Avinash

Lars Lundgren

Mu Un

Brattleboro

Lytham St Annes, Lytham Saint Annes, UK

Marie

Kristin Borgwald

Miami, FL, USA

Jim Lee

Columbus, MS, USA

Mike

Firestone, CO, USA

Jennifer

Minneapolis, MN, USA

Wendy

Newcastle, ME, USA

Heather MacDermott

Raymond Terrace, Australia

Reprogram your mindset to see the positives, and cultivate peace and happiness in your life.

Understanding Your Auto-pilot

 Hello, this is Joni Staff Sturgill and welcome to the first session of Cultivating a more positive mindset in 10 days This is session 1 Understanding your autopilot in this session You'll gain some insight into your mind and its automatic responses to life circumstances And we'll practice how to mindfully watch our thoughts without judging them This is a practice. So be patient and gentle with yourself So let's get started It's really important for us to have inner awareness of what's going on inside in our thoughts in our bodies in our energy in our emotions But we're really particularly focusing on thoughts in the mind It's really challenging to Sometimes step back and look at your thoughts and see them as just thoughts We are so entangled with that voice in our head that we take it as fact When in reality that voice in our head is simply a perspective That is looking through a lens that was created by all our past experiences our history our family upbringing Everything that's happened to us and even things that have happened in previous generations All of that creates our perspective So knowing that it's important to realize that our thoughts are just that They are thought waves, something that passes through our mind and not necessarily fact So that's the first step. It's recognizing that your thoughts are not necessarily facts But rather it's just a perspective just one perspective on reality So when you start to be able to pause and Notice the thoughts that are running through your mind You'll be able to label them you'll be able to label them as a negative thought as a positive thought or even just a thought and So let's get started practicing this with a little mindfulness exercise And this is just about how to get in touch with yourself on the on the inside So sit comfortably you could even lie down for this practice Make sure that you're comfortable and that your spine is long. So whether you're sitting upright or laying flat You want to be able to breathe freely Once you get settled take just one deep breath deep breath in and And exhale with a sigh And relax your body Relax your whole being Now I invite you to look inward and just notice how your body feels in this moment How does your body feel? Are there places where you feel tension? tightness soreness areas of chronic discomfort Notice how your body and particularly those areas of discomfort Feel right now What are sensations that are present right now? And now notice your energy level and what I mean by energy level is your level of wakefulness Are you tired? Wide awake or somewhere in between? Notice your mood and how you're feeling Can you name an emotion that's present? Perhaps just by saying to yourself inside I feel Whatever is there let it be there. You're allowed to feel however you feel It's important for us to just recognize it and start to notice where your mind has already wandered What are your thoughts about? Often our thoughts are ways of reliving the past We're reviewing something that's already happened. Maybe different scenarios of what could have been Or our thoughts take us into all the possible variations of the future So just start to notice whatever comes up in your mind and see if you can label it past or future You could also simply just label a thought as a thought Because that's all it is In order to do this practice, we need to have an anchor point for focus So let's focus our attention on our natural breath. So we're not breathing in any particular way here We're just breathing naturally Focus on the sensations at your nose The movement of your chest your ribcage or your belly And just feel that sensation of each inhale and each exhale And try to stay focused there But notice what happens Thoughts usually arise in the mind and distract us So notice if that happens, notice what your thought is about And practice noticing it And then letting it go If this is a frustrating practice for you, if your mind feels really busy or if you notice a lot of inner criticism It's okay to take a couple of deep breaths Take those deep breaths, notice the thought and then let it just pass on through the way a cloud passes through the sky Keep coming back to feeling your breath And if you notice your inner voice, notice what the inner voice says And if your inner voice again is criticizing you, telling you you're not doing enough Be gentle with yourself, imagine that your inner voice is like you're speaking to a puppy or a young child You wouldn't be harsh to a puppy or a young child So try to cultivate your inner voice to be more gentle You could also simply be curious and light-hearted and be open-minded You could also simply be curious and light-hearted and if your mind is really busy and you're struggling to focus You could just say, huh, there's that inner heckler again And then let it go and refocus on an inhale and an exhale Be patient with yourself in this process This is our first core practice It is a very simple mindfulness practice Where you're focusing on the breath but you're watching for that noise of the mind to arise You're looking at the noise of the mind and you're watching it, you're labeling it You're allowing yourself space to have insight about the content of your mind Is it about the past? Is it about the future? Is it negative? Is it positive? What are your thoughts about? You notice and then you let go And again, just keep practicing, returning to the breath and noticing the mind This is a simple practice that I'm going to invite you to do on your own for the next few days I want you to set a timer for five minutes You can begin by taking a few deep breaths And then you're just going to sit and focus on the sensations of your body breathing And you're going to notice what comes up in your mind Notice the thoughts in your mind and then let them go If you get frustrated with yourself, practice relaxing your physical body And that can help you to relax your mind and the content of your inner voice But right now we're just getting you used to watching and looking and getting familiar with what is going on in your head So try to be accepting of yourself, whatever thoughts are going through your head, it is okay They are just thoughts So remember that and even say that to yourself These are just thoughts, I'm noticing them and then I'm going to let them go and refocus on my breathing You'll do this as a practice again and again for five minutes a day If any particular thoughts seem to repeat themselves, I invite you to write them down in a journal And then turn the page and let them go I hope to see you in session two where we will advance in this practice Thanks for joining me

Journaling for Understanding

 Hi, this is Joni Staff-Stergel. Welcome back to Cultivating a More Positive Mindset in 10 Days. So it's been a couple days since you did session one and you learned how to just practice looking at your thoughts and recognizing what's going on in there. Hopefully you are on your way to labeling your thoughts and to practicing being gentle with yourself. So we're going to expand upon that practice today in session two. And in session two, we are going to be doing some journaling for understanding. Now, hang in there, even if you've never kept a journal before, or if you are someone who doesn't like to write, I really want to invite you and encourage you to be open to this idea, at least just for this session, just for today. I'm going to offer you a mindfulness practice to start, and then we're going to follow up with some specific prompts. I'll leave you a little bit of time to either write or reflect on your responses. And then I'll offer some journaling suggestions for you to practice for the next couple of days. So let's get started. First with a practice, sit or lie down, be comfortable, and keep your spine nice and long so you can breathe freely. And once you're in that position, take a deep breath in and exhale with a sigh, really softening, letting go of any tension in the body. And we'll again start with looking inward, first noticing the body and seeing if you can soften around the edges of any strong sensations that you notice. Notice your energy level. Are you tired? Wide awake or somewhere in between? Notice any emotions that are present. How are you feeling? And notice what thoughts might have already arisen in your mind. Where are your thoughts today? Where's your mind? The past, the future? Is your inner heckler noisy today? Today, we're going to refocus our attention on being grounded. So feel the contact you have with the floor, the contact you have with the chair, or if you're lying down in a bed, that support from underneath you. Feeling the planes of contact or all the points of contact between your body and that support from underneath. Let yourself rest heavy into that support and keep bringing your attention back to those points of contact that are supporting you. If your mind wanders, notice, label, and let go. Imagine that you could be rooted like a tree, reaching deep into the earth, anchoring yourself. Feel that anchor in this spot in the here and now. And now notice your breath and start to deepen your breath, long, slow. Inhale through the nose, allowing your belly and your ribcage to expand as you breathe in. And then breathing out either through the nose or through the mouth. Slow, controlled exhale, emptying, emptying, emptying the lungs. Relaxing the belly every time you breathe in, expanding belly and ribcage with each inhalation. Slow breath out, little by little, emptying, emptying, drawing the belly in at the bottom of your exhale as if you're squeezing all that stale air out of your body. Take one more deep breath like this, and then relax the breathing again. And go ahead and open your eyes if they were closed or make some small movements just to bring an awakened quality to the body and the mind. So notice how you feel. Notice how you feel right now and reflect on anything that came up while you did that brief practice. I invite you to reflect on any particular thoughts that perhaps you found repeated when you would sit to do your mindfulness practice. Are there any particular thoughts that arise again and again? What are they about? Perhaps it's a specific thought around self doubt or feeling around self doubt. Perhaps it is criticism for a busy mind. Perhaps you have something else running through your head. But what is it that you've noticed over the last few days about your mind? Take a moment to write that down or to just contemplate. It's so important to practice being curious about what's in your mind and trying to be as objective as possible in your perspective. We want to avoid beating ourselves up, but rather we want to strengthen our inner observer so that we are able to be more objective about ourselves. We're able to see when we make mistakes and we can acknowledge them and admit them without letting it destroy us or destroy our confidence and that we can celebrate ourselves when we do something wonderful, that we can allow ourselves to feel proud. Notice or consider if you struggle with one of those two things. Do you struggle making mistakes and admitting even to yourself that you made a mistake? Or do you struggle with praise? If someone else praises you or to even praise yourself for doing a good job? What underlying belief is present that drives these thoughts? Can you identify a particular belief that's present? Is it that you're not good enough? Take some notes about this. What is the underlying belief that's creating these kinds of thoughts inside of you? And if you're not quite sure, that's okay. Just write down a couple of guesses. Consider for a moment if you know your family well, consider what their lives were like, perhaps what their childhoods were like. Are you aware of any traumas or challenges that your family members, particularly your parents and grandparents might have faced? Can you be aware of any particular patterns that you've noticed, patterns of behavior, patterns of thought or patterns of self-talk that you've observed in your parents or grandparents? Sometimes it's easier for us to notice things outside of ourselves, but we are connected to family, even if they're not biological family, we are connected and we learn patterns of behavior through those we're closest with. So consider taking a few moments and even pausing to jot down some of the predominant patterns you've noticed in your family. As you're moving through these journaling or thought provoking questions and exercises, I really invite you to practice gentleness and that means we are not doing this to blame or shame you or your family members. We are all human beings on our own path and we all have our past and we all have our traumas and we're all doing the best we can for the most part. So this is not for the purpose of blaming or shaming or cultivating anger, but we're trying to cultivate understanding and insight so that we can better have compassion for ourselves and for those we love. We don't want to cultivate understanding to then cultivate anger. We want to cultivate compassion. We're all on this human journey and we all have things that we have to overcome and sometimes those circumstances, those things are really challenging and we want to give ourselves and others a lot of grace and to trust that we're all trying to do our best, even if it doesn't seem that way. You might want to go back through and listen to these specific questions and prompts and give yourself permission to pause the audio so that you can write more. You might just be able to write and expand upon this more on your own. Let's all take a deep breath here. Deep inhale, long slow exhale. Now in the next couple of days, in addition to fleshing out your answers to the questions I posed here, I invite you to ask yourself the question, why or how come? So before you make a decision, even a small decision like what you're going to eat or what you're going to do with free time, I want you to ask yourself the question, how come? Or why do I want to do this? Why do I want to eat this? And if you don't have an answer for yourself, then I invite you to wait. Don't take action until you can come up with a good sound, healthy answer for yourself. A good reason that feels equanimous to you. And equanimity is all about feeling peace and feeling positive, even amidst challenge. So how can you make decisions to take action based on what will feel most sound to you? So asking yourself why or how come before you do anything, and just notice, jot this down in your journal the next couple days. Let the insight be there. Be curious and be gentle. And I'll see you in a couple days for our next session.

Gratitude is the Attitude

 Hi there and welcome back. This is Joni Staff-Stergel and you are listening to how to cultivate more positive mindset in 10 days. We're in session three. Gratitude is the attitude. Now I know gratitude seems a little cliche these days. You hear it everywhere you go from many different people, many different practitioners, and I know sometimes when I talk about gratitude I get a whole lot of eye rolling, but hang in there with me. I'm going to explain to you in this session why gratitude practices actually help to rewire our brains to enable us to see another perspective. I'll lead you in a gratitude meditation and give you some homework that's really going to be valuable to that process of rewiring. So let's get started. I mentioned early on that our brains are hardwired to see the negative things and that's because our primitive brain, our caveman or cavewoman or caveperson brain, is set to be scanning our environment for the sake of survival. So we are pre-programmed to always be looking for predators. Who's going to hurt me next? Where is there the potential for danger? This is the limbic system part of our brain. In particular, this is the amygdala and when we're under a lot of stress that amygdala takes over the functioning of the brain. We can't have logic and reason when we're in this constant state of fear scanning our environment for danger. One way of managing stress is to do a gratitude practice. It's also a way to shift your mindset to get you away from that place of always seeking danger and seeing what is going wrong. By practicing gratitude, by forcing ourselves on a daily basis to look at and appreciate the little things we can be grateful for, and I'll show you how to do that, we can start to reprogram those neural connections to create new neural connections that will now be helping our brains seek out the good. To seek out what is something that can make me happy today? What can I feel grateful for? Where can I see or feel or hear or smell something joyful? Let's get started in this work by doing a gratitude meditation. So once again, sit or lie down, be comfortable, but keep your spine long. I'm going to be asking you to place your hands on certain parts of the body and that's always optional, but I at least want you to focus your attention on certain parts of the body. So let's begin by just taking a deep breath in and a long slow breath out and then placing your hand on the center of your chest, your heart center, and saying to yourself, I am thankful for my heart, for this heart that beats every minute, every hour, every day, day in, day out, it beats for me, it keeps me alive so that I can experience all that life has to offer. Thank you to this heart that has been broken before, that has felt loss and sadness, but that has also felt love and laughter. With your hand on your chest, with your hand on your heart, have a real true moment of gratitude for this amazing part of you. Thank you, my heart. Bring your hand now to your head, it could be the top of the head or the forehead. And I want you to bring your awareness to your head and inside your head, your brain, this miraculous organ that helps us to function. It carries on so many jobs and fulfills so many responsibilities that we don't even know. That again keeps us going minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Our brains help to keep us functioning. Our wonderful thinking brains that help us to solve problems, that help us to express ourselves. Our wonderful brains that sometimes overthink. Our wonderful brains that sometimes take us down the wrong path and we make mistakes with. Be thankful that you have this amazing organ that governs everything. So with your hand on your head saying, thank you, my wonderful brain. And now bringing your hand ever so lightly to your throat and thinking about your voice. You could even make a little humming sound just to really allow your voice to be out loud in this moment. And be thankful for your voice that enables you to communicate what your heart longs for. Your voice that enables you to share what's on your mind with other people. Your voice that enables you to sing everything that your voice offers you. Have a moment of gratitude that you have a voice that you can use anytime you want. Thank you, my voice. Let's bring our hands to our rib cage, the sides of the ribs or the front of the ribs. Just place one hand or both hands on your rib cage and take a deep breath. Be thankful for your breath and your respiratory system that also works so hard to keep you alive minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. But more than that, our breath, we have learned can help us feel calm when we're stressed. It can help to wake us up when we are tired and fatigued. We can learn to use our breath to help to influence positively our mental and emotional state. Saying thank you thank you to your ribs, your lungs, your diaphragm, all the parts of respiration. Thank you, my breath. Thank you, my breath. And then bringing your hands down to your belly. And one or both hands on your belly and being thankful for your digestive system. Even if your digestive system gives you trouble sometimes one way or another. Be thankful for this digestive system that has digested everything you have eaten, foods that nourish your body, and that you can derive all the essential elements from to support your health and well-being. And thank your digestive system for digesting all the things that maybe weren't so healthy, things that aren't the best for you. Be thankful for this amazing system that helps to nourish us every day, day in and day out, even though it might not be perfect. Hands on your belly. Thank you, my digestive system. And bringing a hand or both hands to a little bit lower than that and bringing awareness to your reproductive system. And whatever your reproductive system is, have a moment of gratitude. Our reproductive systems do so much for us, including produce hormones that make us who we are, that help to keep our bodies healthy and running efficiently, that support us in all kinds of ways. And if you have children, you can be thankful for your reproductive system for giving you those children. And if you don't have children, you can still say thank you to your reproductive system for all the other ways in which it's supported you. And I'm sure you can find at least one way that it's supported you. So just pausing here and saying thank you to my reproductive system, my reproductive organs. Thank you. And then bringing your hands down to your legs. And you can just run your hands along your thighs a few times if you'd like. And being thankful for your legs and your feet, these legs that have carried you, that have helped you get from place to place, that have helped you walk and move and run and dance in any way that you wish. Even if you've had problems with your legs, even if you struggle sometimes, if you have pain in your knees or your ankles, or you have something else going on, being thankful for these legs that have supported you. If not physically, metaphorically, they are our roots, part of us that can help us stay grounded. Thank you, my legs. And then resting your hands just in your lap and taking a deep breath and being thankful for your whole body, inside and out, your whole body, the home for all your experiences, the home for your higher self. Taking another deep breath, feeling that gratitude. And then when you feel ready, go ahead and open your eyes. So I hope you enjoyed that gratitude practice, that self-love gratitude practice for the body. So important for us to practice loving our bodies, even when we're struggling with them. That can help to cultivate a more positive mindset about the body. So your homework for this session is to begin a gratitude journal. And a true gratitude journal looks like this. Every day at the end of the day, you're going to write down in a little notebook or in a note in your phone, three to five things that you are thankful for that day. It doesn't have to be long, it could just be bullet points. The trick here is that in this 30 days, you're not allowed to repeat yourself. So you're going to write down in a notebook, three to five things that you are thankful for that day. And then in the next 30 days, you're not allowed to repeat yourself. So you might be thankful for your best friend, for your pet, for your significant other, only one time. You might be thankful for something specific they do on a given day, that's okay. But you can only be thankful for their existence in your life and you can only be thankful for their existence in your life. And you might feel like you run out of things to be thankful for. And that's when it gets really interesting. You might even have a really bad day and ask yourself, how can I practice gratitude when it seems like everything in my life is falling apart? And so I'm going to give you some tips. Think of the people in your life, who have made you laugh or supported you in some way. You can do this body gratitude meditation, appreciate everything about your body, even if it's not the way that you want it to be. Consider the roof over your head and the food in your fridge or the food that you have access to. These are things that not everyone in the world has. And we can always take a deep breath. And if you're struggling to look for the positive or something you can feel grateful for on a given day, that's okay. You don't have to turn away from the challenges in your life to practice gratitude. It's about broadening your perspective. So hold space for both those challenging things that are happening, acknowledge them and acknowledge something little that you can appreciate that day. The blue sky, some flowers that you saw at the store, the smile on the face of a stranger. This is the practice that will be most transformative for you. So I really want to encourage you to commit to doing it on a daily basis for 30 days. And yes, that is beyond the scope of this program. But I think you'll start to feel it by day 10. I hope you tune back in for our next session and see where we go from here. We're going to be starting to wrap things up and give you more supports to continue on this path of cultivating a more positive mindset.

Authentically Complimenting Yourself and Others

 Welcome back, it's Joni again, and you're here working to improve your mindset toward one that is more positive. We are at session four, Authentically Complementing Yourself and Others. This is a really fun session in my opinion and it really has positive results. So we're going to continue to practice shifting our mindset, that's what this is all about, and we're first going to do a meditation practice and try to find a positive quality about ourselves that we can really sit with and appreciate and feel deeply. And then I'm going to talk to you about how you can take this and use it as a practice when you're out in the world interacting with others. It's a really fun exercise so I want you to do this and incorporate it into any experience you have where you're out interacting with other people, whether it's at work, at the grocery store, or with friends. So first let's begin with a practice about authentically finding something about yourself that you appreciate. So go ahead and sit comfortably or lie down, take a deep breath in and exhale with a sigh trying to relax. And if you already feel hesitant, like you're not sure you can find anything positive about yourself, go ahead and take another deep breath in, and a long slow breath out. I want you to picture in your mind's eye someone who loves you very much, someone who loves you very much. And first of all I want you to think how this person makes you feel when you're with them. What do you feel in your face? What do you feel in your heart? Now this person who loves you very much, think about what they would say about you. If they were asked what is your best quality? What is their most favorite quality about you? What would they say? Let yourself sit with it. Whatever they would say, let yourself sit with it. Hear it and try not to push it away or make excuses or convince yourself why it's not true. If you still have your journal nearby you could even write down the word that they use. Maybe they say that they love your kindness. Write down the word kindness or just repeat it to yourself in your head. We're going to be doing some long slow deep breathing now, so I want you to to pick this word, again this quality that someone you love would say about you. And as we start to deepen our breath I want you to breathe in and say this word to yourself. So for example if the word is kindness, breathe in and I want you to feel that kindness for yourself or whatever the quality is. Feel it inside of you and then as you breathe out I want you to notice what it feels like to share this quality. What is it like to share this quality with others? Breathe in, feel the quality within yourself, even directed towards yourself if you can. Breathe out. What is it like to share this with others? What does it feel like? Try not to think too much with this meditation but focus more on the felt sense of the experience. What does it feel like to embody this quality? Breathe in. What does it feel like to share this quality? Breathe out. And take two more breaths like this, really just feeling this word, this quality, how you embody it. Breathing in and breathing out. And now let go of the deep breathing and open your eyes if they were closed. So important for us to reflect on our strengths. Reflecting on our strengths can help us to find a way to work our way through challenging times and particular to work our way through a time when we're really beating ourselves up inside. So it's whether you ask your best friend, someone who loves you, what is your best quality or you take a personality quiz of some sort to find out what are your best qualities. Get a couple of qualities that are just simple words like humor or kindness or patience and hold space for those within yourself. Acknowledge that these qualities are within you and you can feel them for yourself and then you can share them with others. And so here's what I invite you to do as a practice out in the world when you're around others for the next week or so. I want you to compliment other people that you encounter. Find something in this person whether it is their smile, their eyes, something else about their physical appearance, their voice, their mannerisms, their interaction with you. If someone is kind, thank them for being kind. Say you seem like such a kind person. I appreciate that so much. Or I really like your shoes. They're really funky. I love them. Or I love that bracelet. Boy you have really good taste in jewelry. Find something. Make sure that it's true. I don't want you to just be finding something to say just to say something but really try to look deeply at everyone you encounter and make sure you give a compliment even if it's a really small one to almost everyone you encounter. And then notice how it feels. Often what we don't realize is that sharing positivity with others makes us feel good. So complimenting someone else might make you feel more uplifted. You might end up hearing and feeling someone else's gratitude for the compliment. You might get to see their face light up and you can know that you are helping to boost someone's confidence or improve their day. And what is the saying? You never know what battle someone is fighting. We're all fighting some battle so we want to be kind. So as a way of continuing to reprogram our autopilot brain to be more positive for the next week, compliment almost everyone you interact with. Strangers, coworkers, friends. Give them just a little compliment and notice what happens. Write about the results in your journal. See you back here for our next session.

Putting Positivity to Practice

 Hi there and welcome back. This is Joni and you're listening to Cultivating a More Positive Mindset. We are in our last session today, session 5. And session 5 is all about putting positivity to practice. Changing your mindset takes time, it takes effort, and it most definitely takes practice. We're having to rewire neural pathways in our brain and the only way that happens is we have to continue to practice doing it again and again and again until it becomes habit and I promise one day it will become habit. In this session we're going to summarize what you've learned so far and emphasize what is most important for you to practice so that you can continue on a path of growth. Learning how to hold space for all the experiences that you have in life, the beautiful, wonderful, pleasant ones and the challenging, unpleasant, unhappy times in life because we will experience both. That is simply the nature of life. So I'd like us to begin with a practice that we started with and that is a basic mindfulness practice. Internal awareness, being able to do a little check in, get to know yourself on the inside. This is something you should be able to do on your own but there's also recordings available out there on Insight Timer. I know I have one on my channel and I'm sure there's others out there as well. But I really want you to try and do this practice on your own. So let's do it again together. Get comfortable sitting or in a reclined position. Take a deep breath in and exhale. Either allowing your eyes to close or your gaze to turn downward. I invite you to notice your physical body, particularly checking in with areas where you have had chronic tension, pain, discomfort and notice how they're feeling right now in this moment. Soften around the edges of any strong sensations and then notice your energy level, your level of wakefulness. Are you tired, wide awake or somewhere in between? Notice your mood and how you're feeling. Put a name to your emotions. I feel and then notice where your thoughts take you. Do they take you into the past, into the future? Do you have a noisy inner heckler? Can you practice grounding yourself in the present moment by either feeling the connection you have to the floor or focusing on the natural flow of breath in your body? Stay focused in one of those two places and then just watch what distracts you. Notice the distraction, the mental formation, something physical that distracts you. Notice it, label it and then let it go. Remember what your positive quality is that someone who loves would tell you what is your best quality. Remember that feeling, think of that word or that quality or what that person who loves you would say. Feel that feeling inside. Take a deep breath. Right now in this moment for yourself, name three things that you feel thankful for in this moment. And it's okay if you've already written them on your gratitude list. What do you feel thankful for right now? Take one more deep breath and then open your eyes if they were closed. Maybe give yourself a little stretch. So to keep up with this process of changing your mindset to one that's more positive, it's so important for us to do these practices to do a little check in. We want to notice what our internal state is. We're not trying to push away, bury or ignore any difficulties that we're having. That's not what positivity is about. That's not what positive psychology is about. And that's certainly not the practice we want to be doing. So it's important to recognize and to notice if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling angry, this is why that internal check in is going to be a daily practice that I invite you to do several times a day. It's four things you're checking in with. So jot these down in your journal. You're checking in with how your physical body feels. You're checking in with your energy level. That's your level of wakefulness. You're checking in with your mood and your emotions, how you're feeling. And then you're noticing thoughts in your mind and what they're about. You can always do this by jotting these things down in your journal and simply keeping a log of how you feel physically, energetically, emotionally and mentally where your mind is. That might be a great way of giving you a little bit of insight. And in session two, we talked about how to gain insight from what we notice when we're looking inside. It's important when we're doing a practice like an insight practice, and we're looking objectively at ourselves and trying to learn and be curious about why we are the way we are or why we choose the things the way we choose. But we don't want to overthink. We don't want to overanalyze. So it's really important to be curious but not obsessive about reviewing or reminiscing or ruminating on these things. So really important distinction there. We want to reflect without overthinking. That insight can help you learn more about yourself and help you learn what is it that you want to hang on to. What patterns do you have that are maybe good patterns that you want to continue? And what patterns maybe do you want to try and let go of or try to shift slightly? That's where your strengths come in. So think of what your best friend would say about you, that strength of character that you have, and let that be a driving force to help you grow in this capacity. Remember that strength and let it help you move through this process. I want you to continue the practice also of complimenting others, you will be amazed that if you are having a bad day, but you give the barista at your local coffee shop a compliment, you will end up feeling better. So that's another essential way for you to be training your brain to look for something positive that you can appreciate or find beauty in. The more we train our brain to do that, eventually it's going to happen naturally, and it won't require so much effort. Continue on this path. There are five sessions in this course, and I'm hoping that you can do one session every two days, and that's a 10 day course. And that is just enough time for you to learn these practices. And then I really want you to take them and go from here. This is really a lifelong course. So I want you to continue to learn and grow on your own, taking these tools, taking these concepts and these skills that you've learned here, and allowing them to change you. I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a review, leave me a comment and let me know how these practices are going for you. And remember, a positive mindset, cultivating positivity doesn't mean that you're not going to set goals for the future or try to change. In fact, it is that. But you can also feel grateful for and happy with what you have right now in this moment. It's about cultivating contentment and saying, maybe I'll grow and change in the future. A positive mindset is not about ignoring your weaknesses. We want to work on those weaknesses also, but we want to focus on what our strengths are. Those strengths can help us overcome our weaknesses. And positivity is not about hiding from or ignoring the mistakes that we make. We have to take responsibility when we do something wrong or we hurt someone. What we want is to notice the inner critic and if our inner critic is really mean and continually beats us up for something that we've done, that's what we want to shift and change. It's important for us to remain humble and accept responsibility when we make mistakes. And then we can practice letting that go inside. We don't have to carry it with us forever. A positive mindset is about learning how to relax the body and mind and not take everything so seriously. Life is short. And if you've read anything by Carl Sagan, you would know that we are living on a pale blue dot. There was a picture of the earth taken from outer space a long time ago. And in this photo, you see Saturn's rings. And then you see this tiny little pale blue dot. And that's us. That is us everything we know, everyone we love everything we will ever know. All our countries and our conflicts and our politics and our jobs and our religions and our families and our media, all of it is on a tiny pale blue dot in the vastness of space. So we can practice not taking ourselves so seriously, having a sense of humor, having a sense of lightness, being curious, being kind and wanting for ourselves to enjoy this time we have here. So holding space for the difficult but cultivating that positive mindset so we can be gentle with ourselves gentle with others. Let's take one more deep breath. I wish you joy on your journey. I hope this course has been helpful for you. And keep going. Keep going. And keep practicing. I know that you'll find it helpful the more that you practice. And remember, life is short, smile and take good care.

English

This course aims to guide participants towards a greater sense of joy and contentment in life. The objectives of the course include listening to an audio track every other day to develop mindfulness, learning to observe thoughts without judgment or reactivity, shifting away from negative automatic thinking, cultivating the ability to recognize and appreciate positive elements in daily life, and ultimately experiencing increased happiness regardless of external circumstances. By following this structured approach, participants will gain valuable tools and insights to foster mindfulness, develop a positive mindset, and enhance their overall well-being

Learn how to recognize your autopilot mindset and create more balance and positivity using simple techniques in 5-10 minutes a day.

Cultivating A More Positive Mindset

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 Hi, I'm Joni Staff Sturgill and welcome to this introduction of my new course Cultivating a More Positive Mindset in 10 Days Perspective is everything and Many of us have an autopilot negative perspective Because we are programmed at some primitive level to be scanning our environment for danger because of that it's easiest for us to see the things that go wrong and The more we focus on the things that go wrong in our lives the more we start to feel hopeless the more we start to feel anxiety or even depression because we are Tuned in to those things that aren't going right for us While I can't help you change your circumstances what I can do is help you start to look at your thoughts and learn what your autopilot is as We recognize what our autopilot mindset is we can be gentle with ourselves and accept ourselves Just as we are in this moment But also have a growth mindset and know that we can learn to change our perspective and in doing so we can cultivate a greater sense of equanimity peace and happiness in our lives so join me in this program, and I will help you get to know yourself a little deeper inside and Figure out how you can start to see the things that are going really well in your life looking at the positives and Ultimately Reprogramming that autopilot to be more positive These are simple tools and techniques that you can use throughout the course of the program And you'll easily be able to remember them and apply them to your life in the future Particularly when you're going through a really difficult time So join me in this 10-day course Take care