Last week was a rough one, not gonna lie. I noticed I was really tired, I noticed that I was more grumpy and short-tempered than usual. I noticed I struggled to come up with something I was grateful for. I noticed….I noticed….
I NOTICED.
When I’m teaching someone about emotions I might ask them “where do you feel that in your body?” (To be fair the first time my therapist asked me this I thought he’d lost his mind! Sometimes clients look at me like that too!) If I’m doing EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) with someone I’ll ask, “what are you noticing now?” It occurs to me that noticing is a very powerful tool, in therapy and also in my day to day life.
As part of my coaching program this month I’m working on a new habit of following my morning routine each day. I put a wallpaper on my phone to remind me “I feel better when I wake up on time.” Then I’ve committed to noticing what thoughts come up for me when I try to get up, when I don’t, and when I succeed. That’s what I’ve been working on this week. Rather than complaining that I’m feeling so tired I’m working on just noticing. I often tell clients that this is the first step to making changes. You can’t change what you don’t see after all. I find that is one of the most challenging steps, the noticing part.
A simple act of paying attention can take you a long long way.
Keanu Reeves
Paying attention in a busy world can be harder than it sounds. Getting in touch with our bodies after months or years (or in my case decades) of ignoring it can be incredibly difficult. The act of noticing itself is super hard. If I want to spend less money at Starbucks (and believe me I do!) I first need to actually become aware of how much I’m spending there now. Sometimes noticing is so difficult I go back to ignoring and pretending rather than doing the work. But if I can stick with it I find that just in noticing I start to make changes.
The key here is to do this with compassion and kindness. Like instead of saying “HOW much do you spend each month on drinks?!?!?!?” I can say, “wow, that’s more than I thought. I’m so glad that I’m paying attention because now I can make adjustments.” It’s harder than it sounds, being nice to yourself. But it’s worth it and it’s important. When we can treat ourselves with compassion and kindness we can get down to the hard work of…
