Hi Mamas,

Wishing you all a very happy new year!

We are going to touch on mindset. I say touch because it is a ginormous (side note - doesn't the word ginormous look like it shouldn't be a word?! ) topic and we will barely scratch the surface in this email.

Mindset is made up of our thoughts and beliefs, and it affects pretty much everything we do in our lives. So, we need to be aware of its power and we also need to work on it.  Daily.  

Some days we feel like we are totally bossing it, we are productive, we feel excited about life, a new opportunity presents itself or something we have been wanting shows up in our inbox.  Other days, we feel low and lethargic, like we are never going to achieve our goals or get anything done so we would be best sitting on the couch watching The Notebook with a tub of ice cream and a box of tissues.  All mindset (mixed in with a dose of hormones at times!)

The people and world around us and the actions we take can strengthen or weaken our mindset.  Firstly, we need to become aware of this fact and that every interaction and thought we have can create a feeling, which in turn creates beliefs, habits and our lives. External inputs include the people around us, our job, our relationships, our friendships, the news, the things we read and listen to, the people we spend time with and the places we go.  Internal inputs are usually created during our childhood and these thoughts and beliefs often stay with us as adults.  The good news is, we can work on and change our mindset.  The bad news is, it takes time. 

We do this with A,B,C. (The first three notes just happen to be, do re mi - are you singing?!)

Awareness - do the people we spend time with gossip or complain, or do they inspire us and fill us up? We want to consciously spend less time with the former and more time with the latter, even if it is one of our best friends who is a total emotional drain.  Does spending 30 minutes reading or listening to the news make us feel negative? Does scrolling social media make us feel yucky or annoyed that we have just wasted the past 40 minutes? Does doing yoga make us feel clear and balanced? Does going to a social event we don't want to go to leave us feeling frustrated? Does a night with girlfriends leave us feeling on top of the world? Start really paying attention to what makes you feel good and what does not.

Balance - we cannot possibly remove all the negatives from our lives, so we have to feed in positives to balance them out. Think of our minds like a scale, possibly weighed down with a lot of negative shit. Each time you read something positive, say something positive to yourself (an affirmation), take action which makes you feel good about yourself like working out when you said you would or finishing that email, you tip the scale ever so slightly.  If we pile on those positive actions day in and day out, that scale looks very different over time.  Remember how much that scale affects everything we do - see top picture if you forgot! It is worth the effort.

Correct - when your mind spirals and you start thinking about all the bad things that might happen, correct yourself.  Literally shout NO to yourself - in your head if you are out in public! Become immediately aware of what your mind is doing and redirect it.  If you are very prone to negative thoughts and this is brand new to you, you can also put an elastic band around your wrist and ping it every time you think a negative thought - it hurts! It will hopefully help you to control and correct. 

Have a positive week mamas, and take some time to Be with your mind to see what positive corrections you would like to make.

Natalie x

Weekly Reminder - you can balance your negative thoughts with positive ones, if you choose to.

Weekly Read/Audio - Mindset by Carol Dweck

Weekly Reset - Google some positive mindset articles, Ted talks, books and podcasts so you have a list of things to put on or read, and commit to doing 5 minutes of one of them each day.