Mindfulness - Page 4

In this section, we cover a variety of mindfulness practices, tips, and resources to encourage the importance of mental wellness.

NEW! SOB Podcast: The Creative Business of Fine Artist Carole J. McCoy

Fine Artist Carole J. McCoy drops in to speak about her journey into art, what has inspired her work and creativity, and what upcoming goals and accomplishments she is gearing her career towards.

Summary:
In this 35th episode of SOB: Style of Business podcast, Keetria interviews the Los Angeles-based fine artist, sculptor, painter, and arts advocate Carole J McCoy. She shares her journey into art, what has inspired her work and creativity, and what upcoming goals and accomplishments she is gearing her career towards.

Show Notes:

  • Carole is inspired by Los Angeles, which she was drawn to through modeling and acting.
  • She is an arts advocate, she paints, sculpts, draws, writes, and restructures found objects.
  • Tracing images on television as a child was a start, along with being scouted to model and traveled the world with modeling.
  • Carole’s creative process is that she allows herself to be an observer of life, acknowledging that everything was already here, and she needs to co-create with the ultimate creator: God.
  • Creativity = Observation. Appreciation. Curiosity. Intuition. Desire. Creation.
  • An artist’s responsibility is to tell our stories for future generations to learn from.
  • “Bliss on a Arrival” is a piece she created after a Greek Goddess exhibit, and has been intrigued by the body and form. Klimt is an artist was an inspiration also.
  • “Infinito” is defined by Carol as sculpture on canvas due to the multiple layers of paint involved. The spiritual book called: “Infinite in All Directions” provided some of the inspiration.
  • Nature is Carole’s biggest form of inspiration.
  • She did an “inspirational tour” of NY, where she lived previously in the past but had not been to since 1998.
  • Embracing African American ancestors’ endurance and contributions to society.
  • Romance your mind, body, and soul creatively by traveling, observing, exploring, and allowing yourself to be inspired. Figure out what you want to contribute to the world.
  • “Queen Ancestors” concept came to Carole in her dreams. Pulling from the legacy and energy of strong women.
  • Women of color have experienced a harder climb up the mountain of success in the art world.
  • Carole has experienced people not taking her art seriously as being looked at as attractive.
  • Art is Carole’s “high” never drugs. She feels uplifted from creating and expressing herself.
  • Keeping a journal physically everyday with a pen and paper unlocks ideas and refocuses her. “The Artist’s Way” is a book that she appreciates to understand her purpose and avoid the pitfalls.
  • Carole submits for things at least 10 times a week, even if she doesn’t fit what they are looking for in case her work might fit for what they do in the future.
  • Create from a place from your soul being fulfilled, not for money or for competition.
  • Carole supports other artists she enjoys by giving it exposure through social media.
  • “Art Stories” is a book of illustrations and short stories that Carole is working on allow with new projects, shows, and commissions.
  • “Follow your heART.”

3 Key Points:

  1. Carole’s Recipe for Creation: Observation. Appreciation of beauty she witnesses. Curiosity about that beautiful thing. Intuition and instinct. Desire to create. Implementing creation.
  2. Nature is Carole’s biggest form of inspiration.
  3. Romance your mind, body, and soul creatively by traveling, observing, exploring, and allowing yourself to be inspired. Figure out what you want to contribute to the world

Tweetable Quotes:

–   “L.A. is like a geographical muse of mine for the moment.” – Carole J McCoy.

–   “I have like this recipe for creativity. One is observation. Two: appreciation of what is beautiful that you see. Three is curiosity…Four is intuition…Five is desire…Six is creation.” – Carole J McCoy.

–   “My biggest form of inspiration I would say is nature…Anything you want as an artist is in nature.” – Carole J McCoy.

Resources Mentioned:

  • Website – Keetria’s website for the podcast.
  • LinkedIn – Keetria’s LinkedIn page.
  • Instagram – Carol J McCoy’s Instagram.
  • Facebook – Carol J McCoy’s Facebook.
  • Twitter – Carol J McCoy’s Twitter.

NEW! SOB Podcast: The Importance of Hitting the “Reset Button”


In this 34nd episode of SOB: Style of Business podcast, instead of conducting an interview, Keetria has a short and sweet discussion about the many benefits that can be achieved when we hit the reset button and include moments of relaxation, self-expression, and socializing into our daily grind. Whether you are feeling overworked trying to balance a business and a side job, or starting a company and taking care of your family – Keetria offers easy options to unwind and re-focus.

Show Notes:

  • Hitting the reset button is important when you feel exhausted or burnt out.
  • Most people probably work more than 40 hours a week.
  • Keetria recently hit her own reset button to unwind from her multiple projects.
  • What is important to me?
  • The reset buttons keeps our lives moving smoothly.
  • Working out, wine, happy hour, reading, painting, yoga, art, and meditation are all reset buttons.
  • There is great value in resetting yourself often – even daily.
  • Maybe pushing to get 150% is too much.

3 Key Points:

  1. If you aren’t satisfied with what you are doing, you can’t be any help to anyone else.
  2. Reset buttons include: meditation, yoga, exercise, wine, happy hour, reading, painting, and art.
  3. Are we trying too hard to push beyond our limits?

Tweetable Quotes:

–   “There comes a time to where you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall, or you just get exhausted…or sometimes it’s just complete burn out.” – Keetria.

–   “40-hour work week is at minimum…probably the minimum for the majority of folks.” – Keetria.

–   “What is important to me?” – Keetria.

Resources Mentioned:

  • Website – Keetria’s website for the podcast.
  • LinkedIn– Keetria’s LinkedIn page.

Top 5 Vacation Spots for a Meditation Retreat

For vacations to be truly rejuvenating, it doesn’t always need to be about going off to an exotic island for an adventure. Sometimes, the best vacation you can have is the most laidback—the one that will help you rejuvenate from within. Vacations that are packed with activities can be stressful. Such vacations can ruin the purpose of a holiday, which is to rest and relax.

To truly relax, you can take a different kind of a vacation—one that can quiet your mind and open your heart. I’m talking about going to a meditation retreat. We’ve picked some of the best ones you can consider for your next vacation. Here are our top choices:

Rolling Meadows Retreat, Brooks, Maine

Rolling Meadows offers city slickers that chance to unplug from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Silent retreats are held year-round and are designed to quiet the mind and increase awareness. Guests can join a series of meditation and yoga sessions and free time can be spent for reflection, solitude and in exploring the breathtaking beauty of the land.

Stillpoint Lodge, Halibut Cove, Alaska

With short boat ride or plane trip through the magnificent Kachemak Bay, you’ll find the secluded Stillpoint Lodge located in enchanting village of Halibut Cove. The lodge offers guided meditations, yoga and rejuvenating walking meditations in Alaskan wilderness. The lodge also features a poustinia, a silent meditation space that’s open 24 hours a day. Guests also get to see local wildlife as well as dine on organic meals using local ingredients.

Ala Kukui, Maui, Hawaii

Literally translated as “Path of Enlightenment”, Ala Kukui is ideal for those in search of spiritual renewal and creative awakening. Located in the beautiful land of Hana, Ala Kukui offers stunning views of Haleakala as well as the Pacific Ocean. The center offers different types of retreats including wellness retreats, corporate retreats, family retreats, and even retreats for veterans struggling with PTSD.

Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California

Surrounded by majestic mountains and blue ocean, the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California offers an amazing location for meditation, yoga, wellness, spiritual renewal and relaxation. The lodge sits on 120 acres of lush property where guests can bathe in hot springs overlooking the ocean, meditate, practice yoga, go hiking, and volunteer in its organic farm.

Feathered Pipe Ranch, Montana

Situated in the heart of the Montana Rockies, the Feather Pipe Ranch is an oasis of peace. Here, guests can go on a personal retreat, reflect, and connect with nature. Accommodation choices include tepees, yurts, and tents as well as deluxe rooms. Guests can join in meditation, yoga and chakra sessions, as well hike in the forest, canoe, and swim in the lake.

A meditation retreat can provide you with an entirely new perspective on life. It can help you de-stress by removing the pressures of daily life. It can also help you rediscover joy and peace and will teach how to sustain it in your life.

How Meditation Can Help You Uncover Your Passion and Purpose

 

Did you know that having a sense of purpose for your life will make you live longer? In fact, it’s even been proven to reduce your risk of heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

Those who develop a strong sense of purpose usually do so by discovering their passions. Following your passion doesn’t necessarily mean finding the right occupation; it means finding what you love and what you live for.

But how do you discover what your passion and purpose in life is? With so much noise going on out there and in your head, maybe you just need to quiet your mind and soul so that they can tell you what it is.

What you need is to observe your thoughts as they drift through your mind. And the only way to do that is through meditation.

Meditation allows you to refocus your awareness and let go of random thoughts. As your experiences play out in your head, recognize how they make you feel. Meditation has the power to unlock even our deepest memories, things you may have thought were left behind in your childhood. You’ll be surprised by how glimpses of the past can have a profound effect on you today and in this moment.

You can remember the warmth on your face on a sunny day or your laugh as you played with the family dog. Sometimes our purpose in life comes from the recollection of simpler days when we remember the things that made us happiest.

Ask yourself when the last time you laughed uncontrollably was, had a grin on your face you couldn’t wipe off, or had butterflies in your stomach.

Was it the times that you’ve helped others? Or maybe it was when you baked your first pie. Perhaps the last time you felt true happiness was when you traveled alone.

Reflective and mindful meditation allows us to gain a deeper insight or wisdom to a question we bring to mind. Sit comfortably and take slow and increasingly deeper breaths until you are relaxed and calm. Ask yourself the question.

“What is my purpose?”

Insights will surface in your mind. They could be memories, random thoughts, or even dreams you’ve once had. Watch them like a movie. Observe them without judgment while you continue to focus on your question.

The answer won’t always come to you right away. But over time, you will be able to focus on what the insights are telling you. And soon, you’ll come to recognize exactly what your body, mind, and soul have been trying to communicate to you.

Remember that you have your own path and your own pace when it comes to tapping into your consciousness. Only you can make the mind-body connection.

3 Powerful Ways Meditation Can Benefit your Mind and Body

There’s no point in doing something if it doesn’t benefit you, right? This is something many people consider when they contemplate starting up a meditation routine. They consider it to just be sitting down and being quiet…not much else is involved with meditation, right? 

Wrong. Meditation has never been a holistic hoax, and that still stands. While some benefits of meditation are very superficial, there are actually a variety of important mental and physical benefits that practitioners of yoga experience when they meditate.

What are those benefits? There are honestly too many to mention in just one blog post. However, there are three powerful benefits that any meditation skeptic should know about:

Meditation is great for anxiety and soothing the physical soul.

Your nervous system is the gateway to all of your bodily functions. From how you think to how you move, your nervous system is an amazing thing…and meditation can greatly affect how it functions.

Being specific, meditation activates your parasympathetic nervous system. This directly relates to your rest response — or how calm and relaxed you are physically and mentally. While many people associate rest with a mental state, it can also affect how your body functions overall. This relates to your heart rate, blood pressure, immunity, digestion and blood pressure. Meditation also helps to lower your stress hormones through this system as well.

Similarly, meditation can also help you sleep at night. While it obviously relates to your body physically shutting down, meditation also calms your racing mind, making it easier to turn in at the end of the night.

Meditation improves your creativity and productivity.

A clear mind is a mind that comes up with great ideas. When you have a bunch of thoughts racing around your brain, it can be hard to settle on one idea and fully realize it. Meditation helps to clear away these thoughts, making room for your creativity to shine through.

Think about your mind like a cluttered desk. What can you do with a cluttered desk other than clean it or walk away? Meditation is the process of cleaning it, allowing work to actually be done at the desk. This is the perfect illustration for how meditation makes a person more productive. A clear mind is a mind that gets things done.

Meditation makes people happier.

Meditation is calming, and being calm leads to being happier. When someone meditates, they let the weight of the world fall away from them and they experience a small taste of enlightenment. Meditation helps a person to process thoughts, get rid of negativity, and clear their mind.

The fact that meditation relieves stress is one of the biggest benefits of meditation, but not just because of this obvious relaxation benefit. A relaxed person with little stress in their life will obviously be happier than someone who has a life filled with stress and minimal downtime.

One final benefit of meditation — it’s a great way to take some time out to focus on yourself, not the clutter of everyday stressors and irritants. Take some time out of your day to meditate. You’ll be glad you did.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

4 Valuable Tips for Staying Mindful on the Go

A common misconception about mindfulness is that it’s entirely the absence of thought. However, it should be obvious that this is wrong — it’s not called mindfulness for nothing. To be mindful is to (simply put) accomplish two things. First, you clear your mind. Second — and this is the important part — you focus on the present environment and the world around you within that very moment.

No past, no future. Just the moment you currently exist within.

The problem is that as entrepreneurs and busy people, we don’t often have the time or ability to shut off our brains and focus on what’s really around us. That’s why when the moment occurs, we all have to strike while the iron is hot.

Your Daily Commute.

It’s probably a good idea to avoid spacing out while you’re driving to work, but that doesn’t mean you can take some time during your commute to be mindful. This is much easier if you take the train, bus, or subway to work. You aren’t having to worry about the rules of the road and it’s easier to let your mind wander and focus on the world around you.

If you do drive, try and make it to work a little early. Don’t try to be mindful while driving, but instead for a few minutes once you get to work. Sit in your car, turn off your brain and take in your environment.

Make Food Mindful.

Being mindful isn’t just about drifting away and taking in the sights. It’s also about savoring all of your senses — including your sense of taste.

You’ll find time to eat during the day, which means you’ll find time to be mindful. The food you’re eating doesn’t have to be from a 5-star restaurant in order for mindfulness to occur. Even if you only have time for a Hot Pocket at your desk, take the time to notice the flavor and only the flavor. How does the food feel? How does it taste?

Before Sleep.

You aren’t a robot — you’ve got to sleep sometime! If you don’t have time to be mindful during the day, simply make time at night. About five minutes before you’re scheduled to go to sleep, let your mind wander and experience the world around you.

It’s actually easier to be mindful when your mind is already looking forward to shutting down. Practicing mindfulness before bed is one way to be more successful at the exercise, and it’s also simultaneously relaxing so you can fall asleep faster.

Emotional Awareness.

We’ve covered things like sight, sound and taste, but mindfulness also encompasses another spectrum of yourself: emotions. Examining your emotions in the present is a great way to get in tune with them and ease stress.

This can be done at any time during the day. One idea is to consider focusing on this during any bathroom breaks you take at work. Wash your hands and focus on feeling the water and soap, then look inward and assess your emotions. This takes only a few seconds and can still leave you feeling at ease.

At the end of the day practicing mindfulness will only add positive effects to your life and it doesn’t cost you anything to try it. Be sure to take some time out of your day to monitor your thoughts so you can become better at fine-tuning your emotional awareness.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

How to Stay Mindful When You’re a Busy Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs live very busy lives. They go, go, go and never find the time to fully come to a stop. If this defines your own life, consider this: you can be just as productive while still having inner peace and a way to put your mind at ease when you do find some downtime.

Many entrepreneurs might think this is ridiculous. A way to stay busy while still being able to relax when you need to? Preposterous! The truth is that it’s entirely possible thanks to one helpful technique: mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the ability to focus entirely on the present, and that’s in the most literal sense. Not the current day or the current week instead of a far-off to-do list. No, mindfulness means focusing on each second as it passes; being utterly and completely in the moment. It’s unrealistic to say you can always tune out your busy day, but practicing mindfulness gives you a place to escape when it’s time to put work down for the night.

But…how can you stay mindful and practice mindfulness when you have such a busy schedule to adhere to? I have a few tips that can make it work for you, no matter how packed your schedule is.

Skip the evening…go for a mindful morning.

Many entrepreneurs feel the pressure to practice mindfulness during the evening, right after they (maybe) finished up their to-do list. While this is the time when it’s most helpful to be mindful, don’t leap into mindfulness right after you round out your day. Instead, practice mindfulness when it’s easiest — during the morning.

In the morning, it’s a lot easier to clear your head. Right after you wake up, you haven’t thrown yourself into the thick of the day. At night, you’ve already got a ton of work thoughts swirling around in your head.

Set aside time for short breaks.

It’s not to say that you need to take whole 15-minute chunks out of your day to practice mindfulness. Instead, set aside little bite-sized pieces of time (like three to five minutes) to let go of all of your thoughts and slip into being in the moment. This can help to keep your mind sharp and focused during the day, and it also keeps your brain from going 100 miles per hour non-stop throughout the day.

Indulge the senses.

One of the most important aspects of mindfulness is, well, being aware of your mind and what it’s feeling. The best way to do this is to directly stimulate the senses as much as possible.

A great opportunity for this that doesn’t interrupt your schedule is your lunch break. Put aside your phone and focus only on your food. Savor each bite and catalog the flavors, smells, and textures of what you’re eating. Is it cold? Is it crunchy? Does it make you feel nostalgia or bring up a memory?

Master Mindfulness doesn’t have to be difficult

Being in the moment means truly feeling every emotion and sense that passes through your body. Once you’ve mastered this, you’ve truly mastered mindfulness.

How Practicing Mindfulness Can Change your Life

No one is ever entirely free of stress…or are they?

Stress is something that we consider a standard in life. Sometimes stress is direr than it is simple. We stress as teens studying hard for tests and as adults stressing over how much money we need to make to break even. Stress creates a very cluttered mental space, which then begins to impact other areas of life, like productivity and health. In short, stress is something that we don’t want but that seems almost inevitable, especially as professionals.

This is where mindfulness comes in. You may have heard the term in passing, but are you familiar with what it is and what it can do for you?

What is Mindfulness?

To keep things simple, mindfulness is being very aware of the world around you on a moment-by-moment basis, as well as accepting it simultaneously. People assume that this is simple — aren’t we all already living and experiencing every moment of our lives? Experiencing something and actually being 100% aware of it, however, are two different things.

While it’s true that we are physically present for all of our lives, we aren’t always mentally present. The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness, or essentially running on autopilot. Many people don’t fully understand how much of their life is spent lost in thought, avoiding outside stimuli.

Say that you’re walking down a busy city street. What are you doing? Are you keeping your thoughts to yourself, running through your daily to-do list? Are you listening to music from earbuds, lost in the sound and not paying full attention to the world around you? Both are examples of clogging our minds with something in order to avoid being cognizant. Someone who has embraced mindfulness is fully living in that moment, noticing things, and taking them in.

What Can Mindfulness do for you?

Mindfulness is often associated with total positivity; it’s something written off as a new age, existentialist way of avoiding life’s problems. However, it’s exactly the opposite.

Let’s look at stress and mindfulness. When someone who is used to mindlessness is confronted with stress, the negative emotion, and thoughts of the future cloud their vision. Anxiety gets in the way of productivity. Someone who is mindful, however, fully accepts the stressful stimuli and then formulates a plan based on their acceptance of their current predicament.

Practicing mindfulness can help reduce the harmful repercussions of stress, like panic and anxiety. Realize that stress is a state of being, an emotion — it isn’t a situation itself. When someone is mindful, they don’t experience stress because they experience a situation, not the harmful emotional side effect that comes with it.

Thus, mindfulness is growing in popularity as a way to increase productivity. When we are mindful of our surroundings, our emotional state and what we must do, we are much more likely to seize the day and get things done with no negativity involved.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Positivity Fun Facts; How it Really is the Best Medicine

We hear all the time that it pays to be positive, but is that really true? How does positivity impact our lives, and what is the point of being so upbeat all the time? If positivity is so rewarding, does that mean there’s a consequence for sadness all the same?

Despite sounding like such a simple concept, positivity can be truly mystifying. How do we find happiness? Can I have positivity without happiness, and vice versa?

While it’d be impossible to condense all that we know about positive psychology (which yes, it has its own subset in the psychology world), we do have four fun facts or tidbits about positivity that may brighten your day.

  1. Positivity lengthens your life.

If you Google “Nun Study” you’ll find a very prolific scientific research project about aging and Alzheimer’s — that’s not the study we’re talking about here. This study is instead by Danner, Snowdon, and Friesen from the University of Kentucky and is strictly about Catholic nuns.

These researchers found that based on the nun’s own writings, those that expressed more positive sentiments lived longer lives. Look it up for more concrete and fascinating stats.

  1. Positivity boosts sales.

Many believe that the secret to happiness is success. That once you’ve finally found your place in life, happiness is just around the corner…and if that’s not true, then what is? Is it possible that this assumed standard is false?

According to Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, the opposite is actually true. This creates a bit of a chicken vs. egg scenario, but Seligman is sure that optimism comes before success. Based on an optimism test Seligman designed for MetLife, those who were positive based on the test results were almost always likely to outperform those who were negative.

  1. Positivity helps counteract stress effects.

Stress is a part of life and it’s one you’ll likely never fully be able to run away from. If you figure out how to live a life 100% free of stress, tell us your secret — we’d like to know.

Still, just because stress is a natural phenomena, it doesn’t mean it’s one we have to take lying down. There are a million different teas on the market meant to combat stress and its side effects, but what about something like positivity?

Many credible studies focus on how positivity helps to combat stress, but mostly how our own negativity leads to a majority of stress. While a catalyst may be the biggest source of stress, self-doubt and blame often contribute to our negativity more than the original problem.

  1. Positivity broadens your horizons.

From a young age, we learn to be positive. Most children are not born pessimists but are instead taught to be negative based on those around them and their life experiences. Children play, grow and learn while basking in that positivity. At this stage of development, their world is infinite.

This is how positivity can affect all of us every day. When we open our minds to possibilities and positivity, we see our worlds as they can be — not as they are.

New Self-Activation Strategies for 2017


The time to start motivating yourself was yesterday, but there’s still no time like the present. In short? While it was probably a better idea to already have been working on your self-activation strategies for the new year, there’s still time to do so right now.

Self-activation is all about motivating yourself without outside influences. No buddy-system, no bribes, no tools. Just you finding the will to do something and executing a plan. Why is self-activation so useful? It removes the crutches many other motivation techniques use.

While these techniques in and of themselves aren’t bad, they still require an outside influence to get you motivated. What happens if you don’t have access to your reminder app and you’ve run out of credit card account space to buy yourself that reward for being so good about your to-do list? When you know how to self-activate, you know how to get things done no matter the circumstances or environment.

In 2017, think more about being mindful and looking within yourself to achieve your goals. Here’s how to get started:

Reflect More and More

Part of being self-activating is to be mindful. In fact, mindfulness and self-activation often go hand in hand. When you’re more aware of yourself and your surroundings, you’re more likely to get things done. You face reality and see what you must do.

Many people don’t take the time to reflect on the lessons they’re learning all around them and throughout their lives. When something profound happens to you, do you actually take some time to absorb the situation, learn and grow? Part of being self-activating is learning from mistakes and pushing forward in spite of failure, and self-reflection can greatly help with that.

Start Scheduling

A schedule isn’t counterintuitive to a self-activating lifestyle, as long as it doesn’t become your source of motivation. Organization isn’t the same thing as activation.

Thus, helping yourself figure out what all you have to do and when to do it is crucial to keeping things organized and flowing on time. Clutter and disorganization can often lead to self-activation hindrance because they create a large roadblock. The more distressed your mind becomes, the less likely you’ll be to self-activate.

Nap More

Seems like the opposite of self-activating, right? While you may not be able to indulge in a cat nap if you’re part of the working class, entrepreneurs should take more advantage of their lax schedules and sleep more often. Napping is a great way to reinvigorate the mind and reset both your physical and emotional system.

We often find ourselves living from one caffeinated beverage to another, and we drink more cups of coffee than we sleep hours at night. This sets a disturbing standard — we’re exhausting ourselves. It’s hard to be self-motivated when you’re exhausted, which leads to motivational crutches and full on burn out.

Finally, be self-activating about your own self-activation. Look for more strategies and find different ways to motivate yourself. Before long you’ll be a self-activation pro.