The Mother's Empowerment Membership
January: Deepen Into Presence

Are you feeling insecure, inhibited, or avoidant? If so, you’re not alone–it’s time to DEEPEN INTO PRESENCE.

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REFLECT 

The primary reason to deepen into presence is because presence is a huge part of having an empowered mindset. I am a believer that mindset is everything. Mindset will make the difference in every situation. 

Mindset is the difference between empowerment, competence and resilience versus suffering, victimization and feeling hard-done-by. 

Dealing with anxious thoughts, worries, concerns, fears, insecurities, inhibitions, and general ‘monkey mind’ can really distract us and pull us out of presence with ourselves and our families. 

Let me ask you, do you have repetitive thought patterns that don't serve you? Most people engage in cognitive fallacies, which are patterns of thinking that don't serve us well.

For example:

  • Black-and-White Thinking (“I'm the best mom in the world, I'm the worst mom in the world”) 

  • Perfectionism (“If I can’t do it perfectly, it’s not worth doing at all”) 

  • Catastrophizing (If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong) 

  • Personalization (Taking everything personally and getting easily offended)

  • Discounting the Positives (Noticing everything that’s wrong with a person or situation and none of the things that are right)

  • Fortune Telling (Predicting that things are going to turn out badly)

  • Generalizations (It happened once so now it will always happen, or one person thinks that so now all people think that, etc.)

There are all sorts of cognitive distortions that are highly common and that you likely engage in repetitively. These are patterns we establish in childhood, often inheriting them from our parents. 

We tend to view the world through a particular lens without even realizing that it's a lens, let alone the fact that we could pick up a different pair of glasses and see the situation entirely differently. 

That's what a mindset shift is. It's when we're able to put one lens down and pick up a lens that’s more generous, charitable, helpful, optimistic, encouraging, and empowering to us and to those around us. We start to view the world in a more healthy, optimistic way that leaves us feeling open and empowered to problem-solving and moving forward. 

Because we're inside our own minds, it's very hard for us to see our own thought patterns objectively. We're trapped behind our lens, watching the world through those filters, unaware. 

For example, if I engage in the cognitive fallacy of discounting the positives when it comes to my child, I will start noticing all their tantrums, bad behavior, backtalk, whining, mess, etc. Then I might start to think in black-and-white (“I’m a terrible parent”), catastrophizing (“It couldn’t be worse”), and fortune-telling (“It’s always going to be this way”). On top of all that, I’m discounting all his positive traits, like his generosity, creativity, humor, and helpfulness. 

All of this is happening instantaneously and subconsciously. My brain is simply interpreting the information around me through my cognitive distortions and biases. If I have a bias to highlight the negatives, take things personally, or over-generalize situations, I will get stuck thinking that that is reality. 

Now, another thing that our brain tends to do is loop the same thoughts over and over again. We're basically listening to a tape on loop of the same types of thoughts and interpretations all the time. You're stuck listening to it because you never press pause. 

If that narrating voice in your mind is a helpful, encouraging voice, then you're going to feel very empowered and capable to handle your life and solve problems. You'll be more optimistic and resilient. 

But if you're listening to a tape that is stuck in all of these cognitive distortions that make everything seem bleak and depressing, that will ultimately take us to a powerless, helpless place. 

If you're stuck listening to that kind of voice, then that's going to influence how you feel and show up in the world. 

ENVISION

Why am I saying all of this? Because whatever filters you have going on inside your brain influence your sense of presence, energy, and demeanor that you bring into a situation. 

That presence originates from your thoughts. 

If your mind is clear and calm, you will radiate clear, calm energy. If, on the other hand, you are experiencing monkey mind, then you’ll bring a distracted, insecure, and inhibited quality to the situation. 

Anxiety and depression go along with that because we feel on edge. Our nervous system is ready for an emergency because of our lens of catastrophe, fear, and worry about what’s going to happen. 

In “momming,” anxiety and worry are often celebrated and encouraged. Many of us think that we can measure the quality of our parenting based on how worried we are. (“I worry so much about my children, therefore I love them.”) 

But this is a very unhelpful and unpleasant way to go through parenting and life.

Imagine taking a picture and then swiping through all the different filters. Each one drastically changes the way the photo looks. Likewise, the filter that I swipe on a situation is going to change the way I feel about it. 

For example, if I see my child climbing up the slide at the playground, there are many different cognitive fallacies that could come into play:

  • I could catastrophize (“If they climb up the slide, they're definitely going to get hurt. They’re going to end up in the hospital.”) 

  • I could think in black-and-white (“It's never okay to climb up a slide even if we're alone in the playground because it’s breaking the rules.”) 

  • I could go into mind-reading (“Everybody in the playground is judging me and I know what they're thinking.”) 

  • I could discount the positives (Not noticing that my child is making sure the other child first goes down before climbing up or my child’s gross motor skills to be able to climb up the slide) 

  • I could jump to conclusions (Assuming that I know what's going to happen rather than staying curious to see how the situation plays out) 

In any situation, cognitive fallacies can take us down the path of the monkey mind (fear, worry, anxiety, etc.), or we can instead stay mindful, present, and open to the situation without making assumptions about how things are going to play out. 

Another thing our mind loves to do is time travel. Our brains often rehash past events (i.e. reliving a conversation that didn’t go well), but the problem is that if you're over there in your mind, then you can't be here and now. 

Our mind also likes to travel to the future, conjuring up visions of all the bad things that could happen. What if we break up? What if I lose my job? What if there's a war? We can ‘what if’ ourselves to the grave. 

Cognitive distortions are a way in which we avoid the present moment and miss out on it. Either we're in some other space or we’re here in the present moment but seeing it through a negative filter. 

The point of all the presence tools and skills that we're going to learn here is to have an empowered mindset that sees reality as it is. This mindset helps us to live in the present moment and feel it. 

If you've ever been driving in a car and suddenly you arrive at your destination and realize you didn’t even notice the trip, that moment you snap back into reality is the feeling of waking up in terms of presence. 

There is a very real tyranny that can take hold in our minds. If you are giving the microphone to voices of fear, anxiety, distraction, worry, or time travel, then you are living with an inner bully. Maybe that bully is telling you that you're not good enough, you're not measuring up, it won't work out, or it shouldn't be this way–all sorts of disempowering ideas in the privacy of your own mind. 

We're very concerned about what other people say to us, but many of us don't think about what we're saying to ourselves. Would we ever speak to a close friend that way? Would we ever speak to a complete stranger that way? 

TAKE ACTION

Deepening Into presence is really about creating the type of presence that you want to inhabit in the world–being the type of person you think will elevate yourself and those around you. Take a look at the wheel of life…

How present are you in each of these areas? 

This month, you’re going to use the 80/20 rule to help you determine the best use of your precious resources of time and energy based on what you truly desire. 

And finally, in our gathering, you're going to invoke your inner mystic. When you honor your feminine mystery you remember that everything happens in the NOW.

Let’s Deepen Into Presence so we can LIVE EMPOWERED!