Yoga Program
Partnership Mentoring
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By: Nonso Sokey
0
MEDITATION
Meditation is an approach to training the mind, similar to the way that fitness is an approach to training the body. But many meditation techniques exist — so how do you learn how to meditate?
“In Igbo tradition, the word ‘meditation’ is equivalent to a word like ‘sports’ It’s a family of activities, not a single thing,” And different meditation practices require different mental skills.
It’s extremely difficult for a beginner to sit for hours and think of nothing or have an “empty mind.” We have some tools such as a beginner meditation book or a brain-sensing headband to help you through this process when you are just starting to learn how to best meditate. In general, the easiest way to begin meditating is by focusing on the breath. An example of one of the most common approaches to meditation is concentration.
TYPES OF MEDITATION
ACTIVE MEDITATION
PASSIVE MEDITATION
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
Meditation involves focusing on a single point. This could entail following the breath, repeating a single word, staring at a candle flame, counting beads. Since focusing the mind is challenging, a beginner might meditate for only a few minutes and then work up to longer durations.
In this form of meditation, you simply refocus your awareness on the chosen object of attention each time you notice your mind wandering. Rather than pursuing random thoughts, you simply let them go. Through this process, your ability to concentrate improves.
BENEFITS OF MEDITATION
If relaxation is not the goal of meditation, it is often a result. The relaxation response, in is “an opposite, involuntary response that causes a reduction in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system.”
We have this following short-term benefits to the nervous system:
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Stress
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Anxiety
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Depression
Contemporary researchers are now exploring whether a consistent meditation practice yields long-term benefits, and noting positive effects on brain and immune function among meditators. Yet it’s worth repeating that the purpose of meditation is not to achieve benefits. To put it as an Igbo Philosoper may say, the goal of meditation is no goal. It’s simply to be present.
The ultimate benefit of meditation is liberation of the mind from attachment to things it cannot control, such as external circumstances or strong internal emotions. The liberated or “enlightened” practitioner no longer needlessly follows desires or clings to experiences, but instead maintains a calm mind and sense of inner harmony.
Relationship Mentoring
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By: Nonso Sokey
0
PASSIVE MEDITATION IS BASE ON DEVELOPING SELF DISCIPLINE
Self-discipline is the ability to push yourself forward, stay motivated, and take action, regardless of how you’re feeling, physically or emotionally. You’re showing it when you intentionally choose to pursue something better for yourself, and you do it in spite of factors such as distractions, hard work, or unfavorable odds.
Self-discipline is different from self-motivation or willpower. Motivation and willpower contribute to it, as do persistence, the ability to follow through on your intentions, and hard work.
Why Work on Your Self-Discipline through passive meditation?
Passive meditation is useful in many areas of our lives.
For instance, it’s what pushes you to do high-quality work, even when you don’t feel like it. It gives you the strength to stay professional with your clients, even when you’re ready to throw in the towel. It helps you to stick with and achieve tough goals that you set for yourself. Self-control also enables you to keep going through to great success, despite what others might see as insurmountable odds.
It can also improve learning and enhance performance. Studies have shown that students with a high degree of self-discipline retain more knowledge than those without self-discipline. Additionally, researchers discovered that students with strong self-discipline are more careful in their tasks, which improves their performance.
Research has also shown that measuring a person’s level of self-discipline is a more accurate predictor of success than measuring their IQ.
How to practice passive meditation
Passive meditation is like a muscle: the more you work on developing it and using it, the stronger it will become.
However, it’s just as important not to start out with goals that are too ambitious. Instead, set small goals, and increase the level of challenge slowly over time. The more you practice, the better you’ll become.
Follow these five steps to start developing your self-discipline:
1. Choose a Goal
Begin by choosing just one goal that you want to focus on to develop your self-discipline.
For instance, perhaps you want to start exercising every evening, or you want to read one leadership book a week to enhance your skills. You could even practice self-discipline on very small goals such as concentrating on a piece of work for an hour without checking your messages, or avoiding unhealthy food for one day.
Remember, starting small is the best way to start developing your self-discipline. As your discipline gets stronger, you can spread the focus to more areas of your life.
Make sure that the goal you set is smart– Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound – and break the goal down into smaller sub-goals, where you can.
2. Find Your Motivation
Once you’ve chosen a goal, list the reasons why you want to achieve it. Try to express these reasons in a positive way.
So, instead of saying, “I want to exercise three times a week to lose weight,” say “I want to exercise so that I have the energy to play with my kids and work successfully.” Or, instead of saying, “I want to get this task off my To-Do List,” say, “I want to do this task, so that I can meet my objectives, get praise from my boss, and feel satisfied with my day’s work.”
When you list the reasons why you want to achieve something, you’ll find it much easier to get the job done.
3. Identify Obstacles
Now you need to identify the obstacles that you’ll likely face when working toward your goal, and devise a strategy for overcoming each one.
For instance, imagine that your goal is to read one leadership book a week to enhance your skills. In the past, you’ve faced a number of obstacles in reaching this goal. For example, when you find a book you like, it’s hard to find time each night to read. Between work, dinner and the kids, your time is taken up until late in the evening, and you get distracted by messages coming in while you’re reading.
Once you’ve identified obstacles, come up with a strategy to overcome each one. In this example, you could do the following:
-
Instead of going to a bookstore, spend an hour looking at leadership books online. Find several that interest you, and that have good reviews. Order all of them at once, and download them to tablet so that you always have a book on hand to read.
-
Find more time in your day to focus on reading. Perhaps you could read during your lunch hour, or while you’re waiting to pick your kids up from school.
-
Turn your phone off when you want to focus on reading.
Often our self-discipline crumbles because we haven’t identified the obstacles that we’ll face, and we haven’t developed strategies to overcome them. When these obstacles show up, we’re unprepared to deal with them, and this shakes our resolve. Don’t skip this step!
4. Replace Old Habits
When we’re developing self-discipline, we’re often trying to break a bad habit and replace it with something more productive. However, if that habit is tied into a certain time of day or routine, breaking it can leave a hole. If we don’t replace that habit with something else, then its absence becomes even more noticeable.
A good example is if you’re trying to stop yourself shopping online when you take a break at work. This bad habit destroys your focus and attention, because you’re likely to be online for 20-30 minutes each time.
Once you’ve resolved to stop, identify a new behavior that you can engage in when you need a quick break. Instead of online shopping, you could do some stretches in your office, get a cup of coffee, or take a quick walk outside. These behaviors will help to support your goal and strengthen your self-discipline, instead of leaving you with nothing to do on your break.
5. Monitor Your Progress
As you work on your self-discipline, pay attention to how you’re feeling as it develops and strengthens. You might feel free, happy, proud, and energized.
Also, think about keeping a journal to write down your self-discipline goals and to track your progress. This reinforces the positive changes that you’re implementing in your life, and gives you a record that you can look back on to see the progress that you’ve made.
Over time, your self-discipline will strengthen, and you’ll be able to apply it to lots of other areas of your life.
GUIDELINE AND STAGES
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Fixing the mind on a chosen object, thus guiding the mind towards stillness and introversion. This becomes easier when the body is also trained to become still so it won’t disturb the mind.
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When the first stage has been perfected, the subconscious starts to flow freely from deep within the mind. Thoughts, phobias, visions, buried memories etc. rise to the surface of normal awareness. At this point it becomes possible to observe the lower mind and dust all the cobwebs, removing the rubbish gathered there over the years.
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When the lower mind has been explored, the mind automatically turns to superconscious realms and this is where real mediation begins. One finds a fountain of knowledge and energy within. One now identifies with the greater world around oneself, not just the little personality we consider ourselves to be.
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There is still a higher stage where even this greater mind is transcended and the practitioner attains self-realisation. There is not much one can say about this 4th state. It can only be experienced.
Family Mentoring
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By: Nonso Sokey
0
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION IS AN EMOTIONAL CONTROL
Mindfulness meditation encourages the practitioner to observe wandering thoughts as they drift through the mind. The intention is not to get involved with the thoughts or to judge them, but simply to be aware of each mental note as it arises.
When you meditate through mindfulness meditation, you can see how your thoughts and feelings tend to move in particular patterns. Over time, you can become more aware of the human tendency to quickly judge an experience as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. With practice, an inner balance develops.
In some schools of meditation, students practice a combination of concentration and mindfulness. Many disciplines call for stillness — to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the teacher.
EMOTIONAL CONTROL-
Emotions are a normal part of everyday life. We feel frustrated when we’re stuck in traffic. We feel sad when we miss our loved ones. We can get angry when someone lets us down or does something to hurt us.
While we expect to feel these emotions regularly, some people start to experience emotions that are more volatile. They feel higher highs and lower lows, and these peaks and valleys begin to impact their lives. Individuals who experience intense emotions may find themselves calm one moment and then sad or angry the next.
While any of us can have times when our emotions spin out of control, for some people it happens regularly. Their rapidly changing emotions can cause them to do and say things they later regret. They may damage relationships or hurt their credibility with others.
There can be a number of reasons that someone loses control of their emotions. They may be genetically predisposed to these rapid changes. They may never have seen good emotional regulation modeled or learned the skills. They may lose control when they experience triggers for negative situations that happened in the past. There can also be physical changes that cause a person to lose control of their emotions, such as exhaustion or a drop in blood sugar.
No matter the reason for the emotional volatility, the good news is that we can learn better self-regulation. We can all benefit from learning strategies to control our emotions. Emotional regulation is the ability to better control our emotional state.
What are emotional control and regulation?
Ultimately, it refers to the ability to effectively exert power over your emotions through a wide range of approaches.
Some people are better at regulating their emotions than others. They are high in emotional intelligence and are aware of both their internal experiences and the feelings of others. While it may seem like they’re just “naturally calm,” these people experience negative feelings too. They’ve just developed coping strategies that allow them to self-regulate difficult emotions.
The good news is that emotional self-regulation isn’t a static trait. Emotional regulation skill can be learn and improve over time. Learning how to manage negative experiences can benefit your mental and physical health.
Why is emotional regulation important?
As adults, we are expected to manage our emotions in ways that are socially acceptable and help us navigate our lives. whe our emotions get the better of us, they can cause problems.
Many factors can impede emotional regulation. These include our beliefs about negative emotions or a lack of emotional regulation skills. Sometimes, stressful situations can evoke espacially powerful emotions.
One of the ways that emotional volatility can hurt us includes the impact it can have on our relationships with others. For example, when we cannot properly moderate our anger, we are likely to say things that hurt those around us and cause them to pull away. We may regret the things we’ve said or have to spend time repairing relationships.
In addition to having a negative impact on our relationships, an inability to control our emotions can also hurt ourselves. Feeling overwhelming sadness can lower well-being and cause unnecessary suffering. Living with unmitigated fear can get in the way of our ability to take risks and have new life experiences.
5 emotion regulation skills you should master
There are a number of skills that can help us self-regulate our emotions.
1. Create space
Emotions happen fast. We don’t think “now I will be angry” — we are just suddenly clench-jawed and furious. So the number one skill in regulating difficult emotions, the gift we can give ourselves, is to pause. Take a breath. Slow down the moment between trigger and response.
2. Noticing what you feel
An equally important skill involves the ability to become aware of what you’re feeling. Dr. Judson Brewer, MD Ph.D. recommends practices for becoming more curious about your own physical reactions. Tune in to yourself and consider: in what parts of your body are you noticing sensations? Is your stomach upset? Is your heart racing? Do you feel tension in your neck or head?
Your physical symptoms can be clues to what you are experiencing emotionally. Inquiring into what is happening to you physically can also distract your focus and allow some of the intensity of the emotion to go away.
3. Naming what you feel
After noticing what you feel, the ability to name it can help you get control of what is happening. Ask yourself: what would you call the emotions you’re feeling? Is it anger, sadness, disappointment, or resentment? What else is it? One strong emotion that often hides beneath others is fear.
Many of us feel more than one emotion at a time, so don’t hesitate to identify multiple emotions you might be feeling. Then dig a little deeper. If you feel fear, what are you afraid of? If you feel anger, what are you angry about or toward? Being able to name your emotions will help you get one step closer to sharing your emotions with others.
4. Accepting the emotion
Emotions are a normal and natural part of how we respond to situations. Rather than beating yourself up for feeling angry or scared, recognize that your emotional reactions are valid. Try to practice self-compassion and give yourself grace. Recognize that experiencing emotions is a normal human reaction.
5. Practicing mindfulness
Mindfulness helps us “live in the moment” by paying attention to what is inside us. Use your senses to notice what is happening around you in nonjudgmental ways. These skills can help you stay calm and avoid engaging in negative thought patterns when you are in the midst of emotional pain.
7 strategies that can help you regulate your emotions
1. Identify and reduce triggers
You shouldn’t try to avoid negative emotions — or be afraid of them. But you also don’t have to keep putting yourself in a situation that brings on unpleasant emotions. Start to look for patterns or factors that are present when you start to feel strong emotions. This requires some curiosity and honesty. Did something make you feel small? Strong emotions often spring up out of our deep-seated insecurities, especially the ones we hide. What is happening around you and what past experiences does it bring up for you?
When you identify these triggers, you can start to explore why they carry so much weight and whether you can reduce their importance. For example, a CEO might be embarrassed to admit that he gets angry when discussing numbers because he struggled in math class. Understanding this trigger might be enough. Or, the CEO might choose to preview the monthly charts in private to avoid the trigger of feeling like everyone else is waiting for him.
2. Tune into physical symptoms
Pay attention to how you are feeling, including whether you are feeling hungry or tired. These factors can exacerbate your emotions and cause you to interpret your emotions more strongly. If you can address the underlying issue (e.g. hunger, exhaustion), you can change your emotional response.
3. Consider the story you are telling yourself
In the absence of information, we fill in the blanks with details of our own. Perhaps you are feeling rejected after you haven’t heard from a family member; you believe it is because they no longer care about you.
Before you make these attributions, ask yourself: what other explanations might be possible? In the example of the family member, what else could be going on with them that would stop them from reaching out to you? Could they be busy or sick? Are they a well-intentioned person who often forgets to follow through on commitments?
BetterUp’s Shonna Waters recommends the “just like me technique Whatever motive or action you are assigning to the other person (there’s almost always another person involved), add “just like me” to the end. It is a way of reminding yourself that they are also an imperfect human being.
4. Engage in positive self-talk
When our emotions feel overwhelming, our self-talk can become negative: “I messed up again” or “everyone else is so awful.” If you treat yourself with empathy, you can replace some of this negative talk with positive comments. Try encouraging yourself by saying “I always try so hard” or “People are doing the best they can.” This shift can help mitigate the emotions we’re feeling. You can still be frustrated with a situation that isn’t working but no longer have to assign blame or generalize it beyond the situation.
5. Make a choice about how to respond
In most situations, we have a choice about how to respond. If you tend to respond to feelings of anger by lashing out at people, you likely notice the negative impact it is having on your relationships. You might also notice that it doesn’t feel good. Or, it feels good at the moment, but the consequences are painful.
Next time you feel anger or fear, recognize that you get to choose how you want to respond. That recognition is powerful. Rather than lashing out, can you try a different response? Is it possible for you to tell someone that you’re feeling angry rather than speaking harshly to them? Get curious about what will happen if you switch up your responses. How did you feel? How did the other person respond?
6. Look for positive emotions
Human beings naturally attribute more weight to negative emotions than positive ones. This is known as negativity bias. Negative emotions, like disgust, anger, and sadness tend to carry a lot of weight. Positive feelings, like contentment, interest, and gratitude are quieter. Making a habit of noticing these positive experiences can boost resilience and well-being.
7. Seek out a therapist
Managing our own emotions can be difficult. It requires a high degree of self-awareness. When we’re having a hard time, our emotional self-regulation begins to suffer. sometimes we need partner like a therapist who can help us learn better self-regulation skills. Fortunately, there are a number of therapeutic solutions that can help us learn to better regulate our emotions.
BENEFIT OF MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
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Lower blood pressure
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Improved blood circulation
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Lower heart rate
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Less perspiration
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Slower respiratory rate
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Less Colesterol
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Heal Trauma
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Heal Stress
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Heal Anxiety
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Heal Depression
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Heal Drug Addict
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Heal alcohol Addict
Self-Discipline
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By: Nonso Sokey
0
SELF DISCIPLINE-
Self-control is the ability to push yourself forward, stay motivated, and take action, regardless of how you’re feeling, physically or emotionally. You’re showing it when you intentionally choose to pursue something better for yourself, and you do it in spite of factors such as distractions, hard work, or unfavorable odds.
Self-discipline is different from self-motivation or willpower. Motivation and willpower contribute to it, as do persistence, the ability to follow through on your intentions, and hard work.
Why Work on Your Self-Discipline?
Self-discipline is useful in many areas of our lives.
For instance, it’s what pushes you to do high-quality work, even when you don’t feel like it. It gives you the strength to stay professional with your clients, even when you’re ready to throw in the towel. It helps you to stick with and achieve tough goals that you set for yourself. Self-control also enables you to keep going through to great success, despite what others might see as insurmountable odds.
It can also improve learning and enhance performance. Studies have shown that students with a high degree of self-discipline retain more knowledge than those without self-discipline. Additionally, researchers discovered that students with strong self-discipline are more careful in their tasks, which improves their performance.
Research has also shown that measuring a person’s level of self-discipline is a more accurate predictor of success than measuring their IQ.
How to Develop Self-Discipline
Self-discipline is like a muscle: the more you work on developing it and using it, the stronger it will become.
However, it’s just as important not to start out with goals that are too ambitious. Instead, set small goals, and increase the level of challenge slowly over time. The more you practice, the better you’ll become.
Follow these five steps to start developing your self-discipline:
1. Choose a Goal
Begin by choosing just one goal that you want to focus on to develop your self-discipline.
For instance, perhaps you want to start exercising every evening, or you want to read one leadership book a week to enhance your skills. You could even practice self-discipline on very small goals such as concentrating on a piece of work for an hour without checking your messages, or avoiding unhealthy food for one day.
Remember, starting small is the best way to start developing your self-discipline. As your discipline gets stronger, you can spread the focus to more areas of your life.
Make sure that the goal you set is smart– Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound – and break the goal down into smaller sub-goals, where you can.
2. Find Your Motivation
Once you’ve chosen a goal, list the reasons why you want to achieve it. Try to express these reasons in a positive way.
So, instead of saying, “I want to exercise three times a week to lose weight,” say “I want to exercise so that I have the energy to play with my kids and work successfully.” Or, instead of saying, “I want to get this task off my To-Do List,” say, “I want to do this task, so that I can meet my objectives, get praise from my boss, and feel satisfied with my day’s work.”
When you list the reasons why you want to achieve something, you’ll find it much easier to get the job done.
3. Identify Obstacles
Now you need to identify the obstacles that you’ll likely face when working toward your goal, and devise a strategy for overcoming each one.
For instance, imagine that your goal is to read one leadership book a week to enhance your skills. In the past, you’ve faced a number of obstacles in reaching this goal. For example, when you find a book you like, it’s hard to find time each night to read. Between work, dinner and the kids, your time is taken up until late in the evening, and you get distracted by messages coming in while you’re reading.
Once you’ve identified obstacles, come up with a strategy to overcome each one. In this example, you could do the following:
-
Instead of going to a bookstore, spend an hour looking at leadership books online. Find several that interest you, and that have good reviews. Order all of them at once, and download them to tablet so that you always have a book on hand to read.
-
Find more time in your day to focus on reading. Perhaps you could read during your lunch hour, or while you’re waiting to pick your kids up from school.
-
Turn your phone off when you want to focus on reading.
Often our self-discipline crumbles because we haven’t identified the obstacles that we’ll face, and we haven’t developed strategies to overcome them. When these obstacles show up, we’re unprepared to deal with them, and this shakes our resolve. Don’t skip this step!
4. Replace Old Habits
When we’re developing self-discipline, we’re often trying to break a bad habit and replace it with something more productive. However, if that habit is tied into a certain time of day or routine, breaking it can leave a hole. If we don’t replace that habit with something else, then its absence becomes even more noticeable.
A good example is if you’re trying to stop yourself shopping online when you take a break at work. This bad habit destroys your focus and attention, because you’re likely to be online for 20-30 minutes each time.
Once you’ve resolved to stop, identify a new behavior that you can engage in when you need a quick break. Instead of online shopping, you could do some stretches in your office, get a cup of coffee, or take a quick walk outside. These behaviors will help to support your goal and strengthen your self-discipline, instead of leaving you with nothing to do on your break.
5. Monitor Your Progress
As you work on your self-discipline, pay attention to how you’re feeling as it develops and strengthens. You might feel free, happy, proud, and energized.
Also, think about keeping a journal to write down your self-discipline goals and to track your progress. This reinforces the positive changes that you’re implementing in your life, and gives you a record that you can look back on to see the progress that you’ve made.
Over time, your self-discipline will strengthen, and you’ll be able to apply it to lots of other areas of your life.
Emotional Control
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By: Nonso Sokey
0