Ep 398 - As With An Axe, If You Don’t Take Time To Sharpen Your Mind You’ll Slow Yourself Down

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it.

Be familiar with the old tale of the two Axman both going into the woods to chop down trees for the day. And they went their separate ways but they could hear each other. And one of them just kept chopping away all day. And he couldn't help but notice that the sounds coming from the other man was every hour, he would stop for 15 minutes. And he's thinking, wow, that guy's he's knows no way he's going to chop down more trees and meat today. He's resting every hour, like what's going on. But then when they get together at the end of the day, and they see who's done what well, the guy who was stopping every hour for 15 minutes was way way ahead. And really simple explanation was every hour, he was stopping to sharpen his axe. Now, you'd also be familiar with the concept of how you can apply that to your life in a number of different ways. One area I particularly want to highlight today is your mind. So you know your minds active 24/7, right when you're sleeping when you're doing anything. But you can find ways to sharpen your mind so that you can be more productive all day every day. I just had a session this morning with a client who's struggled with focus at different times. And we keep coming back to as well. What are the key sharpening tools that you use? And are you using them? And so there's the obvious ones around making sure you plan. Now they're obvious, that doesn't mean they're always used, right? There's the many examples, I'm sure you can think of where you've just gone? Well, I've got lots to do, I'm just going to get into it. There's something about the planning process that gives you clarity, it gives you the steps that allows the data flow much better. There's making sure you've got a routine, there's making sure you've got structure. And they all seem pretty basic things but are you doing them? And are you making them part of your every day to make sure that we're giving your mind that clarity, you're giving it the focus. And you're taking the time to sharpen your axe. But the one area I really want to focus on is meditation. Because to me, it is nothing that provides focus, attention, concentration, calm, what like meditation. And there are, there's so many different ways you can do it. And there's a lot of confusion out there about how you do it, and whether you're doing it right and all these different things. So two things. One is I want to talk about the importance of it and two is clear up some of those perhaps myths around meditation and the over complications of so why it's beneficial is because every single day that you do, guaranteed to be more focus, you're going to still get distracted. That's just part of life. l l brains are wired for looking for different opportunities. And that's a part of a safety mechanism that's evolutionary or built in or however you want to put it. But the focus is a key part and it's meditation is sharpening your mind better than anything else. Because while we're active throughout the day, like I said, the brain is gone. 24/7 Meditation allows space between thoughts. It allows you to slow the thoughts it allows you to thought slow your mind down to a level where you can actually be in a restful state and in a way that you can recalibrate, recharge and Get yourself back on track really quickly. So that might mean sometimes that during your day, particularly particularly challenging day that you do need to pause, maybe not every hour, but you might need to pause and just get some time alone. Or it's quiet, where you can just focus on your breath, and allow your thoughts and, and mind to wander. It will allow you to get back on track to be able to bounce back from those distractions. And when when whatever tasks you're doing, you'll be so much more in tune with what you're doing, you'll be so much more accurate, you'll be more efficient. And it's just so worth the time it takes to sharpen your mind to sharpen your axe. Now, if we look at again, meditation, and some of those misconceptions, misconceptions around it, I know a lot of people say well, I've got my swimming, I've got my surfing, and I've got all these different things that that's my meditation. And granted, those things are powerful ways for you to be mindful and to find presence and to detach from the day to day to give your mind a rest. But your mind still active doing those activities, very active. And while it's going to help you no doubt, meditation takes that to a whole other level. So often, when I come across people who said they can't meditate, it's because they've got really active mind. And when they go into meditation, it's either they just get completely overwhelmed or overwhelmed with all the thoughts that come rushing in. Or they're trying to control the situation. They're trying to control the whole process. And then thinking, Well, I can't make it work, because as soon as I go into that space of just allowing things to flow, well, they feel out of control. So instead, I learned this the hard way from learning as much as I could, because I started learning from people who clearly had been meditating for a long time, and their way of explaining it just didn't, wasn't helpful for me. Instead, it's coming into a place of allowing everything to flow. So when you are sitting quietly, and allowing your thoughts and feelings and even just how you're feeling physical to be in total place of allowing, if anything inviting more of that in, then you're able to come to a place of calm much quicker, because it's the resistance that causes us so much tension and frustration with our thinking with our physical body and with our emotions. And for those that were this way inclined for our spiritual connection, that deeper connection with ourselves to allow space for more of the intuitive guidance. So allowing yourself to find that quiet, allowing yourself to find the breath, the space, eyes closed, and then allowing thoughts in inviting them in. Stepping out of resistance, trying to stop or control thoughts or force the thoughts to leave your head, it doesn't work that way. Instead, the sooner we allow things to flow. And just like if you imagine closing your eyes just inviting, more inviting, more inviting more in, and then then just allowing the thoughts to roam wherever they roam faster and faster, let them all just be how they want to be, you'll find that you'll be able to slow yourself down and find more of that calm. Same with the physical body, the more you can be in that state of oh, here's here's some tension, let's really focus our attention there and allow it to be instead of trying to be in that space of oh, I don't want this pain, we're going to push it away. Because that's where the intention increases, the pain increases. And we tend to get physical ailments, they get stuck. So the state of allowing is so important. And you'll find that you'll want to make this part of your daily occurrence. Because the more you do it, you'll realize just how much more focused you are, you will have realize how much calm you are you realize how the your that inner part of your brain will be able to find some peace. There'll be less of a negativity towards yourself and what my client this morning, you'll be blown away by how good it feels for the meditation that I created for him and recorded for him so that he's able to do that every single day.

Now, there's any number of great meditation apps out there. There's the first one that comes to mind is Buddha phi, I think, I think when I got it, we might have had that fire have dollars. Yeah, it's pretty cheap, whatever it is. And it's got like a wagon wheel of all these different types of meditation. And then under those different types of meditation, it's got all these different scenarios. So whether you're trying to sleep, whether you are one for walking, there's one for traveling. Like I said before, as much as possible, doing ones that are closed eyes. So the traveling one clearly not while you're driving, but I used to love that one on the train. Because that allows you to allow the movements, the sounds. Yeah, some some really great meditations on there will also in the coming weeks and months, be putting out some meditation training for you guys to be able to access. So we'll let you know about that coming soon. In the meantime, worst case, find yourself space on your own in private, quiet, focusing on your breath. And in that state of allowing things to flow where they flow, you'll find that your mind will be sharper before that your focus will be better your efficiency. And the thing that was most beneficial for me as well, how I was able to interact with people, I was able to stay calmer. For longer, I was able to navigate those really tricky situations with the most important people in my life where often my emotional reactions were heightened. And being able to do that in a state of calm just made all the difference. Sharpen your axe, find meditation, if you need any help, as always reach out and keep an ear out and an eye out for more meditation training. coming very soon.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform