mental health week tool #1: Meditation

This week is Mental Health week and this month is Mental Health Awareness month.   As you know from my previous post, mental health is a big conversation in our household.  When my husband went through his struggle with depression, it wasn't just his own mental health that was at stake, but also my own and that of our daughter. This week, I want to share with you some of the ways that I helped myself through that challenging time, and not only survived, but honestly thrived.  I am now truly grateful for the struggle of the past year because I learned lessons that shifted how I treat myself, my husband and our life together as a family.  

The very first and most potent practice that I put into play was a daily mediation practice.  When that overall atmosphere of our home was filled with the energy of sadness and depression, I knew that I had to calibrate my own energy from within.  Meditation is a powerful tool that puts us in touch with ourselves so that we may know where we stand in our own minds and hearts.  You cannot change what you aren't aware of and so from these sittings with myself, I was able to cultivate awareness around how I was focusing my energy and my thoughts. I discovered the ways that I was really serving myself well and the ways that I was not.  Having that information allowed me to create a shift in what I chose to focus on and how I hold my inner space.  

When I moved off of my meditation cushion, I began to notice in the daily moments of my life where I was able to be more intentional with what I thought, said and did.  This was incredibly helpful because while I had absolutely no control over my husband's mindset and the disease of depression, I was able to take control of my own and this truly created an overall shift in the entire household.  As we both got healthier in how we treated ourselves, we were able to raise the energy of our home as individuals, in our marriage and as a family.  Creating a regular meditation practice is truly one of the most potent and practical things we can do to expand our consciousness and raise our mental health.  When once there was a time that it seemed designated only for yogis and the crunchy granola type (myself included), meditation is now something that more and more people are embracing as a daily self-care tool. 

And meditation doesn't have to look the same for everyone.  There are literally hundreds of ways that you can meditate and one way that works for someone may be totally different for someone else.  With my coaching clients, I record personalized meditations for what they are experiencing and we work together to create a plan to make it a daily practice and habit.  Having someone to check in with and offer accountability also gives us the ability to implement the practice efficiently.  For me, it was working with my own teachers and mentors that supported me to keep going, even when there were moments when I couldn't see past the fog of my own mind and circumstances.  I am grateful to each of them for their wisdom and inspiration and grateful that I now get to pass it on in my own work. 

If you would like to set up an initial coaching call to see how we can make my offerings work for you, click HERE. 

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