5 ways to Boost your Mental Wellness

We all appreciate the need to keep our body fit and strong and healthy through yoga, fitness, walking the hills and whatever else feels like healthy movement to you. But what about our inner world?

Just as important as keeping our body healthy, is keeping our state of mind healthy.

“No one in our time finds it surprising if a man gives careful daily attention to his body, but people would be outraged if he gave the same attention to his soul.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Research tells us that the key to a happy healthy life is to make sure you are not just working out, but working in.

Based on the ancient wisdom of yoga and the scientific evidence here’s 5 ways you can work on your inner world.

5 Ways to Work on your Inner World

1. Understand that you are not your thoughts

Many of us have completely identified with an unhelpful and unhappy narrative in our mind. We have a voice in our head that is saying things like “I am not enough”, “I need to do more to be loved and accepted” ,“the world around me is not friendly”, “Its someone else’s job to make me happy.”

Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now explains that this identification with this voice in our head is the greatest obstacle to experiencing ‘Being.’ Identifying with this voice, rather than observing the voice as simply a thought, is what brings us stress and unease in our life. Once we understand that we are not our mind, we can experience more of a sense of freedom – an inner freedom.

2. Become the witness of your thoughts

Practice becoming the witness of your thoughts. In your yoga practice, as you close your eyes, simply observe your thoughts. Notice your ‘thinking ahead mind’ ‘planning, planning, planning’ notice your mind replaying stories from your day. Even your happy thoughts, stories of excitement and anticipation. In a moment of emotional pain, ask yourself, what must a believe to be true for me to have this response?

It's important to be kind to ourselves while doing this practice. Notice with a sense of curiosity rather than judgement. Just like clouds in the sky, the thought passes by when you witness it, rather than be totally swept up by it.

You become higher than the thinker. You connect to a deeper part of yourself – the observer of your thoughts. This is where we experience mental freedom. When we observe our thought, the thought no longer takes over our whole being. The thought loses power over you – its just a thought. Not your whole identity. I am no longer an ‘anxious person’, I am simply experiencing some anxious thoughts.

You can start to get a glimpse of your inner strength and steadiness – your natural state, which is inner peace.

“Being conscious means dis-identification from thinking. We are not labelling everything. It’s the absence of obsessive and compulsive thinking. We are in a state of wonderful peace.” Eckhart Tolle

3.  Honour the present moment

We undervalue the present, and over value the future

Yes, we need to plan for the future, but you can treat the present moment with honour, rather than a steppingstone to the next moment. Some of us even treat the present moment as if it’s the enemy! We keep ourselves busy in our attempt to stay away from our thoughts and insecurities. It is possible to get our top three things achieved on our to-do list AND, at the same time, practice honouring the present moment.

There is beauty in the present moment. Look up at the stars, reflect on small moments of kindness in your day, even a smile or kind gesture from the person serving at the petrol station. A lot of people get to old age and realise they have never truly lived because they’ve always been getting to the next step, and the next step rather than appreciate all they have. Most of our civilisation live like this.

In the present moment, there is no problem. This is the ‘Joy of Being’

“All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.” Eckhart Tolle

4. Choose to be optimistic

The Dalai Lama once said, “Choose to be optimistic, it just feels better.” Its hard not to smile reading this!

The important word here is ‘choice’. Where we focus our attention is our choice. And, where we direct our focus will determine who we become, how we live and how happy we are. If we focus on the negative, we feel crappy. If we focus on the positive, we feel good. If we focus on specific goals that will benefit ourselves and others, we will be much more likely to meet our goal and feel more contentment, joy and a feeling of connection by our contributing to the world.

Even in the most difficult circumstances we can choose to be a ‘glass-half-empty’ or a ‘glass-half-full’ person. Someone will see a challenging life experience as ‘being the victim’ of life, while others will see the challenge as an opportunity and learn from it.

“It’s the first time I see that we have a choice: to pay attention to what we’ve lost or to pay attention to what we still have.” Edith Eger, Holocaust survivor and psychologist

5. Accept that training our mind is the work of a lifetime

It always surprises me when people say, “I’m no good at meditating.” This is like saying, I’m no good at getting fit. It’s kind of a cop-out (sorry it’s the truth). We don’t get happier in our life by simply wishing we could be happier. If we put our energy into growing wealth, growing our Instagram following, but not putting energy into training our mind – we can’t expect to miraculously feel happy.

Just like going to the gym, the more we practice training our mind, the better we get at it.  Over time, we build a quality called strength. We train our muscle of awareness.

“Beginning meditators often believe that the purpose of meditation is to try to stop their thoughts. But this is impossible (and even if it were possible, it would be undesirable).

The true purpose of meditation is to develop the ability to notice thoughts as thoughts – and to no longer identify with them.

For better or for worse (but mostly better), this is the work of a lifetime.”

-  Via Waking Up (www.wakingup.com)

Learn yoga and science-based techniques for training your mind for a happier life at the upcoming offerings at Heart and Mind Yoga (Click the image to book)

The 2hr Big Restore. $35. Sunday 3rd July 4pm-6pm. Heart and Mind Yoga 13/21 Bealey Ave, Christchurch. No yoga experience required.

Friday night Candelight Yin Relaxation. $22. Friday 8th July 6-7pm. Heart and Mind Yoga 13/21 Bealey Ave, Christchurch. No yoga experience required

Jo Jarden is a certified personal trainer and yoga teacher in Christchurch New Zealand and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio. She has 10 years experience in health promotion in New Zealand and Australia including management and promotion of national chronic disease prevention programs. She now helps people one on one with their wellbeing through yoga teaching, personal training, workplace yoga and wellbeing workshops and retreats around New Zealand.

Certified Yoga Teacher Santosha Yoga Institute, Registered Australian Yoga Alliance 2017
Certificate in Advanced Personal Training, Fit College New Zealand, 2016
Bachelor of Science with Honours Public Health. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2006
Bachelor of Arts Mass Communication and Psychology. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2005