Mindfulness, mindfulness, a word that is inching its way into everything.  Be mindful, practise mindfulness, do mindful mediation, and you’ll feel so much better, even your finances will be enriched with mindfulness, relationships will be perfect, and your reality will be perfect.   Wait!

Mindfulness is a way of being, a tool, a habit and an exercise that does help but there are many different layers and forms of being mindful. While going through separation or divorce, the todo list becomes even more overwhelming when the thought of sitting down to meditate or learn to be mindful is brought up. It doesn’t need to be though, as the ability to focus on one aspect of mindfulness at a time honours an aspect of the sums of totality.   The act of acknowledging awareness of the moment, in the present time embracing the moments and thoughts that are best to be passed without judgement, and to let them flow and knowing this will help to relieve some of the parts of overwhelm is a huge relief itself.

Some forms of mindfulness include:

Meditation and breath work
Mindful Communication: Speaking aligned with Listening and vice versa
Mindful Eating
Mindful Walking
Mindful Emotions, watching them through the breath
Mindful Communication

During a separation, if mindfulness during communication is used as a tool, the understanding of self and responsibility plays a valuable role in the outcome of a difficult conversation.

If you ask yourself, HOW do you listen? HOW do you speak? HOW do you share your story, and to whom do you have permission to share it with?

It takes energy to both speak and to listen. While having difficult conversations in a relationship, through a separation or divorce is challenging one of the benefit of knowing this is that when you remember that energy must be there (physical energy, mental energy, emotional and heart energy) to create a mindful atmosphere for those involved in the conversation and that time spent…

When a difficult conversation and lack of mindfulness is not aligned, how can you create the space for it to be the best?

These are some of the detriments to staying mindful during communication…

THE 5 DETRIMENTS TO STAYING GROUNDED AND MINDFUL

1. Divorce (scrambles up the neurotransmitters)
2. Cellphones and internet distractions
3. Sugar & fast food, Alcohol & Drugs
4. Lack of nature connection
5. Fatique – not enough energy to hold the conversation

The next time you need to have that dreaded conversation, one of the best ways to create the space is to be mindful, listen deeply and through the heart to what is being said before speaking, and before reacting. When you are speaking, be mindful of your words, your language, and to whom you are speaking to. Speak wisely and clearly as you would like to be spoken to, and listen not only with your ears, but with your heart, through your cells, through your eyes, through your feet, and soak up the speech.

You may learn something new about mindful communication…

Blessings

Cherie Griffiths