Talking truth about "self improvement" as it relates to health, overall wellness and expressing the truest version of you. This is Marta Mrotek with Something Honest…..

Getting honest about what needs to change sounds like a simple thing, but for so many of us it can be such a complex process. There’s no way for me to know exactly what you might be facing… And it’s easy for me to say that the time for change is now, but I do want you to know that my words are only meant as encouragement. Truth can be a touchy subject. But it’s never meant to be insensitive, it’s only meant to be a wakeup call. I know what that’s what I needed, and if that’s what you’re looking for you’re in the right place.

Hey Everybody, this is Marta with some study tips for Truth, some information to help you know when and why to practice and a simple method for identifying triggers that point to the need for a starting ritual. If you haven’t listened to the Truth Talking Points Episode yet you might want to go back for an introduction to the Truth Principle. If you’re ready to dive in I hope you’ll to stick around until the end for my answer to this week’s challenge question and some ideas for how you can play along on social media platforms to win our new Principle Intentions Card Deck and Guide.

This is all prep for our Truth Challenge Episode where we’ll put everything that we’ve been working on together in a guided practice and meditation. We’ll start here with some indications for this particular practice and then we’ll talk briefly about the some of the benefits of putting a method in place to remind yourself that you need to it.

The first part of this process is to recognize the feelings that point to an immediate need for grounding so that you can start using your emotions as reminders to change your state. Some of the most common indications or feelings that come up include…

Indications for Grounding Practice

Instability, confusion, insecurity, and powerlessness. In other words, anything that brings up that, usually kind of nervous feeling that leads to feeling like you’re out of control. I believe that’s actually your body, your nervous system, begging you to do something right now to change your state. But what if you are having a hard time even recognizing the physical warning signs? That leads to understanding what people usually call denial, even though it can come in many forms.

We talked about denial and the tendency to turn reasons into excuses, in the Talking Points Episode. Sometimes denial comes well disguised and often unnoticed when it’s found in a form of apathy. It’s extremely difficult to start turning things around if you’re having a hard time, admitting or even recognizing the real problem. Sometimes though, it comes with the best intentions in the form of extremely sound and obvious reasons for why we feel the way we do. And while I do firmly believe that we need to honor our feelings and allow ourselves to feel them for as long as we need to, at some point, when we are serious about making a change, it doesn’t really matter how good the reasons are… It’s actually very common for us to get stuck reliving and even exacerbating pain that comes from past events. Which leads to talking about…

Excessive thoughts of past or future. I think this is something that almost everyone needs to work on. Most of us spend an exorbitant amount of time mentally rehashing past events or rehearsing for the future and whenever that’s happening you’re not really here… not really experiencing this, breaking unhealthy patterns gets easier if you can find a reliable method for being present..

And I would say all of that kind of boils down to appreciating what’s happening right now. Truth asks us to accept the moment as it is, even if it’s not perfect, even if it’s not even close to perfect, and to find something good about it. Once we can recognize those seemingly negative, sometimes truly painful experiences, as opportunities to learn, or an opportunity to make room for something to grow, we can start looking at them from a different point of view and start appreciating right now for what it is. That’s most difficult when you’re in the middle of something that’s still tender, or emotions that are raw, but it says, I can be here with this and see it from a higher viewpoint. Moving to Higher ground let’s you see things as they are, and that’s just one of the many benefits.

Benefits of Grounding Practice

A few more benefits of grounding practice include feelings of stability, security and support. And I would say it’s important to know that those feelings don’t come from someone else, they come from the inside you. This is especially important for people who are working on codependency, but it applies to everyone to some extent.

Enhanced situational awareness is another benefit, that means you have a clear view of your environment and everything that’s happening around you, and again, that you can see it for what it is right now without excessive thinking or judgement.

It also creates a physical anchor point in the present moment. When you’re physically grounded you’ve got a much better chance of keeping your mind from wandering to the future or the past. And as I already mentioned that really is where most negative thinking occurs.

That leads to opportunities for information seeking and growing wisdom. When the mind gets more quiet it’s easier to recognize the truth.

Journaling for Preparation and Reflection

If you are serious about creating a sustainable personal practice I would highly recommend getting a notebook that you can use as journal of sorts, that is set aside specifically for the purpose of practicing this particular method. You can visit the podcast page at somethinghonest.com below the show notes for specific instructions and links to a few of our favorite notebooks but for now anything will do. My only other bit of advice about that is that right from the start decide that you’re not going to be too picky about how this notebook is organized or how it looks, at least at the beginning. Just put a simple title and the date at the top of a page and go straight to the next page when that one is full or the topic changes significantly.

For example, if you’re practicing standing with intention, we’ll do that together in the next episode. Write something like, standing with intention or grounding practice, and the date at the top of the page. All you really have to do is take a few minutes to write something about your experience. It can be as many or as few words as you like and if you don’t have a notebook close by you can always come back to write about it later in the day. This processing part is important. Whether handwritten, that’s my favorite, but it can be typed or even as memo on your phone. You can use these reflections to learn from your experiences.

This is a good place to pause for a quick break, we’ll back in 60 seconds or less with the starting triggers journaling exercise.

And we’re back! Working together on identifying starting triggers and some preparation for creating a starting ritual.

Starting Triggers Exercise

So here’s an exercise that helps as a reminder for when you need to practice and helpful preparation for our meditation. At the top of a blank page write: Triggers for Starting Rituals and that’s it. Your first objective now is to identify triggers (specific behaviors, situations, thought patterns or emotions) that commonly come to the surface of your attention. In other words something that raises that red flag in your mind that says, “Oh boy, here we go, I’m about to go down that road that makes me feel,” however you don’t want to feel, or do whatever you don’t want to do, and even better if you can get to the point where you just notice that you don’t quite have the motivation for something that you DO want. We’ll start to figure that out by taking a slow deep breath. I’ll explain more about how you might take that breath when we get to the meat of the practice episode, but for now just a big breath in and let it out with long soft sigh… and just see if you can be still, allowing the breath to move naturally, and opening yourself up to notice whatever automatically floats to the surface of your attention.  You can do this anywhere, at any time in your head but if you don’t have pen and paper nearby I recommend coming back to this to write at least a few words to acknowledge whatever comes up. I think it’s important to mention that this is not an affirmation, not an emotional statement, just a statement of fact. The number one trigger for almost everyone I know is, “when I feel like my mind or heart is racing.” But maybe it’s something more specific  though like, “whenever I hear this song” or something seemingly very small like, “when I lose my keys” or maybe it’s more about a feeling, “when I get nervous about (whatever you get nervous about)”, “when I get sad about (whatever makes you sad)”, or a behavior, “when I want to something you want to stop doing” or “when I don’t want to something that you really do want to or know you should be doing” or anything that feels like, “when I think about whatever you’re thinking that start the process of any downward spiral or leads to any unwanted state of mind or behavior.” Those are just a few examples, but you probably get my drift.

Then you’ll remind yourself that you aren’t necessarily trying to erase any of these things, you’re just trying to identify them and learn from them. You don’t need to overexplain any of this, you already know what that thing is.. You may only have one or two triggers that immediately come to mind but that’s okay because you’re going to leave the rest of this page and maybe the back side of this first page blank, so that it can turn into an ongoing list. Then pick just one thing to start with… Whatever came to your attention first is usually a good place to begin and put a little star or maybe even a smiley face next to it... I know that sounds weird but, it’s happy thing, we have a winner! We’ve got something to work on.

At the top of your next page I’d like you to write Truth Starting Ritual … And on the first line, When I…. and add whatever you wrote for that one starred or smiley item that you chose to work on from the previous page, don’t put a period at the end of your sentence, maybe a comma or dot dot dot, and we’ll come back to finish that statement after we have establish the starting ritual.

If you’re following along in order you’ve just written about what you’d like to work on but if you’re every coming back to work on something that you wrote down during a previous episode or personal practice session you’ll want to take look at what you wrote and think about why you wrote it for just a moment.

If this is something that comes up for you on a regular basis see if you can pinpoint the last time it happened and how that felt… Can you think of anything that helps you recognize this particular thought process or behavior looming before it actually happens? And, how does it start?

So make sure you’ve got Truth Starting Ritual at the top of the page in the journal. And just beneath on the first line you should have, “When I,” adding that one starred or smiley item that you chose to work on from the  starting trigger exercise. You’ll have something like, “When I start doing or thinking about whatever it is that you don’t want to do or think about. OR when I want to do or think about something that you do want.” Remember it works both ways and you don’t want a period at the end of this first sentence.

Once you feel like you’ve got a handle on the trigger itself you’re ready to identify a starting ritual that reminds you to practice before that habitual mental process or behavior takes over. And that’s exactly what we’ll do in the Truth Practice Challenge Episode.

Finally, I’d just like to ask you again to think of this is as an experiment, there’s really no way to do any of it wrong. All of the Study Journal Episodes are meant to be used as tools that help you find your way through the maze of thoughts to the center of what’s True. I really do believe that it’s most beneficial if you can start the process without any judgement or expectation and just see what happens.

Challenge Question

This brings us to this weeks Challenge Question for Truth, “Do you think it’s harder to hear the Truth it, or to tell it?” Remember, if you’re looking for the deeper meaning of this Principle consider not just hearing it with your ears coming from someone else’s mouth, but maybe whether or not it’s hard to even recognize?... Is it hard to hear that quiet voice inside? And when you do hear it how does it feel? If you think it’s harder to tell it, go a little deeper than just saying something honest and consider how it feels to actually express it? Is it hard to stay to true to that internal guidance and live what you believe in every part of your every day life?

My answer to that question has changed over the years and sometimes it still changes in a matter of hours or minutes. Most of the time though I think for me it’s harder to hear it… Harder to hear from someone else’s mouth, I’m a people pleaser at heart so it stings but even more I need those constant reminders to practice. It’s easy for me to wander off mentally if I’m not being intentional and that’s why I feel so strongly about the work that we’re doing here together…

We really do believe that all of this works better when we work on it together so if you’d like to play along we’re just starting a Something Honest Facebook Group to help you get more benefits, more discussion and interaction with other listeners who are working on applying the principles. It’s also a great way to share your experience with the Challenge every week and find answers to any questions that you might have after the show. Every single person who joins the group will automatically be entered in this season’s drawing, so this is just one of the ways that you can play to win our brand new intention setting card deck and the Principle Intentions guidebook. You can find links in the description to join the group, or to connect with us on your favorite social media platforms.

So many thanks to all of you for listening. Make sure you’re set to get notifications, I hope you’re excited for the Truth Challenge Episode and don’t forget to check out all THREE Truth Episodes to start acknowledging what needs to change so that you can start living with even more authenticity in your everyday life.

Check our links in the description to find show notes on somethinghonest.com and go to wellnessmeetings.com for more about the Wellness Meetings Method….. Something Honest is a Wellness Meetings production with original music composed and produced by James Mrotek at Mrotek Media.

This is Marta Mrotek sending out all the love and gratitude. Until next time, let’s get to work on being well.