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Why Mindfulness? My Journey
57 Plays2 years ago
In the premiere episode of "Mindfully Refreshed Podcast," join your host, Tracey Lynn Pearson as she discusses her journey into mindfulness. In this episode, Tracey shares her personal experiences and reflections, unveiling the transformative power of mindfulness and its profound impact on her life. Through heartfelt anecdotes and honest storytelling, Tracey highlights the struggles, doubts, and breakthroughs they encountered along the way.
To give listeners a taste of mindfulness in practice, Tracey introduces a simple yet powerful mindfulness exercise. Step by step, she guides the audience through a short meditation, allowing them to experience the present moment fully. With gentle instructions, listeners are invited to tune into their breath, observe their thoughts, and embrace the stillness within.
Furthermore, Tracey explores how mindfulness can enhance mental well-being, reduce stress, and cultivate a sense of inner peace.
By the end of the episode, listeners will not only have gained a deeper understanding of mindfulness but also feel motivated to embark on their own journey of self-exploration and inner growth. They will be left with a newfound appreciation for the power of mindfulness and a sense of hope for the possibilities that lie ahead.
Join Tracey Lynn Pearson on this captivating debut episode of "Mindfully Refreshed Podcast" and embark on a path of self-discovery, mindfulness, and profound personal transformation. Open your heart and mind as you explore the boundless potential that lies within you.
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Transcript
Introduction to Mindfully Refresh Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Mindfully Refresh podcast, where we explore different types of mindfulness, talk with experts, and bring you the help to discover the joy in your journey. Mindfulness is used to help heal stress, anxiety, depression, help us to better regulate, enhance our relationships with ourselves and others, and to experience more happiness.
Meet Tracy Lynn Pearson
00:00:31
Speaker
In each episode, we will look at the benefits, challenges, and offer tools and an actual practice from myself and other experts to help you find more joy in your journey and to refresh your mind. I am Tracy Lynn Pearson, mindfulness coach, restorative yoga teacher, and psychotherapist, but really just a girl working to find the joy in her own journey. Welcome to the Mindfully Refreshed podcast.
00:01:06
Speaker
I am Tracy Lynn Pearson. I'm your host for this podcast. And I thank you for joining us today. This is our very first podcast episode. So this is more of an introduction to what we'll be doing and talking about in each of the podcast episodes. So I thought I'd do a little bit of an introduction and tell you a little bit about who I am.
00:01:34
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why this podcast and what you can hope to gain from it, which I hope is a lot. So welcome again. Today we're really just talking about the topic of mindfulness and each episode will contain kind of a different mindfulness theme that we're talking about
00:01:57
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It will either be a topic or we might be interviewing a person in particular. And we'll talk about like the benefits and blessings, gratitudes, or offerings that we can gain from mindfulness in regards to that topic or things that that guest might offer. And there'll be some discussion and each episode will also contain a mindfulness practice
00:02:27
Speaker
to help you help support your mindfulness goals. And then we'll end until the next episode. So again, my goal is just to kind of tell you my story today.
Tracy's Health Journey
00:02:43
Speaker
And my mindfulness story actually began with some unfortunate things that happened in my life. I found myself
00:02:55
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in my early 40s having a heart attack and being somewhat unhealthy. I am a single mom. I had three children that I raised by myself and it was a difficult task. I also had a very high pressured job where I was expected to work more than 40 hours a week. You can imagine that the stress of all of that was pretty intense.
00:03:24
Speaker
As I carried all of that stress in my body, it's no surprise to anyone who knew me that I had a heart attack at a very early age. And the heart attack came about a year after my mother's death from cancer, which both of my parents died very early as well. So it was enough to scare me.
00:03:50
Speaker
I noticed that my blood pressure was pretty high in almost every doctor's appointment. And even though I was taking medication, it just didn't seem to get controlled. So I read this study about using progressive muscle relaxation and different tools to try to bring your blood pressure down. And that turned out to not be very successful.
00:04:20
Speaker
And then I read another study about practicing mindfulness and just using some deep breathing before having your blood pressure checked and found that that actually did work. Now I have to go back in time to kind of tell you I'd love how God just kind of brings everything to your remembrance or gives you experiences in your early years that you don't expect to
00:04:50
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really mean anything. But when I was 18, I worked for about three weeks. It was all I was all I managed before I was let go at a weight loss clinic that did hypnosis. And my job was to take
00:05:09
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people's blood pressure as they came in for their hypnosis sessions. They were often in groups, so I would have people lined up trying to take their blood pressure, which I didn't have any training on how to do and really sucked at, to be perfectly honest with you.
00:05:29
Speaker
I started taking people's blood pressure and of course having to do it two or three times, it would raise their blood pressure. So with their blood pressure being increased, then they would go in and they would have their hypnosis sessions and then they would leave. Well, several of the folks who I checked in would ask, can I have another blood pressure reading
00:05:52
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when leaving and the doctor would do it herself. And she always said, oh my gosh, look at the power of hypnosis. My concern was that it wasn't the power of hypnosis, it was that I wasn't taking the blood pressure and that I had become the thing that made their blood pressure raise because I'm squeezing their arm four or five times trying to get this reading. Well,
00:06:20
Speaker
I started to remember this experience and I thought, well, okay, I don't really know how to do self-hypnosis, but let me see if I could just try some deep breathing and some simple mindfulness tools to help me before I would go in to have my blood pressure red or at times where I was stressed at work or with the kids or, you know, just in general financially with bills and things like that.
00:06:48
Speaker
And what I found was that although I couldn't prove that it made a difference, I felt better. And my readings for at my physicals started to really drastically decrease to the point where with the medication that I was taking, my blood pressure was falling too low. So I was taken off blood pressure medication.
00:07:14
Speaker
So that was kind of my introduction to mindfulness. And then I thought, well, I need to find out a little bit more about this. Obviously being a Christian, you know, there's some kind of woo woo woo thing about mindfulness and what is that and meditation and things like that. So I really began to kind of examine what is mindfulness? And here are some things that I found.
Understanding Mindfulness: Concepts and Benefits
00:07:41
Speaker
Mindfulness is really just our ability to be present. Like in the situation with no distractions or multitasking, it's where we are where we are, what we're doing, and we're not affected by other things around us. And I found this to be the thing that was important because you know how you sometimes like wait for life to get calm?
00:08:06
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before you can, you know, like enjoy it or things like that. Well, this really taught me that it doesn't really matter what's going on around me. I need to be able to find peace in the chaos because I don't know if the chaos is going to stop. And I tell you, guys, this is like 15 years ago and it hasn't stopped. As we all know, we're experiencing some very high
00:08:36
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hectic times and I don't see them decreasing.
00:08:45
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When we realize that this is our ability to just be in the moment without judging it or giving it meaning, that's where I found peace because so often I would judge the moment like, well, okay, gosh, I'm stressed. Now I need to relax. So, okay, how do I relax? And when is this going to stop? How long am I going to have to do this? And did I take my medication today? Like where there were all of these kind of judgments and, um, to be perfectly honest, they were kind of shame.
00:09:14
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inducing where I was shaming myself or feeling like there was something wrong with me rather than, okay, just admitting here, I'm stressed. Okay. Why am I stressed? And really exploring that without it having a good or a bad meaning allowed me to really kind of deal with the things that were stressing me out.
00:09:43
Speaker
So practicing mindfulness then really just for me it's in breathing methods. I use guided imagery, prayer, it's sometimes even guided meditations to help relax my mind and my body and reduce stress. I have this thing where even like the guided imagery or the visualization might be like a peaceful place where
00:10:13
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you don't feel stress where things are kind of calm. So mindfulness, then I began to understand, isn't necessarily a religious practice, but it could be. It could be tied into what you believe. And for me, that's how I put it in. I put it in with prayer. I began to focus on those passages of scripture that talk about how to meditate on the Lord and to think about good things
00:10:42
Speaker
And that's kind of where I thought, OK, this is what I need to keep me sane in my own life. But we do know that spending too much time planning, problem solving, thinking negative thoughts can be draining. It adds to our stress, anxiety, and depression. So practicing mindfulness allows me to pull myself away from that.
00:11:12
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And it's a way of enjoying my life and the things that God has given me and the different things that I have to offer other people and to stay kind of focused in on that moment.
00:11:28
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Now, I also know that there are some other positive benefits to mindfulness. And one of the ones that I obviously have to give credit to is that mindfulness helps our hearts, like physical hearts. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but heart disease is the number one killer of adults in the United States. And they say that one in four deaths every year is due to heart related illnesses.
00:11:57
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So that helped and scared me to be perfectly honest with you. It helped me to know that, okay, what I was experiencing is kind of normal for our day and age, but it scared me thinking, I don't want to be one of the one. So people began to really look at how do you add mindfulness to help with hypertension and things like that. And there are a lot of support groups at hospitals that are now
00:12:26
Speaker
including this because there are several studies that show how amazing this is and how well it works that even using mindfulness is better than like taking a walk. Using mindfulness is better than progressive relaxation. So when you think about it like that, okay, well, mindfulness does helps our heart. It helps us to
00:12:56
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bring our heart rates down, especially when we feel stressed. But mindfulness also has been shown to help decrease the cognitive decline, I guess, if you will, from Alzheimer's or from aging. So when people engaged in mindfulness meditation,
00:13:24
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or relaxation training or something like that, they found that their brains performed at a healthier rate than those who did not. So some of that, you know, kind of mental fogginess that we get as we get older, mindfulness definitely helps with our clarity, with our focus, with our attention, and with our memory.
00:13:51
Speaker
Um, no, this third one is a great one. I had my tonsils removed when I was a kid or my adenoids, which then makes you kind of more susceptible to, um, illnesses, but mindfulness also, um, has been proven to help with our immune systems and our immune responses. So, um, in terms of being able to circulate blood.
00:14:16
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increasing our breathing pattern. What the study has found is that mindfulness meditation increased the levels of T-cell activity in patients who were either fighting cancer, HIV, or other kind of blood-related illnesses. It also helped with
00:14:42
Speaker
bringing back the progression of the disease or show that the people who practice mindfulness, the disease didn't progress as much in them as it did in other people. And then we know that mindfulness, the last thing is that it can help reduce psychological pain. So when we are, you know, dealing with
00:15:08
Speaker
stress, anxiety, pain, depression, and any other chronic illnesses that come with that such as like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome.
00:15:24
Speaker
And we know that mindfulness helps with that. It's also been tied as well to like addiction cravings. So if you're craving chocolate or heroin or anything, practicing mindfulness can actually make that craving less so that you can ignore it or deal with it.
00:15:47
Speaker
So gosh, we find that mindfulness has a ton of benefits and a ton of different things that we can gain from it. And as I explained in my story,
00:16:01
Speaker
You know, it did make a very big difference for me in terms of being able to remain calm and to just not respond in certain things. I was able to kind of see, almost like see the situation from a distance where I didn't have to get super upset. I could see that, okay, well, this is going to be fine. This isn't very pleasant right now, but I'm going to go ahead and breathe through this.
00:16:30
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and find some peace in that. So I guess what I'd like to do now is to have you practice some mindfulness with me.
Mindfulness Exercise for Anxiety Reduction
00:16:43
Speaker
And we're going to do today kind of a mindfulness for anxiety and stress. And if you're driving listening to this podcast, this probably isn't a place for you to participate in this. Please don't close your eyes or anything like that. It might be cool if you pulled over or if you pause the
00:17:05
Speaker
podcast to do when you're not focused on something that really requires your attention like driving does. But if you will, go ahead and find yourself in a comfortable position wherever that might be. And as you get comfortable,
00:17:36
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Just allow yourself to let go of any stress that you've been feeling. Let go of any tension in your shoulders. Let go of any tension in your jaw. And allow your breath
00:18:09
Speaker
to become normal. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly.
00:18:46
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And as you do, begin to feel the tension in your body just melt away. And now breathing normally again, bring your awareness to what it feels like to just breathe right now.
00:19:20
Speaker
Notice the sensations of breathing. Wherever that sensation of breathing is the most vivid in your body, go ahead and place your awareness there. You might feel it most in the rise and fall of your abdomen. Or you might feel it most in your nostrils.
00:19:52
Speaker
Wherever that sensation is the clearest, place your focus there. Experience the inhale. And experience the exhale. Experience, if you will, the in between.
00:20:20
Speaker
Each time that you notice the momentum of your mind has drawn your awareness from your breath, just gently and non-judgmentally place your attention back on your breath. You might find it helpful to say within your mind inhale,
00:20:50
Speaker
And exhale each time you do. By saying these words, you draw your attention back to your breath.
00:21:20
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Your mind will wander and just simply notice when it does. And with compassion and love for yourself, accept that your mind has wandered and bring that awareness back to that sensation of breathing.
00:21:49
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Try to observe each breath as though it's the first breath you've ever taken. This is a time or opportunity to pay attention, to pay attention to this present moment, to place your attention on your breath in this moment,
00:22:18
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is simply notice and feel what it feels like to breathe in this moment. Allow yourself to explore or be curious about them a moment and allow your breath as kind of a doorway that opens up
00:22:48
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to what might else be here that you're not aware of. And as you prepare to come out of this meditation,
00:23:18
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Notice how you feel in your body. Take a moment to feel this feeling of presence and focus. Take a moment to experience and to know what it feels like in your body to be present.
00:23:45
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Offer yourself some appreciation or gratitude for taking the time to be present and to know that you can carry this feeling of presence with you as you go about your day. And as you go about your day today, may you be present, may you be peaceful,
00:24:14
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And may you be gentle on yourself today. Thank you for joining me for that mindfulness exercise. I plan to end each podcast with a way to get to know either myself or our guests a little bit better.
Tracy's Current Interests
00:24:37
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And a session section that I call wavelengths of wellness.
00:24:43
Speaker
and it's just where I share or the guest shares the things that they're engaging in or filling their mind with outside of necessarily work or things like that. And in terms of like I love audiobooks, I'm an audio learner and right now I am enjoying a series Andrea Vernon by Alexander C. Kane. This
00:25:12
Speaker
story is hilarious and the final episode is out or the final audio book is out and I am in the middle of it and really you know where you're trying to save or something but then you just want to hear five more minutes and then that turns into an hour that's where I am with this story. I love all of the characters such great character development
00:25:39
Speaker
And then in terms of reading, I'm currently reading The Mindful Christian by Dr. Irene Cragle. And I have spoken with her and she is willing to be a guest on this podcast. Yay! I cannot wait to have her on and talk about this book that she's written. She also has like a website and blog of some great materials in terms of Christian mindfulness.
00:26:07
Speaker
Um, I'm currently binge watching, um, Ted Lasso on Apple, um, TV. So I don't know if you, if you've seen this series or not. It's two seasons, I think so far. And it's so refreshingly positive. Um, and I tend to like kind of dramas that are like chronically dramatic and like Grey's Anatomy and things like that. But this is so positive. It's like contagious.
00:26:38
Speaker
So it's a great, it's a great show if you haven't seen it. And then in terms of listening, I kind of have C.C. Whynan's new album, Believe For It on repeat in my car. So those are the things that I am enjoying.
00:26:59
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I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you for joining me.
Engagement and Contact Information
00:27:03
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All the show notes and links can be found at mindfullyrefreshed.com forward slash podcast.
00:27:10
Speaker
In addition, you can find out more information on our website, www.mindfullyrefreshed.com, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, at Mindfully Refreshed. It would be awesome if you would subscribe and rate this podcast. It helps us to be found by more listeners.
00:27:31
Speaker
I'd also love to hear your comments on how the show has helped you and have ideas even for future shows. You can send me a text at area code 313-524-2256 or email me at info at mindfullyrefreshed.com. You can also complete a form on our podcast page.
00:27:54
Speaker
I hope you join us for another exciting episode of the Mindfully Refresh podcast. Again, I'm your host, Tracy Lynn Pearson, hoping you stay healthy, happy, and refreshed.