Virtually Unbreakable

How to Use Mindfulness to Boost Your Inner Power?

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 TOPICS IN THIS EPISODE

  • What are the biggest roadblocks among women when introducing change?
  • What is mindfulness ?
  • How can mindfulness help develop self-awareness and create change?

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Ela 
Hi, Claire, how are you doing today?

Claire  1:05 
I'm very well, Ela, thank you very much for having me.

Ela  1:08 
No problem. It's a pleasure. And Clara, can you tell us a little bit more about you? Who are you? And what is it that you do?

Claire  1:16 
So yes, I'm Claire Thomas. I'm a coach, a mentor, and a mindfulness teacher. And I use a combination of those skills just to help my clients understand the areas in their lives where they're not reaching their full potential. I have this belief that many of us run around pretending to be all things to all people. And we don't know how to say no. And we end up very stressed and putting a lot of pressure on ourselves and putting ourselves last. And I want to help women or men just realize that they want to become sort of more in touch with who they are and where their powers are; that they can achieve and do everything but not have the stress there. But still, be confident.

Ela  2:05 
Sure, everything you said is so relatable to me in my life. So I'm very grateful for people like you and the work that you do to really help all of us become a better version of ourselves and be more happy and healthy as a result. And can you tell me a little bit more about how did you actually end up working in this industry? Did something inspire you to work in this area? What's your story?

Claire  2:32 
I've always really enjoyed listening to people, I'm more of a listener than a talker. Naturally, many of my friends over the years have come to me with their problems. And I've always been able to give them quite pragmatic advice. But really, the move to being a coach happened at my last job, I did a personality assessment. And that matched me very clearly as a coach. And that piqued my curiosity. So I applied to train to be a coach, an internal coach at that company, and I loved it. I loved helping people shift their perspective on things and make real tangible differences in their lives. And I just decided that I needed to do that full-time. So that's what I did.

Ela  3:18 
Great. Sounds great. So you've mentioned before that, we've mentioned, that you work, I understand mainly with women, and you are on a mission to help them rediscover their inner power and build their confidence; become the best possible version of themselves or the happiest version of themselves. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you work with women? Is it one-to-one work? Is it group work?

Claire  3:48 
Yes, I have both one-to-one and group coaching programs kind of depends a little bit on the preference of each individual. Some people are very private and personal and just want to have one-to-one sessions. But group sessions are really useful as well. Because once you've got the trust and a safe space, in a group where people can share, you actually learn a lot from listening to other people talk through the difficulties and challenges they're having. And generally, it can help trigger a light bulb moment as well. So both programs have their benefits from that perspective. I normally work with clients for three months, because that's a nice, chunky period to really not only dig to discover what's holding people back but also give them an opportunity to really implement sustainable change into their lives as well.

Ela  4:42 
Great. Sounds great. And is there a theme that you observe in your work? What's the most common issue or problem that your clients face? And how does that manifest in the sessions?

Claire  4:58 
I think most women, in particular, are very time-poor or perceive themselves to be time-poor because they have all these different hats that they're wearing. They can be their a mother, their a partner, they work so that they're pulled in all directions all the time. And you know, they just don't know how to say no to things. They don't know how to put boundaries in place. And what happens is they put themselves at the bottom of the pecking order, because quite naturally, their children are the most important, if they have children, their partners important, their jobs important and they ended up burning out and losing their confidence.

Ela  5:38 
It's such a common theme among women, myself included. I'm not proud to admit this, but I'm someone who teaches people about all these things, yet it's so hard to implement. And it's really all about sticking, building healthy habits and sticking to them. And really being disciplined when practising healthy habits, staying disciplined. And yes, definitely starts from learning to put yourself first. And today we're going to talk about mindfulness a little bit more. So some of us are familiar with the term mindfulness. But some people might not be familiar with that. Could you first start by defining what that means to you? And how do you use mindfulness in your practice to help people heal?

Claire  6:27 
Yeah. So mindfulness is a place where we can be aware of what's going on around us and aware of what our thoughts, feelings, and emotions are. So it's about developing that awareness. Meditation is a form of mindfulness practice, there are informal mindfulness practices, and formal ones, and informal ones could be just taking a moment to breathe. And while you're boiling the kettle and making a cup of it, it could be just reading a really mindful text, or sitting and being aware of each of your senses while you're eating your meal. So it's not just about sitting in the lotus position and trying to get rid of all your thoughts. It's just having that awareness and using your breath and each of your senses to achieve that.

Ela  7:21 
And let's remind people, what is the purpose of that? What do we gain by doing that?

Claire  7:26  
So we all run around, we spend our lives running around having thoughts, and our thoughts are not facts, they're things that we make up and that we layer on top of our feelings and emotions. And often those thoughts stop us from doing things that that we could otherwise do. We have these voices in our heads that are saying, 'Well they must have said, No, they don't want to do this with me because of this, that or another reason'. But we've just made it all up. And we spend so much of our lives worrying about what other people think about us about whether they like us. And when you practice mindfulness, it helps slow everything down. And it gives you a space from where you can consider what your response is going to be in a situation. Your thoughts are kind of unimportant, and you have a clear view of what you could do.

Ela  8:29 
So it's almost like we are allowing ourselves to become more self-aware, or aware of ourselves and aware of what's happening around us. So we're slowing down in order to become more conscious of our decisions in our actions. So what mindfulness does for many people, is it allows us to become a more collected version, you could say a more collected more conscious version of ourselves, instead of being reactive, right? And so this is very common knowledge that meditation helps achieve that. And like you said, meditation is a part of mindfulness, but it can be anything, right? So I think for many people is just worth remembering that. Mindfulness is not a specific yoga pose, it's not specific, you know, time of the day, it's not a specific book you reach out to or specific audio that you listen to. It is a habit that you build and cultivate, so you can be mindful of whatever's happening around you. And you really build that into your life to become healthier and more balanced. What is the reason you decided that mindfulness is something? Or how did you come across mindfulness yourself? Where was that in your journey where you felt where it clicked that you feel you felt like 'Well, this is something that perhaps helped me so I could implement it in my practice'. And do you have any stories regarding mindfulness and any success stories with your clients that you would like to share with us?

Claire  10:29 
Yeah, so I think I practice yoga for many years. And obviously, meditation is part of that. So it's always, it's kind of been in my environment for quite a long time. But it's about as you said, about how do you get it to become a habit? And how you get the benefits from mindfulness when you have regular practice. So it was at my last job they had one of the mindfulness applications that you can have on your phone, they had a trial to use to spread that out across the organization. And I put my hand up, I could do with some of this because I was feeling quite a lot of stress. And I started doing that every morning. As soon as I sat on the train before I started watching whatever I was going to watch on my iPad, I started doing a mindfulness practice, and you have like a run streak. And that just helped me get into this space of doing it very regularly. And the more I did it, the more I realized that I was able to take this moment to reconnect and pause at the moment to consider my responses. Yeah, so it just really helped me deal with some of the difficulties and challenges I was having at work. And I just kind of got addicted to doing it, because I could feel there was so much benefit in so many areas.

Ela 10:42
Tell me about one of these benefits. How did it improve your life?

Claire 11:58
For example, with the children, it is a great one. And I had a very good example of this. Even yesterday, my daughter was struggling with some maths homework, and she was getting really wound up and agitated by it. The old Claire that didn't have a mindfulness practice, would have felt like her buttons are being pressed, and I would have got all wound up and you would have heard it in my voice. And it would have been, my response would have then provoked a bigger reaction in her as well. So now when that happens, so yesterday, when that happened, I was able to just reconnect with my breath, do a little micro mindfulness moment, and keep my voice exactly as it is now. So she doesn't sense any stress for me at all. And just asked her some very gentle questions. And yeah, she was still stressed. But her stress levels came down once she could see me handling the situation in a different more calm way. And it was just such a different experience to how it would have been say three or four years ago.

Ela  13:06 
Definitely. So I totally relate to that with my son as well. I feel that whenever I can meet him on his level, and acknowledge his feelings. And there is a saying, I've read somewhere in... Oh, I forgot the name of the book now. And that felt with not dealt with regards to children. Yes, you should not deal with them, you should feel with them. And when you can, when you can relate to that when you can implement that. There will be lots of drama avoided on a daily basis. And we also wanted to mention how mindfulness can help us reawaken our inner power. So what is the inner power to you, Claire? When do you feel that you are the strongest version of yourself? Can you tell us more about how mindfulness can help reawaken that inner power? What does that mean to you?

Claire  14:15 
So it's about when we give ourselves that space, to look inwards. And we can ask ourselves a question in that space, and just sit there with it and wait for an answer to come. And we can explore where in our body we are feeling tension, and what sort of emotions we have. And it just allows us to connect with our purpose.

Ela  14:47 
So can I how can we use mindfulness to reawaken that inner power in us? First of all, what is inner power? What does that mean to you? I think everybody's got their own definition, a form of a definition. But how can we become more powerful using mindfulness, if you could share your thoughts on that,

Claire  15:11 
So I see our power, our inner power as being all the qualities and the asset as sort of unique assets that we have. It's our, our true self that is, was there when we were born and is sort of deep within us all of our lives. But that gets covered up by all of our experiences that get layered on top of it through life. So mindfulness is a really good way too because we're pushing those thoughts away, and we're dealing with any emotions and feelings, it allows us to reconnect with the true desires of that inner person, the values that we have. And from that place, it allows us to make decisions that are aligned with our values and our beliefs. And once we do that, then we are able to lead more fulfilled lives.

Ela  16:07 
Okay, I could not agree with you more. And actually a perfect answer, I really loved what you said there about reconnecting with our true desires, and our true goals and purpose, which often get buried very deep down in our hearts and the daily routines that we are exposed to under the at the hustle and bustle of our lives, families and managing especially for us women, right? There is such a magnitude of variety of different tasks and jobs and responsibilities that it's very easy to lose that very valuable connection with oneself and with what life actually means to me. What do I want to achieve? What truly makes me happy? We just become that little robot. Right? That's just constantly performs the same tasks without thinking. So what mindfulness really helps us with is becoming more reconnected with yourself. And then once you do, you are able to lead more purposeful and more fulfilling lives.

Ela 17:24
Fantastic. Great, well, this has been such a valuable discussion, Claire, thank you so much. What are your final tips for our listeners on where to start, perhaps? Or how to start and how to continue in the simple, possible way?

Claire  17:43 
Well, there are loads of mindfulness apps out there that are all very good, I've tried quite a few of them. So that's a very good place to start. But right now, one of the things that anybody can do when you're feeling a little bit triggered about something is just to notice that you're feeling triggered. And just to stop and just do three deep in and out breaths, and then try to and then face the situation again, and you're just taking that pause is just so invaluable in being a little bit more conscious in our response.

Ela  18:18 
Yeah. And if only we all did that on daily basis, I think, yeah, the world would be a completely different place. Right?

Claire  18:27 
Absolutely. And that's why I'm on this mission because I want everybody else to be able to experience that as well.

Ela  18:34 
And what else works for you other than the breathing? Is there something else that really works for you on daily basis?

Claire  18:40 
You can rub your fingers together with a lot of intention in anything that stimulates one of your senses. It could be smelling an oil. It could be just looking at a plant or something in nature with an enormous amount of detail, but something like that if it's not the breath.

Ela  19:02 
Right, fantastic. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Claire. To any of you who are interested in Claire's work or would like to book a free first session with her. The links to her profile are underneath our show notes. In the meantime, I would like to thank you one more time. And thank you for listening and thank you for tuning in. And I look forward to seeing you in our next podcast episode next week. Thank you so much.

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Ela Senghera

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