up.
3. Inhale and open your arms to the side, keep going, letting your chest open up toward the front and letting your shoulder blades move together behind you. Exhale and bring your arms toward one another and wrapping around you, giving yourself a big hug.

Meditation

There are many different ways to meditate, but these two are easy and can help you separate yourself from the pain.

1. I want you to sit or lie down comfortably. Close your eyes and observe your breath. Let your breath be normal, not a special deep or noisy breath, just your normal breath, in and out the nose if that's possible. Feel its path in your nose, down the back of your throat and into your lungs, and back out of of your lungs, up the back of the throat and out your nose. What temperature is your breath as it goes in the nose? Is it different when it goes out your nose? Is your breath in both nostrils? Is it in the same nostrils on the way out? Do your feel the hairs in your nose move? Investigate the experience of breathing. When you are ready, open your eyes or let yourself drift off to sleep.
2. Do everything in meditation number 1, except open your eyes or fall asleep. When you start to feel relaxed, or ready, move your concentration from your breath to the very end of one of your fingers, one where you feel no pain. I want you to concentrate on the end of that finger. Concentrate on the very end of that finger. What would that fingertip feel like if it were comfortably warm? How would it feel if it were comfortably cool? Switch between warm and cool a few times. Now, see if you can find the cell that is at the tippiest tip of that finger, that cell on that finger that is the furthest from your shoulder.
3. When you are ready, you can go to sleep or open your eyes and continue your day.

Journaling

One thing I do at the end of most of the blog posts on my website is to add some journaling questions that relate to the post's topic.

When you have thoughts, emotions, experiences, and physical sensations, your brain creates neurological pathways. Your brain remembers these experiences and lets you remember them, in the same way, each time you experience something similar, which allows that pathway to be ingrained more and more every time it happens. Do you really want to experience these the same way or even worse over time? I don't!

Thankfully, there is a way out of that vicious cycle. You create new pathways.

1. First, you have to recognize the pathway by writing about the negative side of the experience.
2. Rip up or burn that paper, watching it get destroyed. Then flush it down the toilet or throw it away. Know that these are just pathways, they are not to be taken personally. They don't belong to you. They have no bearing on who you are as a person!
3. Write about the pleasure you want this experience to be. Include what already is! Make every word positive. For example, don't say "I don't feel pain." You are using words you don't want to experience. Say instead, "I feel good, there is a joyful feeling in my body."

For example:

1. "I hate that my hand hurts and burns and aches from that damn arthritis! I feel like it will never stop and that it will never be okay. I want it to just fall off. I wish I could grow a new one. I hate my hand!"
2. I rip the paper to shreds, burn it and flush the ashes down the toilet. I say good riddance as I turn and walk away.
3. Replace the thought. "My hand is smooth. It allows me to feel how smooth flower petals are. I can hold my granddaughter's hand and feel my husband's touch. I can pick a flower, garden, or make the most delicious food. I can wear rings and bright nail polish on my hand. My hand touches, it feels, and I can use my hand to express myself.

This can take some time, yes. But, the more you practice this the better it gets. Once you do this process with a particular experience, keep journaling about just the positive part, step 3.

Another fun journaling practice is sometimes called scripting. Write about your day, or a specific aspect of your day, as you would like it to be.

This morning I woke up feeling well-rested and refreshed. I stood up and felt the warmth of the sun shining through the window all the way into my body. My muscles felt warm and ready to go. I dressed in my yoga clothes, my favorite black t-shirt and my black yoga pants, bootcut. I walked down the hall and into my exercise room. The sun filtered through the shades into the room. I opened the shades to see the warm, bright sunshine onto the blue wall and across the oak floor. I rolled out the thick, purple, yoga mat I bought from the yoga studio. I sat down and moved to lie down. I stretched my body out upon the mat, stretching to my longest length. The mat felt supportive and cool against my warm body. It was glorious to feel my body stretching and moving into each pose. Etc.

Do you see what I did? I wrote about all the wonderful things and I wrote them in detail. The more detail the better. You want to write so you can imagine it in your mind. If you get into the experience of this journaling exercise, pain is not as on your mind while writing.

With any journaling exercise, it is best to write with a pen (or pencil) and paper in your own writing. There is a special connection between your hand when writing and your brain that makes the deepest impression on your mindset. If you can't, type it or speak it into a talk-to-text program or app and print the page. If you can't print it, imagine you did, as well as the process of getting rid of the paper on which step 1 is written.

If you have any questions or comments about these mindset techniques, please comment below. Let me know what technique you will try this week. Come back and let me know how it went.

Thanks for reading this post.

Julie Hodges, The Pain Guru

NOTE: It is important to understand I am not a doctor. I cannot diagnose or treat any condition of body, mind, or spirit. Please consult a qualified professional before trying the above techniques. Thanks!