3 ways to embody mental calmness when meditation is not enough!

Ever found yourself searching for the perfect self-help book or professional to help you tackle the different crises that are thrown at you?

If the answer is yes, how long were you able to make the behaviour changes stick to tackle these ongoing crises?

Here’s the truth: Changing your brain and body’s capacity to react in new ways requires a mental fitness transformation. This encompasses deep self-learning and discovery, ongoing daily practice of new behaviours, and the support of professionals trained in the neuroscience of change.        

That’s what helped me when I felt overwhelmed, lost, and desperate for a change that would stick.

I used to think that people who were all about embracing calmness were a little bit woo-woo! I also thought I was calm, and it wasn’t rocket science.

I could just switch on my Headspace app and calmness would flow from the meditation exercises. I had no idea about what true mental calmness felt like or the impact this could have on my health and success in general.

When I moved to Germany in 2020 and was half-way through my pregnancy, I started to have an internal struggle with the paradoxes of who I was, who I wanted to become in this new country, and what type of mother I wanted to become.

This struggle was compounded by the fact that it was during Covid, and we had moved to a very Catholic region that felt like it was stuck in the 1950’s, when it came to gender equality.

If you are a working parent and/or a parent that has recently had a child, can you relate? Do any of these struggles trigger your stress responses?

• Never feeling like you can be great at being a new mum and exceptional at your job!
• Wondering if your body will ever be the same?
• Experiencing worry about whether your child is being raised by kind and nurturing adults at nursery or school?
• Will you ever be able to travel for work again and not miss your child?
• Or feel pains of guilt, even as your partner travels and no one questions it?

My internal struggles about my lack of identity combined with this societal conditioning felt like there was an internal battle in my head–and it was on 24/7.

A battle between the negative emotions of stress, self-doubt, worry, regret, not being enough vs. empathy, curiosity, and self-confidence. Let’s just say the negative emotions initially won the battle, but not the war!

The overwhelm triggered by these emotions kept shifting my brain into task mode, turning off the default mode of my brain, which limited my ability to be truly empathetic and present with my family and friends.

I kept trying to do more as society expected me to ensure my son was hitting his milestones and I needed to make everything perfect. But this was exhausting and triggered so much judgment and negativity about myself.

When I did manage to feel the least bit good about the tasks, I had challenged myself to achieve in the day–like a diligent mum would– my controller, pleaser, and perfectionist would appear berating me.

My voice sounded like this: “Ellie, it's not that hard to do everything. Other mums have 4 kids, and they manage. You need to get better at planning your schedule so your son doesn’t realise you are failing him.”

To be sincere, I was at a breaking point. I knew I could either:

1. Embrace the negativity and continue to have conflict within myself and with others, or
2. Change how I saw, responded, and managed my reality through changing myself.

I chose to look for professionals to support me and help me look deep inside so that I could eventually embrace my imperfection and shift into a more loving, self-accepting, and powerful me.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was at the beginning of my journey to transform my entire way of thinking to one that had the mental fitness of a warrior.

The journey towards embracing a true warrior mindset- Mental Calmness

Like a true warrior, I chose to put an end to the conflict within myself and strived to understand myself to create inner harmony through embracing a positive mindset.

That sounds simple, right? Yet, I couldn’t just turn on and start being positive or find out the formula in a book. Otherwise, the journey may have been quite different and the outcome not as profound.

Here are a few of the ways that was able to reframe and shift my brain towards seeing positivity and possibility amid stress and self-doubt and you can, too:

1)??? Practise noticing and getting curious when your mind starts to race. When you notice that you have more negative thoughts than usual or your thoughts are in overdrive, berating you at 100 mph. Try to pause, breathe and just watch these negative thoughts and get curious:

• What is the impact these thoughts are having on my body?
• Where do you feel the sensations more? (e.g., head, heart, chest, stomach).
• How much time are you experiencing negative vs. positive emotions?

2)??? Like an expert detective, investigate what impact your negative/overwhelming thoughts have on your behaviour with others.

We are often unconscious of how we truly show up with other people in relation to the emotional tone we apply to our words, our body language, the posture, and shape of our body, and the energy we bring when interacting with each other.

• Notice if you are judging yourself harshly or others. Even if you’re not saying things to people out loud, you are likely unconsciously saying something.
• Ask your loved ones and friends to mirror you and tell you about any of your unconscious outer behaviours, such as energy, emotional tone, body language and shape.
• And once you understand your unconscious behaviours, choose how you would like to show up with others. What would be different for you? How can you embody these new behaviours?

3)??? Replace judgement with curiosity and notice what happens next.

?When we judge ourselves and others, we often restrict how we see the world from a place of limited beliefs and no possibilities.

What if:

• You could take a pause when you are about to judge yourself or others, and;
• Become curious and truly put yourself in the perspective of an explorer and see through the eyes and walk in the shoes of others.

Play a game called “suppose.” Here’s an example of how you can do this:

If you found out that your child was hit by another child at nursery or school, rather than judging the child for being a bully or their parents, imagine a few other possibilities:

• What was it that triggered the child to hit?
• How are the parents feeling about it? What are the challenges that the parents are experiencing at home?
• Which part of the story do you agree with, even if it’s just 10%?
• What are the possibilities from here?

These are all tools that help you build your mental fitness, which is a way of saying that you shift the part of your brain that goes to negativity to protect you.

And you build the capacity and resilience to recover from life’s challenges more quickly through seeing the gifts and possibilities in every challenge.

This helps reduce the amount and duration of negative emotions. From a neuroscience perspective, it helps provide greater integration between your left and right hemispheres of your brain. Where you have the perfect balance of big picture, empathy and creative thinking combined with focus and planning.

It’s only from this place you can be more effective in relationships with yourself, with others and have the clarity to make the choices that will serve you.

If you are ready to take control of your mental resilience, I invite you to complete this free Saboteur assessment to identify which negative voices (saboteurs) you have and how they shape your belief patterns and emotions.?

Contact us to find out how mental fitness can help improve your mental resilience, wellbeing, and your relationships!

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