Are you smiling on the inside?

How’s your mind? Out of 1-10 what would you rate yourself at? Really, if anything should determine our overall health, it should be our mind. OK so I’m going to be completely honest with you (because this is what this blog is about!), my healthy mind score goes up and down, a lot! I do my best to eat well, but then throw in hormones, kids, work, stress, lack of time to exercise and well, you get the picture. I know I’m not alone. Anxiety is not my friend, but he does love to hang out in my mind more often than I would like him to. I’m on a mission to drive him away but he seems pretty intent on staying put. My journey to a healthy mind looks like it will be a long and arduous one, but one I’m intent on finishing as best I can.

Running FROG has been one of the biggest things I could ever do for my emotional and spiritual growth- besides becoming a parent of course (FROG is my baby though so I guess they are sort of the same). I wish I could say that after 4 years I’m cool, calm, collected and possibly enlightened... but sadly no, the inner challenges I face still occur daily- for me they are mainly centered around self-worth but that's a whole other blog. However I know that I’m a better person for it. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be running a business as special as FROG. We all want that job that fills our soul and you know what, I think that for me, FROG does satisfy that need. Sometimes though, it’s hard to be positive-we forget the bigger picture, and get caught up in the small things that just aren’t important- like when I find out that all the salad tubs we were sent were all soggy- it may sound small, but at the end of a big day it can break me.

The good thing is that I’ve learnt some really awesome ways to deal with stuff like that so when I do catch myself heading into that downward spiral I can usually pick myself back up. About 5 years ago a friend introduced me to Access Consciousness. It teaches you tools that allow your mind to stay expansive and open to allowing the flow of life to happen. You do this by asking questions, for instance, with the soggy salad tubs, I would ask ‘What’s right about this that I’m not getting?’, see how nice and expansive that question is? And the truth is there is always a silver lining to every situation… That question is one of my favourites and I ask it a lot.

You don’t need to answer the question, just ask it and allow the answers to flow in when they do. It’s about being in allowance of what comes, and stopping the judgment that can keep us stuck. Other questions you can ask are;

How does it get any better than this? Ask this question for everything good and ‘bad’ that happens, and watch your situation change before your eyes.

Another awesome one to use daily is ‘What else is possible?’ I just love the power of the question and I’m always amazed at how quickly things can change when we choose to allow them to.

Another thing I have realized about myself is that if I want to keep my mind healthy, I need to get back to basics, and for me that means avoiding Facebook as much as I can. This hasn’t been an easy decision to make, especially as the FROG Facebook page has quite a following, but by limiting how much of my energy goes into Facebook I have noticed that I feel amazingly better about life.

Saying goodbye to Facebook is still a work in progress, and I doubt I will ever disconnect altogether… after all it’s a great tool for connecting with old friends, and those connections are ones I don’t want to lose completely. However, I’ve found that by taking baby steps I’m so much more at peace with social media. It started with removing the app from my phone about 18 months ago. Suddenly my phone has become quite boring and in turn I’ve become much more present in my life. Even my kids noticed almost immediately which was an eye-opener and another motivator. Next step for me was to consciously disconnect completely every time I had a holiday- it turns out the less you are on it, the less you need it. I love how much more space I now have in my mind… I’m no longer consumed by what everyone else is saying and doing. I’m more focused on my ‘real life’, and it turns out I’m not missing out on anything (that I know of)- plus suddenly I have so much more time! It may not be for you, but for me and that little hanger-on called Anxiety, I feel it’s a big step in the right direction towards a healthier mind.

Lastly, for me, working towards a healthier mind is about surrounding myself with people who uplift me. I’ve got some amazing girlfriends and although a lot of the time I don’t see them as much as I would like to, spending time with them is always so uplifting, and my healthy mind score always shoots up, no matter how low it was to start with.

Keeping our mind healthy is definitely one of the harder things to do at times, but the effort we put in has huge ramifications on our life. Now my question to you is, What would it take for you to do more of what makes you happy?