Hi, hello!
Welcome to my first blog on my photography page - how to nurture your mind - something I am so passionate about. Just as we nurture our bodies with food, rest & sleep, we need to nurture our minds. Our thoughts legitimately shape & create our reality - so it's important we learn 1. how to harness them 2. that we are not our thoughts (only the awareness of them) 3. meditation is the gateway to greater awareness.
I want to open my heart & my words to you - with the intention for you to know that you 1 are not alone and 2 for you to know you already have everything you need inside of you.
Upon reflection - I was always a bit of an anxious gal. I always had a busy mind and very emotional. Something now I realise was a portal into my creativity and way of thinking. My anxiety definitely peaked after my parents divorced when I was around 12 years old - I started partying very young which made everything A LOT worse. I kept living (or surviving) through this constant anxiety. Finding freedom through drinking alcohol & somewhat self-destructive behaviour. I'm grateful for all of this now but I know now that I was a very scared, confused young gal who really had a broken heart and had picked up learnt behaviours of how to deal with life from a very young age. I finished school, went to university and the anxiety grew, I was having panic attacks every day, hardly sleeping, somehow working hours full-time while full time at university while partying every weekend. I reached a point where I couldn't even collect my mail from the post office and I knew I had to make a change. I took myself to Headspace. I went to one session and the lady told me to try meditation. This changed my whole life. It wasn't a one pill fix that solved all my problems - it opened up my awareness to the FACT that I wasn't these intrusive thoughts that kept bombarding my mind. My nervous system was over stimulated. My thinking patterns had become twisted in a way of thinking that wasn't my own. But I had just unlocked the key to taking back the power of my mind.
Like I said, it's not a magic pill. It took a lot of time for me to get to this place. I promised myself to meditate for 10 minute everyday for two weeks and see how I felt. At first it was beyond painful. To sit with my thoughts that had been controlling the way I felt but after the two weeks something felt different. The panic attacks reduced. My sleeping slowly improved. From this place it was a ripple effect into now, a lifetime dedicated to this practice. I now see meditation as a blessing. To connect back to my true self. I will often use breathing and meditation techniques in my shoots if my client is a bit nervous - most of the time they don't even realise that they are meditating.
Why does meditation nurture your mind?
Well, being able to sit with yourself is the most powerful thing you can to. To sit with your thoughts and not run, to just be, notice the thoughts and not attach to any of them. That's the key. We are ultimately just energy and awareness witnessing life flowing through and around us. Meditation gives you space to connect back to your soul, to your heart and to your breath. Once you become comfortable with your own stillness, you can become comfortable with anything.
Meditation isn't about escaping your thoughts. It's about sitting with yourself, whatever that looks like, in every individual day. From this space of being okay with yourself - you can create.
I'll go into this in another blog but if there's ONE thing you can do to nurture your mind - meditate.
As well as photography, yoga & meditation are now a HUGE passion of mine. I became a yoga & meditation teacher and now have plenty of online resources for free. Check out my meditations below.
If you're in a space that feels dark, loud or isolating - know you are not alone. You are whole just as you are. You've got this. Close down your eyes, find peace within yourself first - the rest will come.
Sending you love & light,
Chat to you soon....
Gracie x