welcome back everybody to this third video in the series on my new book
10 weeks to love and abundance i'm your host and the author dr dawn-elise snipes
in this video we're talking about enjoying the moment or what some people refer to as mindfulness
part of a mindset of love and abundance is being mindful of enjoying and being grateful for all of
the things that you have in this moment instead of focusing on all the things that you lack saying to
yourself i'll be happy when instead of saying i'll be happy when you say i'll be happy i will choose
to be happy i will recognize yes everything may not be perfect in my life but i do have a lot of
things that are going well that may make my life rich and meaningful when you pay attention to the
things that you have instead of what you lack you can feel supported content and encouraged
these positive feelings cause the release of relaxation and happy chemicals which
can also help you reduce stress inflammation sleep problems and even improve your immunity
what about that self-assessment that happens in every chapter
how much time do you spend living in the future dreaming about how you will be happy one day
you know some people may say not much time at all some people may say i live there all day
every day but it's important to recognize this because when you are spending that time living
in the future you're not noticing embracing and cherishing the present
make a list of things that you enjoy or that you have that are important in the present
how much of them do you miss because you're living in the future
maybe you're living in the future thinking i'll be happy when i make a million dollars
so you're working all the time but because you're working all the time you miss spending
time with your kids and your dogs and your family and whatever else makes you happy
how will you feel in the future about missing out on these things that you actually have right now
that are important to you because you were focused on the future and not appreciating the present
the five strategies that i propose for helping you focus on being more mindful and enjoy the moment
include mindfulness and purposeful action and i've done a lot of videos on mindfulness and
purposeful action but basically being aware of the present moment the good and the bad
and choosing to use your energy to move toward your goals to nurture the things that are
important and choosing to not give your energy to the things that are distractions or not in your
best interest it's a little bit of a paradigm shift instead of trying to get rid of something
unpleasant you're saying you know what i'm not even going to give that energy i'm going to focus
on the opposite if i nurture love and abundance then i'm not going to have anxiety and scarcity
developing an attitude of gratitude really recognizing what you've got going on for you
looking around at others and going you know what i've got a lot going for me you know
you may have your health you may have you know a roof over your head being grateful for the things
in your life that are important that you do have again there are going to be things that you want
that you don't have yet or things that are not going well maybe you're struggling with a chronic
illness right now okay that is a challenge no doubt however it's important a concept called
heartiness helps us recognize that it's important to look and embrace the dialectics looking at
all of the things in our life not just the one thing that's going bad or the
three things that are going bad but looking at all of the things and creating a balance
this is not an activity that's in the book but it's one that i've used in my group counseling
sessions we create literally create a balance using a hanger and two dixie cups and we use
marbles on the left side the dixie cup is negative stuff on the right side the dixie cup
is positive stuff and people are encouraged to go up there with the bag of marbles
and put in marbles to each side based on what they are mindful of at that moment
in their life and try to notice what the balance is and it really encourages people to
reflect on the things that are going well yes sometimes the negative side still is heavier than
the positive side but that helps people see that there is some counterbalance and there are things
that they may be able to do to improve the moment taking optimism breaks is really important and
i give you some suggestions for how to work this in and i'm not talking about toxic optimism where
you pretend everything is fine all the time that's just that's not even realistic but optimism breaks
gives you an opportunity to step back and say okay if i were going to put on my rose-colored glasses
how i how could i reframe this situation optimistically it gives you a different
perspective doesn't mean you have to hold on to it forever but it gives you the opportunity to
see a situation from a different perspective and choose which way you want to see it
hardiness as i mentioned earlier is the concept that when faced with situations we need to have an
attitude of commitment control and challenge recognizing all of the things in our life that
to which we're committed and noticing the ones that are going well and the ones not so well
focusing on the aspects of all of those situations that we have control over what can we nurture in
the things that are going well what can we do differently to address the things that
aren't going well and viewing challenges viewing problems as challenges instead of viewing them
as barriers that we can't get around see them as obstacles and just like an obstacle course
in order to get past that thing you either need to go over it under it or around it generally so
an obstacle can be seen as a challenge instead of something that is immovable and torture progress
as usual the book contains a lot of discussion writing and meditation prompts and activities for
each of these strategies to help you develop them and nurture them in yourself and others
it's natural to be more aware of threats that's just protective you know it's a lot
more problematic if we don't notice the poisonous snake and we step on it as than if we don't notice
the little bunny rabbit and we happen to scare it off into the woods a lot more problematic so
our brain is actually programmed to pay more attention to the negative the good news is
we can train our brain to also recognize the good things and create balance but it takes work
it does take work instead of being in a perpetual state of saying i will be happy when
it's important to change and switch to a state of just saying i will be
happy