09 - My Journey with Mindfulness

Today, I take you back to a pivotal moment a few years ago when I first discovered mindfulness. As someone who was caught up in the relentless "do, do, do" culture of teaching, I was struggling with stress, health issues, and living a double life. Mindfulness became my lifeline, helping me reconnect with myself, find peace, and ultimately change the course of my life.

Whether you’re new to mindfulness or already incorporate it into your daily routine, I hope my story resonates with you and provides some valuable insights on how mindfulness can shift your perspective, change your habits, and add years to your life. Join me as I reflect on this powerful tool and share practical ways you can bring mindfulness into your life and work.

Thank you for being here, for sharing this journey with me, and for taking the time to explore how you can lead a more mindful, orgasmic life.

Visit the Orgasmic Life website for more information

Proudly edited by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to business sexcess. And in today's episode, I'm sharing with you a recording I did a couple of years ago when I shared about my story, my journey with mindfulness and how it transformed and saved, if I'm honest, my life. Thank you for tuning in to business success, empowering business professionals and entrepreneurs to lead an orgasmic life. Hello and welcome to this episode of business success. This is an overrating space here to fuel up your business and your bedroom. It's where sexual empowerment meets personal professional development. I'm your host. Yes, that's me, Lorraine Crooks, sexual empowerment liberator, an award-winning speaker, columnist, educator and healer. Here to make sure all business professionals and entrepreneurs lead an orgasmic life. And I really wanted to share it with you because I think it's an important story and one that may resonate with some of you around how you could use mindfulness in your life and how it can transform and change our perception, change our habits and change the way we live. So I really hope you enjoy this episode and I'll see you on the other side. So this is around my journey and it's my journey with mindfulness. And I have to say mindfulness, what we're talking now, six years ago was probably something that was the furthest thing that I believed was going to be part of my life. Mindfulness was definitely something that I didn't really know much about. It was certainly not something I was actively doing, not consciously anyway. And it wasn't something that I actually thought would be part of any aspect of my life. I was very much in the energy of do. It was all about do and not about be. So I know that when I look back now, I kind of look in shock, but the journey I've been on with mindfulness because it's been immense. Now, when I was before I did this, I was a secondary school teacher and definitely in that bubble, I was not mindful at all. I'm sure many of you have been in jobs or know people that are in professions where the culture is very much about being stressed. And unless you're stressed, you're not doing your job properly. There's this culture that many of us are involved in that is really about the fact that we need to be seen to be doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. And actually, if you're wandering around looking pretty cool, calm and collected, then there's a slight concern with peers and colleagues are like, are you actually doing what you're supposed to be doing? And I know I felt that. Now, my feelings are my feelings and I take complete ownership of that. But that's how I felt. I felt that if I was in the staff room and everyone was really stressed out and I wasn't, then maybe I wasn't doing my job properly. But there was this culture of deadlines and dates and data and information and everything was set to a time, you know, a school day is very much about, you know, these time frames and lesson frames. And then you had lesson plans and schemes of work and staff meetings and everything run to a time and a date. Everything had a deadline. So I was kind of, I mean, I was in that culture for like 15, 20 years of being on the edge and just being in a situation of doing all the time. And I think most of my life at that point, I spent planning the next bit. Like there was always this thing about never being with what I was doing, but always like, what's the next thing? What's the next lesson? What's the next project? What's the next date? What's the next half term? What's the next holiday? Whatever it was, I was always looking to the next thing. I can remember there were a number of staff who would have calendars hanging in their offices where they would cross off the dates. They would cross off the days to half term, they would cross off the dates, wishing their life away. And this culture unconsciously became really stressful for me. It was one that my body wasn't really accepting very well. And having worked in a secondary school for nearly 10 years, I found my body giving me lots of signs that it wasn't liking what I was allowing to happen to me. And I'm not saying that the school inflicted that on me, because that's how I chose to manage it. But I had irritable bowel, every half term and holiday I had tonsillitis. And I got to the point where I had alopecia. Now, I didn't have alopecia really, really bad, but I had enough alopecia to know I'd got alopecia. I had patches on my head where I'd lost hair. And I was washing my hair in the shower, I was blocking up the plug. You know, I was, it was, it was a genuine concern that I was losing my hair. And I knew, I knew it was causing, I can feel the emotion. I know it was causing a lot of stress. I like my literally my body was screaming, you know, in the mental health world that I love. I was losing control. Literally, my bowels, I was losing control. I was pulling my hair out. And I couldn't speak. I felt suffocated. And a lot of that was about my double life. You know, I was living these two lives of being a secondary school teacher. And then the swinging the kink and the BDSM was my, my double bubble. And it was that double bubble, I think that created even more stress. So teaching was creating this stress. But then my way of managing that was this other lifestyle, which for me, at the time, conflicted. So I was in this whole stress phase that I completely put myself in. And having made the decision to leave teaching, I knew that I needed to do something to get my health back. And mindfulness was something that came up for me as a curious thing to explore, to see that whether that would help. And I did a little bit of research. And I realized that I had definitely not particularly consciously been doing this in most areas of my life, although there was one area, which I'll share with you later. But I suddenly realized I was. But I generally felt like I'd spent my life doing I was always consciously worrying about the next thing. Never really being present with my life. Does anyone else feel like that? Like you've had times of your life where you look back, and it's just this numb space. You were just doing life, you were just existing. Does anyone else resonate with that? When I look back on my teaching years, I just worked. I don't remember particularly, and I did that stuff. But my focus and my, my real memories are just doing everything was doing. So I decided to go on some mindfulness courses, I found an amazing mindfulness teacher called Paula Pluck, who runs Smart Foundations. And I did every course that she offered, some of them twice. And I become a mindfulness coach for workplaces and mindfulness coach for children, a mindfulness coach for well being and health, like anything I could study around mindfulness was, I was on it. I was all over it. And I loved it. I suddenly realized how much of my life I'd been missing. And I was, I was astounded, astonished, blown away by how simple mindfulness is, when you actually master it, and are aware of its benefits. And I very, very, very, very vividly remember the first session I was in a small hall in Brighton. And she asked us to define what mindfulness was. And I have to say I was a little bit still clueless, although I've done some research, I was a bit like, I'm not sure I know a definition, I kind of get the idea that it's, you know, something that's good for my health, it's all about mental health and well being. But a definition was probably a bit of a stretch. And what she shared with us was that mindfulness is moment to moment, non judgmental awareness. And that is being present with an experience. And I realized then that for a lot of my life that hadn't happened. But there was a couple of places in my life it had. And actually, potentially, they'd saved me, because they'd given me a space to be present, to be mindful, to be in a moment to be definitely be non judgmental. Does anybody know? Those of you that know me? Does anyone know what that might be? I know I've talked about this before. Does anyone have any ideas? What part of my life that you know about, could have been mindful, could have been about moment to moment, non judgmental awareness being 100% present, where my mind could be nowhere else, but in that moment. So someone's put swinging. So even, I would say even more present than that. Okay, sex, are we always present in sex? That was probably one of my revelations and something I'm still working on. I'm not always present in sex. I'm not always present in intimacy, we kind of end up our minds wander. So the one part of my life that I realized, you're getting closer. The one part of my life, and I'm aware this is not part of everyone's life. And it's been a huge part of mine is BDSM. It was when I was being tied up and spanked. And I was in a place of submission and being dominated, because my mind and my body could be nowhere else. I had to be present for boundaries and consent, I had to be present. My body had to be present. I needed to be fully in that moment. So for me, submission, bondage, domination, whatever you want to frame that was my mindfulness. I couldn't be anywhere else. I had no option. I had to be present. So a lot of times in sex and swinging and like we can we can wander our minds can wander. But when you're in something so vulnerable, and something where consent and boundaries are, I mean, consent and boundaries are paramount in everything. But I was so connected to being in the moment being present, definitely non judgmental awareness of myself and my partner. And I'd realized that actually, I had been mindful in those moments. And the mindfulness had played a part in my life. But it wasn't threaded through my life. And I realized that that's what I wanted. And as I understood more and more about mindfulness, my health completely changed, along with some other energy modalities and things I was using as well. But my health, I would say was predominantly the mindfulness. It was about allowing my my stress to not be my stress, it was my stress became my strength, I managed in a those last few months of teaching, I drove to work and saw things I'd never seen before my journey that I'd done for 10 years, twice a day. I saw buildings I've never seen, I saw road signs, boringly, I've never seen, I saw so many different things. And I actually remember when I qualified for workspace, I did a session at the school. And there was about, I say 1520 staff turned up to this mindfulness session that I was hosting. And I said to the staff that had all come from the staff room, wasn't that amazing what you walked through on the way over? And they were like, what? You know what you what you walked through and passed on the way here? They were like, what do you mean? And these 20 staff had walked through a whole car park full of pink blossom. And not one of them had seen it. Not one. And they all went to the window and like, they were like, Oh, oh, and I kind of the session was done with my point. But it was just like, we just don't see stuff. We just are not present with our life and our experiences. Well, I just want to interrupt for one second and say if you are loving this episode and loving business success, and want to discover how you can work with me, then why not book a call? Use the link within this episode, book a call, grab a cuppa and let's connect. Enjoy the rest of the episode. So mindfulness from that point really became a daily practice for me. And it's it's not something that's easy. It's not something that you know, we, we do consciously all the time. But I certainly make some time in my day for some really simple practices, whether that's sitting with a cup of tea, and being really present with all of my senses, or whether that's going for a walk. What what is it you would consider that you do in your daily life that supports you in mindfulness? Do you have any mindfulness practices, or things that you do like walking in nature that you consider to be to be mindful? To be something where you are in non-judgmental awareness and present in the moment. So taking time out just to be yeah, but sometimes that's quite difficult to to just be sometimes we need a kind of a, an activity to be with. Sometimes it's about finding a moment to be with something that you can then be with yourself. So walking can be mindful. It's mindfulness is very much about sensory connection. So it's very much about us tapping into our senses. So how we can explore different parts of our day by just being present. So sitting having a meal and being really present. Meditating is definitely one being present with a meal and not having the telly on, or, you know, those distractions, but being present, you know, not letting your mind wander to tomorrow. Have you done the washing? Or did you put the cat out? Or whatever it might be, but just to be present with that. So a meal, a cup of tea, whatever drink, nature, you know, something that you can really be present with. And sex and intimacy is one that, if we're really honest, the majority of us really find difficult to be mindful in. And, and I would say that was definitely me until I discovered Tantra. Tantra has kind of brought me home to really understanding how important mindfulness and being present with myself, as well as the person I may or may not be with. So certainly in self-pleasure, to be really mindful with my body, to be really present with my experience, to be really present with my senses and to stimulate my senses, whether that's lighting incense sticks, whether that's candles, whether that's wearing some nice lingerie or laying on a nice silk sheet, or like whatever it is to be really mindful and to celebrate the senses in an experience. And I think that's another way we can often think about mindfulness is it's the difference between it being a process, which life often can be, to an experience. You know, having a, having our breakfast, having a cup of tea, doing those things in the morning can be a process rather than an experience. And Tantra very much talks about life being an experience and not a process, and intimacy being an experience and not a process. And if we're really honest with ourselves, a lot of us connect with intimacy in a process. We have a goal, we have a destination, we have a process. Quite often, we may even have a kind of unconscious, unsaid script with a partner. We become, intimacy becomes a set of habits. And actually, if we're really mindful, and we're really honest, some of that is not mindful. We're not present, because we've done it, like it's the same thing. It's the same as that day when you, weird analogy, but we're going to go on with it. It's, have any of you ever done that? You've driven somewhere and you don't know quite how you got there. You know, you've kind of landed at Sainsbury's or at work or driven somewhere on autopilot, even gone to go somewhere else, but automatically gone to work, you know, you were going to visit your brother, but you ended up at work or something like that autopilot. Sex also works on autopilot sometimes, even though we may not admit it. I do this, they do that, blah, blah, blah, even self-pleasure. We have a habit, we have a wiring for how it's going to unfold. And often, not present with it, not mindful with it, which means we're therefore not honouring our bodies, we're not honouring our partners, we're not honouring the experience, and we're certainly not being mindful. So yes, it is important to listen to our bodies, our needs, and our desires, and be mindful and present with that. Mindfulness runs now through, really emotional, but mindfulness runs through my life, and I think in a way it did save me. You know, stress can be a killer. Stress creates disease in our body, and if I'd have not woken up to the fact that my body was screaming at me in my irritable bowel, and my alopecia, and my tonsillitis, and then colds, and coughs, everything else, if I hadn't woken up to that, how much would I have put my body under before it had given way? And we don't realise that mindfulness, just done a few times a day, a few small activities, can make such a difference, just allowing our body to rest, just allowing our thoughts to stop the pressure that we put under, or put our body under, just allowing ourselves just to pause. And also to be present, we cannot change the future, the only thing that is a guarantee that is for real and for sure is this moment. So we just need to enjoy it. So just, even just in this moment, take a few moments for yourself just to stop and think, where do you already practice mindfulness? Or where could you bring mindfulness in? You know, the fact that you're even here, just taking that time out of your day to have an experience, maybe different to what you normally do, and think about how you can weave it into your day, into your intimacy and your pleasure. And intimacy and pleasure doesn't have to be about sex. Intimacy and pleasure can be getting your feet out in the grass or laying in the sunshine. So it makes your body feel good. And be with it, be present with the experience. So mindfulness definitely saved me from becoming very poorly. It also gave me the wake up call to change my life, which I did, and gave me the strength and the courage to journey with other modalities like Reiki, the Energy Alignment Method, Tantra. You know, it allowed me to step back and go, what do I actually want, not just in this moment today, but what do I want in my life? I don't have to be doing life. I can be life. So yes, BDSM was already my practice. Now it's a lot more vast than that. I'm not saying that's not included, it is. But it's also, you know, daily practices like meditation. My breakfast, I always sit and I'm really present with my breakfast and then I plan my day. I spend at least 10-15 minutes a day just sitting and breathing. Consciously breathing. Not walking with it, just sitting and breathing and being really present with my body, my experience with my body. I hope there's a little nugget there somewhere, if it's only for you to spend some time being mindful, and just to consider how you embed it in your day and how you use it because it can, without a doubt, she's getting emotional again, it can without a doubt add years on your life. Wow, I have to confess, listening back to my own story is an extremely powerful and cathartic experience and I'm so glad I've shared that with you and I hope there was a nugget in there to really show you how mindfulness can be such a great tool in your life. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing the journey. Go out and have an orgasmic life and I will catch up with you very, very soon. Take care. Thank you for joining me on Business Sexcess, empowering business professionals and entrepreneurs to lead an orgasmic life.