New Year, New You
Text from Mindfulness Without Border’s January 2018 Newsletter
New year, new you! This year we’ve decided to focus our monthly newsletter on specific social/emotional skills and mindfulness practices that you can use to help you realize your short and long-term goals throughout 2018. We hope that integrating these skills into your daily life will help you cultivate more social and emotional intelligence, embody qualities of compassion and gratitude and create a powerful impact in the lives of those around you. Whether your goal is to form healthier relationships, make better decisions or simply take more time to appreciate the ‘small things,’ strengthening your social/emotional health will lead to increased success in both your personal and professional lives. It feels particularly relevant to center this month’s newsletter around self-awareness – the cornerstone of emotional heath. Self-awareness refers to one’s ability to accurately recognize their emotions, thoughts, values, and capabilities, as well as the way these things influence both their behavior and relationships. It necessitates looking within and actively bringing your best self into every waking moment. Try the EI activity and mindfulness practice below to get your own sense of self-awareness in gear, so that you can tackle any challenges and triumph over any adversity that may arise in your day-to-day life.
New year, new you! This year we’ve decided to focus our monthly newsletter on specific social/emotional skills and mindfulness practices that you can use to help you realize your short and long-term goals throughout 2018. We hope that integrating these skills into your daily life will help you cultivate more social and emotional intelligence, embody qualities of compassion and gratitude and create a powerful impact in the lives of those around you. Whether your goal is to form healthier relationships, make better decisions or simply take more time to appreciate the ‘small things,’ strengthening your social/emotional health will lead to increased success in both your personal and professional lives. It feels particularly relevant to center this month’s newsletter around self-awareness – the cornerstone of emotional heath. Self-awareness refers to one’s ability to accurately recognize their emotions, thoughts, values, and capabilities, as well as the way these things influence both their behavior and relationships. It necessitates looking within and actively bringing your best self into every waking moment. Try the EI activity and mindfulness practice below to get your own sense of self-awareness in gear, so that you can tackle any challenges and triumph over any adversity that may arise in your day-to-day life.
Emotional Intelligence Skill
Self-Awareness Activity
Randomly place three sticky notes in your home and/or workplace that remind you to focus on your experiences as they are. Each time you come across the notes, take a moment to pay attention and breathe. Some examples of sticky notes include: ✓ Notice how I am feeling right now. ✓ Where in my body do I feel stress? ✓ What made me smile today? ✓ So far today, am I acting with kindness?Mindfulness Practice
Take Five
Whether you are feeling challenged, or simply want to break away from doing, use a breathing practice to anchor your awareness in the present moment and notice how you feel. Simply notice each breath come into the body with an in-breath and leaving the body with an out-breath. You can take five breaths anywhere and at anytime and the more you practice in moments of relative ease, the better able you will be able to practice in moments of stress and discomfort.
