Hello Friends,
In this episode of The Becoming Mindful Podcast, Maria and Jackie discuss the challenges of practicing mindfulness when the world – or the whole world – seems chaotic. We offer practices for grounding and coming back to our center, even when it feels impossible. Find some peace within yourself. Be well!
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Assignment For This Month
Slow down and breathe.
Transcript
S2E09- Stay Mindful in Chaotic Times
Maria: Hello and welcome to the Becoming Mindful Podcast. This episode, having a smaller mini episode, and we want to talk about, how to ground, how to stay calm and collect, collected, and mindful in hard and overwhelming times like they are today. And I am Maria.
Jackie: And I am Jackie, and we are becoming mindful.
Maria: Yeah. So I think for this episode we probably want to be a little bit more practice heavy. so I think we sh if you want to start us off with a nice practice, that would be awesome Jackie.
Jackie: Sure. when we’re talking about trying to stay grounded and, centered, especially when maybe things are a little chaotic, breathing techniques can be so helpful. Okay. And so let’s begin with one of those and then we can kind of talk about it afterwards. So wherever you are, um, find a comfortable seat.
Um, if you can place your feet flat on the ground, you can do this exercise anywhere though. just take a moment. You can close your eyes if that’s comfortable for you and safe for you right now. Just take a few moments to settle into your seat. To let your mind settle. Let your breath become calm.
Try to let go of whatever you were doing before this podcast and just let your mind settle on your breath. See if you can feel your breath.
Notice where you feel the breath the most. Maybe it’s in the rise and fall of your belly, or maybe it’s, you can feel your breath in your nostrils a little cooler as you inhale warm as you exhale.
Maybe it’s in the back of your throat. See where it is for you today,
and just watch it. Just feel it.
Then we’ll move into a very simple breath exercise that is designed for calming and centering. We’re going to count our inhales and count our exhales. And we’ll slowly extend the length of our exhale. So we’ll begin inhaling four and exhaling four, and we’ll increase the count of the exhale each round.
So exhale fully to prepare, and then take an inhale for 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale for four three. Two, one. Inhale for 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale for 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale for six, five. 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale for 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale for 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Longest one. Inhale for 4, 3, 2. One exhale for 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale for four,
exhale for eight. Count silently to yourself.
Inhale for four,
exhale for eight.
Do a couple more rounds in your own breath. Your own count.
Wherever you are, finish up your round of breath, and on your next breath, take your inhale for four and take the longest, slowest exhale you can.
And when you come to the bottom of that exhale, you can release and just pause, come back to natural breath. We’ll all meet there.
As you pause, notice how you feel.
Just let yourself be here. Notice the space you’ve created
and try not to fill it back up right away
and know that you always have this space available to you.
When you’re ready, you can gently open your eyes,
come back to the moment.
Alright. Thank you for the joining me in that practice.
Maria: Thank you for leading us through the practice.
Jackie: Yeah, extended exhales are a really great way to engage the parasympathetic nervous system and reset. So at any time you can come back to that. and a few techniques you could use are, um, in yoga, it’s called UJA breathing, where you can. Constrict the back of your throat slightly and kind of make a ocean sound or Darth Vader sound with your inhales and exhales just,
and that can slow your exhale for you. And, um, if you like tools with your practice as well. I brought my, little necklace here. that’s just a little tube. And so take an inhale and as you exhale, you can exhale through the tube. Just to help you control that exhale and make it slower and smaller.
so sometimes it’s hard to engage that, I guess patience, of slowing your exhale. So sometimes a little tool can help or a little technique. So, yeah, take that with you. Um, as you leave the pod today.
Maria: Yeah. I really like how a lot of the, pretty much everything centers us breath. I. It’s
Jackie: Yeah,
tool that connects everything. free and you’ve always got it.
Maria: Yes. And you have it with you all the time. It connects so many things. It’s so amazing and it connects you, your. If you focus on it, it connects your conscious mind to your subconscious mind,
Jackie: it connects you to your body
you to Earth and everyone else
you have the oxygen cycle.
Maria: Right. And
Jackie: right. Right.
Maria: very, such a cool thing.
Jackie: that’s also why it was looked at such an important piece in. A lot of the East philosophies in religion and practices.
Yeah. In, uh, in yoga, a philosophy, they. It’s said that you don’t measure your life in years, but in number of breaths. And the idea is to, breathe slowly and consciously and, um, that will bring you longevity. Yeah.
Maria: Yeah, I mean, it’s so ins you know, I’ve read something about, I. How breath is like really important in a lot of areas and languages too. just if you think about, the word inspiration for example means like breathing in, you know, so it, it comes from inspire,
Jackie: Yeah,
Maria: and your breath is a, a messenger, like as you were saying in the beginning of the podcast, it, it can tell you, what is happening in the current moment if you tap in and see what your breath is doing. if you listen to it, you can understand, how your body is responding to the world so much better.
Jackie: And, and listen to, it’s kind of like the voice of your body, like your body talking to your mind, and being able to tell you, how it’s responding, what stimulus it’s, it’s receiving. and vice versa too. We can consciously affect our breath as well, which means we can change our state.
You know, like when we do a practice like we just did, and we can engage the parasympathetic nervous system and tell our body that it’s okay to calm down and we don’t need to be in fight or flight we can use the breath to. bring back some homeostasis between ourselves and our environment and our body and, and everything.
Maria: Yeah, it’s like a very, it’s like a connecting, a very connecting, element.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: you know, you were just talking about how we can affect our, our body the breath, which, this is what the practice was about. But yeah, I, I, I agree. It’s also the brain is also informed by the breath. Also, I think, you know, not only to calm you down, there’s so many different, applications too. if you think about getting yourself fired up, like you can do that too.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: bring yourself into action from kind of like a, you know, like a morning, you know, like if a wake up thing or something like that.
So
Jackie: IM impact yourself with in that way as well.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. we did extended exhales in the, uh, beginning of the podcast to engage our parasympathetic nervous system. But like you said, for activation, you can focus on the inhale. and there’s a number of different techniques to, engage the inhale and bring your energy up and liven you.
there’s so many ways in our current world that we hinder the breath, like our, our posture or when we’re sitting at a computer or looking at a screen and our diaphragms become very weak from. How we sit. And, the diaphragm is, is so very neglected in, in our current society and it’s the muscle of breathing.
And we end up compensating and using different muscles for breath and that restricts our breathing. And,when we were talking about how the breath talks to the mind and, and vice versa. When you’re artificially constricted just from posture,that can put you more readily into fight or flight and stress and cortisol and, it’s, even though it’s if things are crazy and life is stressful, but sometimes we’re just adding to that with, with not having open breath.
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. You’re essentially cutting off some of the communication and isolating the parts more again, right?
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah. And
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: the whole. I think that’s that leads then to other things like certain coping mechanisms and not dealing with your
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: because you’re not connected to them
Jackie: much. Well, I mean, it’s the simple thing of, when you’re upset and take a deep breath, I’m teaching my kid that and it’s just such a basic thing that we all know. But it does, like, if you can stop and pause, take a real deep breath into your belly, it’s gonna reset you, it’s, it’s going to bring you back.
Yeah.
Maria: yeah. And how interesting though, it, we are pretty much taught not to feel that, not to do that.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah.
So, and I think it’s a very important to be in that communication. With your body and your nervous system and. You know, we’ve talked about this before, this different layer of intelligence, right? this right there is that too. Like, yes, you have
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: analytical mind, how you can analyze or overanalyze how you’re feeling or how you’re,
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: how you’re, um, how you think, how the outside affects you or, you know, you could over worry and you can, all those kind of things or deny things, right?
Jackie: Mm-hmm.
Maria: if you don’t access those other intelligences, those somatic intelligences, then you’re missing out.
Yeah, completely.
and especially in resilience. ’cause I think practicing the breath you practice, Somatic connection. and all of those things allow you to be more resilient when there actually is trouble or when are events going on in the world that are
Jackie: or worrisome you can, something to, you can fall back on.
Right.
Absolutely. A hundred percent. And. Learning how to do that and being able to do that when things are really stressful, or say when you’re triggered or, when something catastrophic happens in the world or when you’re scared about the state of the world. If you can come back to your breath and breathe and bring that.
Calmness back to your breath, then that’s going to again, come back to your mind and say, okay, I don’t need to be in fight or flight right now. And it allows you to be mindful, pause and find some clarity in the moment, rather than being reactive. You can be intentional, your breath can be that tool to change your behavior, to change how you respond to things.
To change your habits. When you have no control over the chaos of the world, you can have control over your response to it. You know your, what action you take,
Maria: Yeah.
Jackie: the breath is the tool for that. I.
Maria: you can get out of being reaction. Like a reaction than what you, like you said, an intentional action. So it lets you be, safe and then from there you can work with the breath to to do intentional action instead of reaction,
Jackie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maria: that is actually, helpful. In kind,
Jackie: Right.
Maria: that’s another thing is like if we are not, if we are in this fight or flight mode, oftentimes we defend ourselves,
Jackie: or things like that. Which is, is totally natural in fight or flight, you’re going to protect yourself. taking that moment to breathe and realizing that you are. Safe in this situation. And you, you don’t need to react in that way. And there are other options. it’s so simple.
It’s such a simple thing to do, but it’s not easy. it’s very difficult. It’s so hard. we all know that. But, that’s why, like things like meditation and practice. Or, yoga, like anything that you can do to practice that skill of coming back to your breath and coming back to your breath and just practicing the habit of being mindful will make it easier in the moment.
Not easy, but easier.
Maria: Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, we’ve talked about this before. There’s obviously a distinction between it being, connecting and ultimately helpful versus being comfortable. Right? It’s not always comfortable, but that’s
Jackie: The intent.
right.
Maria: It, the whole practice of it is really, being more resilient.
And if you’re not uncomfortable, you can’t being resilient.
Jackie: I, it’s, it’s so funny because, we find comfort, inconsistency, right? So even if that’s, being stressed and, having. A tight breath, a tight diaphragm, shallow breath. we get into that comfort pattern and now that’s what feels good for us. So slowing and pausing and taking long breaths can be really challenging and uncomfortable and not feel good at first.
But, it’s because we, we can, get into these patterns that are. Ways of getting through the day. Right.
Maria: what we, what we need oftentimes, but, so you have to create this new pattern and there’s gonna be a little friction.
Yeah.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: Yeah. It’s also a way of getting. Again, getting out of fight or flight so you can
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: grow and learn and act, right? Because in fight or flight you can’t, in fight or flight, you only react, but it
Jackie: there’s, that’s okay because that’s what it’s designed for. If there’s a genuine, situation. need to be in fight or flight, and you need to react quickly.
You know, if you, if you engage higher brain functions, they’re not gonna be as quick, so you’re not
stop yourself from falling down the cliff if you have to think about it.
right.
Maria: so there is, there’s that, but in our society, there’s often a lot of situations that are not immediately dangerous to you and. In those situations, it is very important, and people can spiral into anxiety patterns and so it’s, it’s very important that we practice it. But yes, the practice, you need to bring yourself out of fight or flight. You need to be safe. And when you, when you do that, then you can practice being with the uncomfortableness of it, and that’s what it’s gonna be. so interesting. I don’t know, I don’t know who said it, but I was just reading something about, you know, the focus on the breath. And, you know, when you, when you Dr. You, you, your, thoughts drift away and you catch yourself and you gently bring yourself back to the breath. And then, don’t know who said it, but it’s like saying this moment of where you go away with your thoughts and you catch yourself. that is the practice
Jackie: are supposed to be drifted, be caught away or led
thoughts. You’re supposed to be led away by your thoughts. And because that is the only moment where you can catch yourself and have that awareness moment, where you say like, oh, and that’s the moment, right? That leading back and that that, recognizing. And then the practice is essentially just to recognize that sooner and sooner, right?
It’s about teaching your brain not to be carried away by whatever thought strolls into your head. that moment is what meditation is. That moment of, oh, I’m thinking and intentionally bringing your focus back is that’s the practice, that’s the practice.
and if, if, yeah, if you, if that happens and which it will, that means you’re doing it, Right, and when you meditate, you can come back to your breath, 10, a hundred, a million times as many times as it happens. that’s the practice. That’s all we’re doing. You don’t have to stop your thoughts. You’re not trying to get to no thoughts. It’s just come back, gently, come back,
Maria: know
Jackie: gently come back.
Back.
Maria: our brain
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: to have thoughts, like that’s what it does.
Jackie: And I mean, you, eventually you’ll get, you can get to a point where they start to become more background noise and they don’t take you away anymore. They’re still there, but they’re not taking you away from your focus. And,
Maria: But
Jackie: yeah, it’s
Maria: Yeah. They’re not
Jackie: right. You’re, it’s, I, I heard a, an analogy once from my, um, meditation instructor who said.
You know, telling your brain not to think is like telling your eyes not to see. if your eyes are open, they’re, they’re seeing things, there’s stimulus coming in, and your brain’s gonna do the same thing. It’s going to be processing things. It’s gonna be processing thoughts, so you’re not gonna turn it off you.
Maria: But you can decide not to focus on it.
Jackie: Exactly.
Maria: to have stuff blurry in the background and not
Jackie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maria: or even, not even. Yeah. And then you can focus on the breath. Yeah.
Jackie: is another practice for a chaotic world. all those things are happening, but especially if you have no control over it, there’s nothing you need to do in the moment. practice coming back to yourself and your breath and your grounding, your immediate surroundings. doing practices like, uh.
If you’ve heard of that, like when you’re in chaos and, and you need to really come back. This is actually a technique for, um, I think like anxiety and panic attacks as well, is, you come back to your senses, you come back to what’s really around you. So you can name five things, you can see four things.
You can, you can touch three things. You can smell like Yeah, you’re, you just go through the senses. just naming things around you because it just brings you back into what’s real, what’s tangible, what’s in front of you. and that’s kind of essentially the same practice as, as meditation is coming back to your breath.
But
Maria: Yeah.
Jackie: yeah,
I, I love that I,
Maria: coming back to senses because now includes the body scan and
Jackie: yep.
Maria: in my
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: because we have more than five senses, right? We also
Jackie: sense, and we have the sense of our body and our organs and everything inside, right? So there’s are additional census to the traditional five that we know. I think they even, suspect that there’s even more, but that’s obviously not, not quite clear yet. but I. energies and all those things that, obviously people that that happens, but it’s not scientifically proven, I guess.
Maria: let’s just say, you know, adding the two that we for sure know, are there, like gravitational sense your bodily sense, then it is. You come back to your bo feeling your body, the grounding to the earth, right?
Jackie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maria: That’s why that’s so important too, because it’s a part of coming to your senses as well.
Jackie: Yeah, it’s like the idea, uh, too of, just walking barefoot outside to, to, come back to that as well. can be very grounding, very centering. it’s all about, coming back into your body and into, Where you are right now, the world, your connection to the world and your connection to yourself.
and the breath is a great tool for that. Your sense, all your, your senses are a great tool for that. yeah.
Maria: Yeah, So, yeah, and connecting to nature. I think I. Being outside if possible, or seeing at least a sliver of sky is so important, which is because it, it’s a very easy tool calm yourself and to get into a mindful state. just looking, even just looking at nature and like feeling nature. We’ve talked about the forest bathing, the Japanese forest bathing before, just the, being part of that. Cycle and ecosystem of some of nature,
Jackie: we are
Yeah.
Maria: like feeling that and experiencing that instead of being
Jackie: Right?
Maria: where you can’t see anything outside feel anything outside,
Jackie: and it becomes more and more apparent how important that is, is when you think about when you can’t be in nature,
can’t have, when you don’t have a window, when you, where you can’t access that connection. right.
Maria: and then compare it to when you had, once, when you experienced that before.
Jackie: such a stark difference. and another reason why it’s important to practice this because when you practice, you can go back there, you
go back to that moment as well. It’s also kind of an anchor to moment.
right. Yeah. pretty much everything that we’re talking about, how to be mindful in chaotic times is to, come back to yourself and remember that you are okay that are breathing and you are,have everything you need in this specific moment. And then secondly, that you are connected to the world.
That you are part of nature, that you are here in this world, you know? So tapping into your breath and your connection with the rest of the world, with nature, with your senses, all of that is gonna bring you back centered again when the chaos of the world just tries to steal you away.
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny, uh, I was actually just talking with my daughter the other day. I don’t know what it let, why it came up. I think it was something about, know, she can’t be alone outside and go in the pool without someone there. something. I think that’s what brought it up, but it led to the point where she said something like that.
but you know, we are never alone. There’s all the animals and plants around you all the time.
Jackie: Aw, I love it.
Maria: so adorable because yes, you are never alone.
Jackie: That is so sweet. I love kids. Geez. Aw
Maria: So that really stuck with me. I’m like, no, you are never alone.
Jackie: yeah. That’s nice. Is that it? Is that why nature’s so calming? You just feel, I don’t know. We, we, I, we just forget that we are nature.
Maria: Yeah, exactly.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: feel like you’re part of something and you’re connected. I think that, isolation we feel if we are not in nature more isolated. No, I mean obviously if you have other people around you, that’s, thats also, there’s connection there.
Jackie: But
Maria: that, what’s, I think it’s a Serbian proverb that says, um. Be humble for you are made of earth, be noble for you are made of stars.
And it’s like, yeah, we’re made of stars, we’re made of earth. that’s what we are. And yeah.
We’re all made up the same stuff, same elements that are in the universe, And it’s very cool.
Jackie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maria: Yeah. And yeah, that’s another thing. It’s like you can remember that cosmic connection and that.
Jackie: And
Yeah.
Maria: of the beauty, that’s everywhere. In the smallest thing, in the smallest grain of sand,
Jackie: When you consider the vastness of everything, everything, every little thing is so incredible that it is.
But that’s another thing that we lose when we’re not mindful, you know, when we’re taken away by all this chaos, like you said, awe and inspiration. All those things reside in the pause, in, in mindfulness, in the, in the moment. And, um, yeah, we lose out on that when we’re not, when we’re just running around all the time.
Maria: Yeah, and if you, if you’re spiritual or religious in some kind of way, also affects you that way. like the connection to, you know what you wanna call it, divinity or God resides in the moment,
Jackie: Mm-hmm.
Maria: in that pause. Like otherwise you can’t feel it
Jackie: All right.
Maria: rushing around or just worrying like I.
And not connecting to the moment and to yourself in the world and the universe, and some people call it God, then that’s where you do it.
Jackie: broadly you could call it connection, or inter interconnectedness or something like,
Maria: Yeah.
However you define that
Yeah,
Jackie: however you express them.
Maria: Exactly. However you wanna experience that. That’s right.
Jackie: Mm-hmm.
Maria: and something that is really at the center of it.
Jackie: again, that, that this all, it’s all connected, right? It’s all connected
Yeah.
Maria: is connected with the ability to, experience our and beauty in the world.
Jackie: Yeah. Yeah. And all those practices we’re talking about are reminding you that you’re connected. feeling your breath is, your breath, is this connection to the world, to your body. Your senses are your connection to the whole world. we need to come back to that. Yeah.
Maria: It’s reminding you of what’s natural, what are you made for,
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: your body is, this is how your body works and
Uhhuh. Yeah. very important.
Jackie: so let’s wrap up with, a little breath focused meditation. this is,my style of meditation samatha vippassana , and, we’ll just do a quick little practice. And if you have time, wherever you are, you can sit and continue this meditation for as long as you want.
but we’ll take a, a mini practice here. So find a comfortable seat wherever you are. Um, if you’re sitting in a chair, try to sit away from the back. So you’ve got, an erect spine, you’re sitting up straight. You can close your eyes if it’s comfortable for you, or take a soft gaze if you prefer Wherever you are, just let your shoulders relax down your back.
Let yourself sink into your seat,
and with a strong back, let your belly soften. Let the area around your heart soften. Let your front body be open,
and as you settle here, let the muscles of your face soften. Let your jaw soften
the area between your eyes.
No. Place your awareness on your breath.
Notice where you feel it, and keep your awareness there. As you breathe naturally,
feel your inhale. Feel your exhale.
And as you breathe, your mind will continue to make thoughts. No problem. Just let them fade into the background while keeping your awareness on the breath.
If at any point you notice that your mind and your awareness have been taken away from your breath on a thought notice and label that as thinking, I’m thinking, and then gently let it go. And kindly return your awareness back to your breath.
You can do this as many times as you need.
Continue to let your breath be soft.
As your mind wanders, gently bring it back and begin. Begin again.
I will sit silently for one more minute.
And if you have the time, invite you to sit here and continue your meditation. If not, you can conclude your meditation by opening your eyes coming back into the moment.
I thank you so much for joining us for that practice and for the pod. Yeah.
Maria: Thank you. Everyone will leave you with this today and hope to see you again next time.
Jackie: Yeah, be well.
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