It feels dangerous out there. When you engage in mindfulness, you give yourself an edge to meet the chaos of life with creativity and compassion.
The world may feel saturated with danger right now. It doesn’t help that weaponized social media and the 24-hour spin-and-spear news cycle constantly stimulate our mental, physical, and emotional stress responses. This adrenaline bombardment can lock us into confusion, doubt, and fear, when what we need most is to trust ourselves and act with clarity, wisdom, and decision-making.
So how can something as mental as teeth help when horrible or unfair things are everywhere? can lead to visions of terror, which can cause us to act in ways we may later regret – whether we’re responding to the latest barrage of news, or dealing with personal stressors that challenge us in everyday life. Mindfulness can help us focus and broaden our focus, which can be extremely helpful when life throws up the unexpected.
Trust your intuition
For example, a friend was singing with a band at a large children’s party at a legion hall. At the back of the hall, he saw someone he didn’t know staggering into the room. Like a scene from a horror movie, the stranger picked up the large, poine knife he held for cutting the birthday cake, hid it from view, and approached the stage in a manly manner. Most of the band retreated, but without thinking, my friend pushed himself forward to meet the boy, not knowing what to do.
As the point of the knife approached my friend’s throat, something completely strange happened: He looked at the boy and flashed him a huge smile, as if to say, “We’re friends here, aren’t we? I know you’re just fooling around.”
Something about this act of unexpected friendship and openness in the face of extreme aggression stopped the knife wielder in his tracks. It was not meant to be. Where is the fear? Don’t you see this big knife I’m waving at you? The wink and smile were, in fact, awkward enough to defuse the situation so security could quietly escort her out of the room. For a room full of kids and their parents, any kind of uncomfortable, gory mess can, unimaginably, just evaporate.
This true story is not about being a fool in the face of danger. It’s about being open to adaptive options that can only grow out of left field. It’s about realizing the great value of a curious and flexible mind. Willingness to take a breath, take a look and then act.
When you feel anxious and unsafe, your body releases hormones that can rocket you into automatic responses that may include thinking your best option is to attack. Mindfulness training helps you see that there may be other, more advanced and more skilled options. When you regularly practice simple techniques that connect you to the present, you will calm your nervous system, allowing you to quickly regulate your emotions and employ your more brilliant mind to solve problems.
Beyond the superpower of self-regulation (which can come in handy when you’re bursting to yell at your boss, child, spouse, or neighbor), choosing to engage with awareness will give you access to strategies that help boost your self-confidence, sharpen your cognitive flexibility, and develop your intuition.
Here is your next step
How do you cultivate intuition and self-confidence? A good starting point might be to simply consider what is going on in and around you. Take in the smells, visual cues, sounds, textures and tastes that give you so much information about the world. You can go for a walk without your headphones and savor the sights, sounds, tastes and sensations. This sense walk can help stabilize you by anchoring you in the here and now, versus hanging out in your chattering mind that’s pulling you back into a painful past you can’t change or drowning you in the worry of an uncertain future.
Many things will happen forever that you cannot plan or control. But you can learn to trust and rely on the wisdom that empowers you to keep going even when the rest of the band backs off. Moving forward can be incredibly risky. Backing off is a very wise move. There is no rule. It’s about tuning into the moment. Learning to trust your intuition can help you masterfully manage what life sends your way. Whether you move forward or turn back, what kind of worldview are you saying yes to?
You don’t have to shoot – you can blink. As you trust what emerges, the most amazing possibilities can appear when you least expect them.
