The Most Important Habit For Lasting Health and Happiness: Present Moment Living Ep# 023

0 (1s):
Welcome to the Soul Science Nutrition podcast, where you’ll discover that when it comes to your health, you’re so much more powerful than you’ve been led to believe. And now your host, she’s a holistic nutrition and lifestyle coach, chef author, and Yogi Christine Okezie Hello.

Christine Okezie (23s):
Hello, and welcome to the Soul Science Nutrition Podcast I’m Christine Okezie. Thanks so much for tuning in today and on today, special show, we’re going to talk about the number one LifeSkill. When it comes to navigating our health and wellbeing, you see, I’ve come to know that so much of our health is dependent on our mental perceptions of ourselves and life around us, especially when it comes to food and weight issues. There’s a lot of self judgment, social comparison, regret frustration we’re living in are busy minds disconnected and battling our bodies sometimes battling life itself.

Christine Okezie (58s):
In fact, one of the biggest complaints I often hear from clients is they’re feeling heavy weighed down by Life; there’s lethargy there feeling blocked or stuck just out of balance. What I’ve come to also observe is their sort of this epidemic of kind of subpar Living, if you will. And I wouldn’t say, you know, straight out clinical depression or anxiety, but really kind of this base level, this base level of angst unhappiness, that’s become accepted as normal.

Christine Okezie (1m 33s):
You see most people, our ruminating on the past in a way that’s just not positive. And most of us are thinking about the future from a perspective of fear. It’s hard not to these days. 2020 has the 24 hour news social media, all of this keeping us keeping our bodies and our minds in a state of constant alarm. And its really exacting its toll on health. Now traditional healing systems talk about the root of all disease stems from one core thing: And that’s a disconnection from the innate intelligence that lives in our body and how we get disconnected in the first place begins first and foremost, when we live our life from this basic tendency to search and grasp for peace and fulfillment and healing outside of ourselves, you see it’s this mental habit, that’s the fundamental problem and its the number one thing we need to shift.

Christine Okezie (2m 35s):
So we kind of all know this intellectually, right? Especially if you’re listening to this podcast, you kind of have heard things like we have, you know, at the core we are love, we are light. We are Source Energy and of course there’s an innate intelligence in the body and of course I want to trust and work with It. And we might understand all of this on a deep level, but all day long we’re in the habit of grasping for whatever it is, peaceful well being ,satisfaction, joy – in food, in relationships, in money, in work, in productivity, in our to do lists, et cetera, et cetera.

Christine Okezie (3m 14s):
And at the same time, it’s hard. We’re also in the habit of blaming the outside people, places, situations, and circumstances for our Discontentment for our less than optimal Present circumstances, Wright things in our mind. Well, if only he would, if only she would, if only this would be this way, it’s not, I’m a moral issue. It’s its something that I think is useful to understand is really an evolutionary, a situation and evolutionary adaptive mechanism.

Christine Okezie (3m 46s):
You know, in order for us as a species to survive, we had to learn to figure out and master our external environment. And that became very much at the primary center, the primary focus of living our lives. And when I’m suggesting is that he, we are in modern day, 2020. Yes, we have external situations and responsibilities and purposeful things we want to achieve in our and our life and in our day, if you will.

Christine Okezie (4m 20s):
But, and this is where we talk about the life skill on this program. What if there was a way that we could access a lighter, clearer, more peace. The state of being that was independent, one of our external conditions. In fact, the reason I feel so compelled to talk about this topic on today’s show is because we are in fact, I can’t figure out for the life of me, how anyone can navigate skillfully and intact the situations that are occurring in our world today in this rapidly changing very turbulent time that we’re living in.

Christine Okezie (4m 60s):
I don’t know how we see how anyone can master that without some skills to work with their mental perceptions and ways not to become a slave to our emotions and reactivity. And so what we’re talking about is present moment awareness, a lot of names for it, and we’ll get through that in the program today. But here we, our net never before in my estimation, his present moment awareness of the most important Habit for living a happy, healthy, fulfilling life.

Christine Okezie (5m 34s):
If the greatest point of power for our body’s to heal and to create positive, the life change is always In the present moment finding tools that help us orient ourselves to life from a neutral place, from a meditative place, from a place where we can pause from the thinking and the planning and the problem solving and the worrying and the regretting and find an inner sense of peace.

Christine Okezie (6m 9s):
So what is the present moment awareness? Well, it’s the basis of mindfulness. It’s simply becoming super aware of what’s happening here and now stopping the time travelling, right? Stop worrying about the past, trying to control the future and just allowing yourself to arrive and be present to our physical and emotional experience, observing all the sensations and emotions that come up without judging them or trying to fix them or analyze them or need them to be different in the moment it’s being open and kind and accepting of our experiences.

Christine Okezie (6m 50s):
When we do this, it’s our way for us to get out of our busy minds, bypass the intellect and connect to our whole body. Giving us insight to what is going on inside of us, allows us to listen and respond and meet ourselves where we need to be and identify what we need. We calm the nervous system. We shift our frequency, our state of being, we give our psyche a new setting it’s in the present moment that we feel lighter, that we feel a relief and we can cultivate an experience and inner sense of freedom.

Christine Okezie (7m 31s):
But why is it so hard? Why is it sometimes that we don’t like present moment awareness? Well, out of fear, we’re afraid. We’re afraid of being with our thoughts. Some of which aren’t very pleasant, some of which are super uncomfortable. And it’s a fear of feeling emotions perhaps that we have decided are just too difficult. In the present moment, we have to be willing to note, to experience old wounds buried fearers that might emerge now to be clear, the work of present moment awareness is not to avoid the negative motion’s or to bypass the fearful thinking.

Christine Okezie (8m 13s):
It’s developing the discipline to confront them. Most of us have moments where we’re dominated by our emotions. And what I want you to understand is that this is when this type of reactivity is what happens when we are subject to the external environment. When we disconnect from our true source of wellbeing, our true source of peace. And that is again, something when, okay, but living in the present moment is not just woo.

Christine Okezie (8m 46s):
It’s just not some new age trend. I wanna explain that its a way of life and its backed up by an abundance of science. The bottom line here is we don’t have to be a slave to the tendency of our minds and get swept away by our emotions. We all have the capacity to choose because its important to recognize that life, life itself happens and is happening in the present moment. And we’re designed therefor to believe and reside in the present moment.

Christine Okezie (9m 18s):
It is the only state of being where you optimize your power of self awareness focus and your power to make conscious choices. If you’re not aware in the present moment, we are going to be operating out of habit. And at the core healthy living is a series of conscious choices. Present moment awareness gives us the self awareness and the Mental maneuvering that are so fundamental to creating the conditions in our bodies for health and happiness.

Christine Okezie (9m 53s):
So again, the research will show a host of health benefits. Those who practice in the present moment awareness have lower anxiety, depression, it lowers the stress and therefore the impact on our health. It shows us that we can handle pain more effectively. People are shown to have a better ability to cope with fear and anger. And most of all have an improved sense of wellbeing. C when the mind is in the present moment free to experience, what is we reign in that habitual negative mindset.

Christine Okezie (10m 31s):
We create an alternate more conscious choice from a whole new perspective. We have what’s called a negativity bias, right? Our brain is like Velcro for the bad experiences and Teflon for the good experiences. Again in an evolutionary adaptive mechanism where we were in a, when the thread of our species was, it was at stake, but we have the ability through tools to cultivate, present moment awareness, to override that negativity bias we’re objectively and therefore let go of the preconceived ideas and beliefs that are influencing our reality.

Christine Okezie (11m 12s):
So meeting ourselves in the present moment as the first step, actually towards cultivating a more kind and compassionate relationship with ourselves, it where it gives us the ability to access what I call, you know, our intuitive knowing where the wiser part of are being present. Moment of awareness balance is the nervous system. It shifts the body into the parasympathetic response, the rest digest and heal sending the optimal setting for balance and recovery to take place.

Christine Okezie (11m 46s):
Present moment awareness improves sleep. And this has implications for the body, which are huge, right? Better immunity, better digestion, feeling better overall coping with stress by ignoring distracting or avoiding. It can be effective in the short term perhaps. But ultimately what we want to remember is that undermines our health and happiness in the long run. The research will show that those with greater present moment awareness are more likely to respond to stress with coping mechanisms that enhance health and wellbeing.

Christine Okezie (12m 22s):
So simply put being in the present moment, creates the conditions for healing in the body because when you become aware of the bodies, physical sensations, all that and of itself is a rich source of information that we can pay attention to and respond to in a meaningful, effective way. My favorite way to come into the present moment is simply to put our attention on our breath because when you focus your attention on your breathing, you actually have no choice, but to be in the present moment, when you control your breath, you control your mind.

Christine Okezie (13m 0s):
That’s the game. That’s ultimately what Health is its learning to be more self aware and more skillful with our thoughts and emotions, internal focus yields, external focus, a great way to begin is a simple body scan. So letting the eyes close breathing in, I am aware of my body breathing out. I relaxed my body, scanning your body for any tension in any holding and just softening and letting go in saying in our mind, as we breathe in, I’m aware of my body breathing out.

Christine Okezie (13m 44s):
I relaxed my body. It’s a simple yet extremely powerful way to just pause, pause in the moment of when ever you might notice a mood shift or when you are emotionally triggered or you are feeling a lot of pain and discomfort or having a stressful experience, you might then just allow yourself to deepen into the breathing in from this place, ask yourself, what’s the habitual story that’s running in my head right now about my experience.

Christine Okezie (14m 23s):
What are the thoughts? What are the now, what is the negative self talk? What are the limiting or fearful beliefs that are running right now? And are they 100% accurate and true and you might go on and ask yourself, well, how do I feel when I believe these thoughts? In fact, you might entertain, what would it be like if I just didn’t believe these thoughts?

Christine Okezie (14m 55s):
So in this stillness of this present moment, what we’re doing is we’re contacting a quiet space, a friendly space within ourselves to have the experience of the more subtle nature of who we really are. And this subtle part of our being is actually the wiser. The more powerful part in contrast to the denser parts of ourselves, the heavy, the thoughts, the thinking, the ruminating, the worrying, those heavier, and by the way, weaker parts of our psyche present moment awareness using the breath, using a gentle kind inquiry is a way to experience more of what’s really going on.

Christine Okezie (15m 43s):
It allows you to penetrate reality with more truth in the stillness of the present moment, your contacting a quiet part within yourself. That’s the neutral mind or the meditative space. And here is where we can have the experience of the subtle part of our being, right. We’re trying to move beyond the dense physical body, beyond the intellect, beyond the busy thinking mind. And it’s from this place where we can start to experience the perfection that you are.

Christine Okezie (16m 19s):
That’s the place where you embody all of these concepts that we talk about and that we understand on the cognitive level, but we start to embody them in the present moment awareness. We start to embody self-compassion self-love and ultimately this process is creating the conditions. Once again, in the body mind, biochemically energetically in our psyche, all the conditions that are required for a health healing and happiness, because its not enough to believe that you are loved light and perfection.

Christine Okezie (16m 55s):
You actually need to have an experience of it, which means we need to develop a mindset. Ultimately shifting in our consciousness, coming into the present moment through breath, work through meditation is training the psyche, but not just in the moment when you practice, not just in the situation when, where you use it as a tool to navigate a particular experience. But over time, what we do is this cultivates a new default setting in our life.

Christine Okezie (17m 28s):
We, we calibrate ourselves. The goal of present moment awareness is to expand our sense of self identity and use the body mind and the breath to catalyze a shift, to give us a sense of this expansive self that we are so that we can have the experience of. I am not all of these things. I am not my problems. I am not my worries. I am not my beliefs. I am not my fears. I am not my emotions because that is what we need to cut through.

Christine Okezie (18m 3s):
We need to cut through the illusion that we think his reality, which again is defined by our emotional reactivity, our limiting beliefs, our negative self talk and false narratives about who we think we, our present moment awareness destabilizes the one thing that is locking in all of that fear and anger and discontent, it destabilizes the subconscious more specifically it destabilizes and cuts through our internal dialogue and that my friends is why present moment awareness is the most important Life Health skill.

Christine Okezie (18m 46s):
So just take a moment now and allow your eyes to close, relaxed your face, soften your jaw, relaxed your tongue and softly. Bring a meditative gaze into your third eye with your eyes closed, upward and rolled in focusing ever so gently into the space between your eyebrows and just breathe in an out the nose, breathing in for a count of five and breathing out for a count of five slow and deep and feel your body and ask yourself, what are you thinking about?

Christine Okezie (19m 46s):
You might name and note, some things maybe its a to do list. Maybe its something that is again, something that’s happened in the past or something that you’re planning for the future and just notice and observe. And with these thoughts you might ask yourself, what am I feeling? Always knowing that you can bring yourself right back to the present moment by taking those breaths and ask yourself now, what thoughts can I choose to bring me health and happiness?

Christine Okezie (20m 28s):
Remind yourself that in this moment you are fine and all is well and you’re alive and breathing now. And that is enough. You are enough Present Moment Living is essential. You have to learn how to do this. And it takes practice to cultivate this mindful awareness. It’s important to emphasize that mindful awareness is an opportunity to be in the wholeness of ourselves and the wholeness of life.

Christine Okezie (21m 2s):
Making space for suffering, joy or peace unrest, fullness and emptiness. All of it present moment awareness is not just a technique or a tool for coping with a specific problem with practice and discipline and devotion mindful awareness becomes a way of being a beautiful quote that sums this up from the Buddha.

Christine Okezie (21m 35s):
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. So I hope this has been helpful to you, my friends and that it brings you back to a place where you can find a little bit more peace, a little bit more well being and freedom in your everyday. And if you’ve liked this episode, I be grateful.

Christine Okezie (22m 6s):
If you could just leave a rating and a review that helps me keep getting my message out and keeps the podcast growing. So thank you again. Bye for now,