Transforming Life through Mindful Practices

But today's episode is a sort of monologue and I'm going to be sharing a story In what all the 67 episodes I think this is the 68th episode that we've had on MindfulHR , which I've had lots of interviews with old people . I've gone to media parties and asked me what is it about living mindfully or what is it about mindful living ?

That usually throws people back , but it also gives me the chance to explain and say that being in the moment and understanding this disorder truly helps me understand myself and other people . But that's not even the major reason why we're having conversations on Mindfully with Tumishe .

The major reason we're having conversations on Mindfully with Tumishe and sharing stories and collecting stories is so that we can begin to have clean language around mental health conversations , because of course I know that an average person hears mental health conversations . Because of course I know that an average person hears mental health .

What they actually hear is mental ill , health and , um , of course , I've had conversations with people on the show , psychiatrists and friends , who have tried their best to explain what mindfully , or living mindfully , means to them , or what mental health or mental acuity , or living a whole life means to them , and I've enjoyed every single one of these conversations ,

single one of these conversations . We've even gone into the business world . We had in November a very young , talented man , divine Matthew , who was mindfully and consciously saying that at 20 he was going to be a founder and is actually a founder .

We've had really , really interesting conversations , but the main thrust of Mindful Itching Machine is well , for want of a better word patterned upon a fight for life . A fight for life for each person who listens to know that their life is meaningful , no matter what is going on around them .

And at this one before I and I said , it's going to be a very reflective one because I caught a story . Yeah , I caught a story , uh , in the , you know , in the one week after a fight for life , the one day main retreat that we had that mindful attention hosted back in november .

But , um , I , before I tell that story , I want to say something about , um , mental health and mental ill health . Okay , mentally health , of course we know that where we have that's the realm , where we have diagnoses , we have things like bipolar depressive mood disorders . We have personality disorders , we have there's a lot .

Okay that I even , because I am not a psychiatrist .

But last I think it was in November also when Dr Abayomi Dr Iman Abayomi , who's our senior clinical psychiatrist and a psychotherapist at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital , aro , was on the show , he gave a simple definition to what mental health is , and I'm going to share that with you before I go into the story that I quote during my break .

Hear him as he tries to explain or give a simple definition to what mental health is the thoughts in your head , the emotions you feel in your heart and your behaviors . When they are in sync , they work hand in hand towards helping you live the kind of life you want to live , do things that are important to you .

Oh , wow , that's simple , straightforward , and that is how simple it is to understand . The simplest way . You couldn't have just put it the best for me the thoughts in your head , the emotions you feel in your heart and your behavior when they are in sync and work hand in hand towards helping you to live the kind of life that you want .

That is not just creating a psychological safe space for yourself to thrive in the world , it also is you protecting your mental health . So let's get to the story that I collected , you know , uh , in the one week that I took after a fight for life , all right .

So anyone who knows me knows how central I've rambled about for about five minutes now , how central living mindfully is to my existence , not just because I live with a condition , but because it's been part of my life even before I knew I lived with bipolar . But let me give you a little backstory .

Living Mindfully the book , was a gift and I'm going to share a little bit about how Living Mindfully shaped me and what it truly means to me . Living Mindfully is one gift I didn't even know I had . I didn't realize I'd been operating in and with for most part of my life , and this realization , of course , birthed the book .

Living mindfully , a journey to being . And at the core of this book , and indeed the idea of mindfulness , is about perception . Why perception ? Because the power we give to perception , how we see things , how we think people see us determine how we interact with the world , others , but , most importantly , how we interact with ourselves .

Now , as a writer , I believe every author hopes their work resonates with someone you know , sparks some conversation , in fact as a creative , or inspires some form of reflection . But I must tell you that I'm grateful that I stumbled across one advice before publishing about enjoying the process of writing rather than obsessing over the outcome .

Had I not embraced that wisdom , I might have fallen into my usual self-deprecating couch in space , when the immediate reception to my work and I've been in this industry for long enough to know that perception is key , you know , the reception to my work didn't match my lofty expectations . But I told myself something important I was writing for service .

I always say that . Sometimes I think I sound like a broken record when I'm when I say that all I do is service . Of course not for sales or applause . Of course it would be good to have those applause .

But the major reason for living mindfully was to offer value to those who might find it Even though I initially saw the book Living Mindfully as and Lamont will say my best shitty first draft .

But two years on though , I am beginning to witness the meaningful interactions I had hoped for , random people sending me messages on socials and people saying oh , tumisha , you held back . Yes , I did , I did . I did hold back because at the time of writing that book I was not ready to tell some stories . All right , but don't worry , things are changing .

We're living mindfully , remember . So what's funny for me is when someone shares a powerful takeaway from the book . Sometimes I often have to go back and check to see if I truly wrote what they were referencing . And yes , truly . I get there and I'm like , oh , to be sure , you wrote that . It reminds me of how wrote , how habitual and almost mechanical .

The writing process for living mindfully was , at times , very little research . I did research , but it was just something that I needed to get out of the time .

You know , I'm grateful and I admit that I held back in some parts of the story , sometimes some things , pardon me that I would revisit , you know , as I share and we continue on this journey , living mindfully , and mindfully with tanisha . So let's get back to the regist . What does living mindfully have to do with perception ? And here goes the story .

After hosting a fight for life , uh , back in november , I took a break to reconnect with myself , because that event took took a whole lot from me , because I had to go into places that uh to to be able to connect with not just the event but the people that will be serving when they came for the event . So I took a break .

During this pause , in my hotel room , I encountered an image , a piece of art , which might be the cover art for this episode Maybe you'll also be able to join the conversation A piece of art that sparked a very fascinating conversation between my friends who came to visit me in the hotel and I .

When they saw the art , what they saw was a masked butterfly , or , at best , a , a spotted butterfly that was masked . But that's not what I saw . I saw a wild card . I saw a wild card , a leopard . Most importantly and I think what made was making this really hit me is that I saw a spotted jaguar .

Note , before this time I didn't know that we had spotted jaguars in existence . A jaguar for me was a black , beautiful panther . You know that . Okay , animals are not . I just love them for their metaphors . I can't fool any animal . Okay , let's get that out of there . So , but I googled and found that that we did .

I have a sported jaguar and it's very markedly different than the leopard , and this was interesting to me and I started to ask myself where did I get the idea of a sported jaguar from ? I don't know , I didn't have an answer to that , so don't expect to give you , expect me to give you one .

But this moment led to a deeper conversation about stories of origin , because , of course , my friend was asking me okay , where , how did you see , how can you see a leopard in home ? My friend from Plato State shares a cultural practice from her tribe that left me stunned , as in my shock , was shocked .

She said that when a baby is born and a visitor comes to visit the mother and , of course , the baby , as we do mostly because we're very communal , uh culture and they will say such things as hi , this baby is ugly , oh , look at that crooked nose . My initial reaction was what , what ?

But should no one explain that it's a cultural way to ward off evil spirits and absorb themselves of responsibility if anything happens to the child ? The logic , she said , is that calling the child ugly wards off or warns off evil spirit from targeting the child . That I understood quite easily , but before I tell you how I interpreted that .

She said , basically , saying nice things attract the evil spirit and saying unflattering things serves as a disguise . Ah , beautiful is itoruba girl . I'm like ha , how is you know the logic part of wedding of evil spirit I actually even think I love , but exonerating themselves if something happen to the child that I struggled with .

Yet her father , chinonwen's father , chose to challenge this tradition . He wouldn't allow any negative remarks near his children and if someone protested , you know him pushing back that and say something like we don't mean that way . You know we don't mean that way . He'll say , yes , I know you don't , but don't say that around my child .

Let the evil spirits come for me or to me instead of my children . Ah , that was powerful and that you know . Just the heart saying that to me stayed with me for like an hour and as you look at me , it's like what are you thinking ? I said there's so many things going on in my head because your father stood on the place of the divine .

This was apparent , fully understanding their role as their child's protector and personal prophet . It made me reflect on how cultural practices , even with good intentions , can have unintended consequences . Again , I'm Yoruba and the adage that was swimming in my head was that is no one knows which of them actually is suffering from a stomach ache .

It's a reminder to question for me . As we had that conversation , I was questioning myself , my head . It was a reminder to question what we accept and what we pass down . Now let me paint a scenario to you .

Imagine if I , as the yoruba woman , I am married into this culture and I didn't understand , or did you know , anything about this practice of how does anyone put it again , this practice of basically saying nice things attract and saying and flattering things says that this guy's the word of the evil around my child .

First off , that is probably the first cause in postnatal depression 101 . I'm gonna be like I'm , I'm likely going to be confused and offended . Of course , if someone greeted my baby with such remarks , of course what happens then ? Resentment builds , then leads to family feuds . No one is talking to anyone .

Again , clean communication and of course it leads to further misunderstandings . It leads to further misunderstandings . Now , what if my husband or my mother-in-law had explained the culture and reasoning behind the practice before , before I had the first visitor ? I might laugh .

When it happens , I might laugh , you know , but then immediately I start speaking positive over my child . That is to say , context changes everything . Context changes everything . And let me tell you what the story did for me . It reaffirmed something in a lot of concepts that I hold about parenting .

I deeply believe that parenting is dying to self , and this was what Shitton and Stadts had done . It's about questioning how we were raised , sifting through the good and the bad and choosing better for the next generation . And whenever I say , whenever I say , things like parenting is dying to self , I get pushback .

But the most pushback I get whenever I say , whenever I talk , parenting is you cannot raise your children the way you were raised . I think what people hear when I say that is that you should not discipline or even caution your child . Far from it , because you're going to guide them , you're going to lead them . That is why they are here .

Right , but you're from the story , I hope . Right , but you're , you're from the story . I hope you understand now that your journey or your duty or your obligation with this child is to protect and die till what you think you know is best .

Because , come on , if this were you and they told , I don't know again , as you can see , I'm still trying to process this dying to self-vastionance that embraced , projected and lived All right . It is not about rejecting discipline , but about raising children as upgrades of ourselves , just as we are upgrades of our ancestors .

He did not right the first people come with me to me about me being too Western or dismissing tradition . No , no , no , he did not dismiss a tradition . He acknowledged it , he accepted it . But my friend's father understood that his children were an upgrade of him . Now we don't know what his stories of of origin and I didn't even bother asking .

I was not even asking because I was not even in the headspace . I was still sitting with a story he refused to let his children inherit negativity disguised as tradition .

He decided that the world is challenging enough like there's a lot of craziness in the world already , without adding unnecessary burdens to a student's shoulders , because they're going to also pack up as the journey in life , their own crisis . So why are dead ? He was that , wait for it . Mindful . He was present .

He was living , mindfully , taking from his stories of origin and deciding that , yeah , the tradition might be there , but I am taking charge of my life stories , my children's stories , going forward . And that , my dear mindful partner , is what living mindfully looks like . Ah , I , as I continue to unpack lessons from this reflective season that I've had .

It was a one week of full lecture , like I could write a book if I wanted , or a short ebook . All right , I invite you to think about the role perception plays in your life . How can you challenge old marriages , embrace new perspectives and live more mindfully ?

I know for a fact that sitting for with our stories can be very daunting , but I tell you for a fact also that the answers that you seek are within those stories that you're running from .

And that is how , going back to what Dr Abiyami said , how you can begin to feed the thoughts in your head , the emotions in your heart and your behaviors to come into synchronization so that they can work hand in hand towards helping you live the life that you want . That is protecting your mental health .

That is creating a psychological safe space for yourself , for your family , for your partner if you have a partner , even if you don't have a partner for a single parent , male and female , if you're seeking to have a relationship .

Again , work to create a psychological safe space for yourself in your thoughts , navigating your emotions and making sure that they sync with your behavior and work hand in hand to help you live the kind of life that you want . Context is everything . Perception is everything . Are you ready to live more mindfully ?

If you have not gotten the book , mindfully with Tumishe is at roving heights . You can also get it on Amazon , like Mindfully with Tumishe Journey to being . Yeah , it's on Amazon . Uluwa Tumishe Oladakwakuku Right , it's also on seller if you want to just search on it and you can get a soft copy also .

So I am inviting you , as we round off the year , or whenever I that , whenever it says that you're listening to this I'm inviting you to sit with your stories , acknowledge them , embrace them , embrace them , fix them , and then the thoughts that come off , the emotions that come up for you , put them side by side by your behaviors . Are they in sync ?

Are they working hand in hand towards helping you to live the kind of life that you want ? Until next time , stay mindful , love yourself , love your neighbor , love your country and , above all of this , love God .

He is the essence of your being , and I cannot end this conversation without saying a huge thank you to the two friends who helped me with this conversation or talked me through this conversation . Of course , shidnenwan , I cannot say your surname . Shidnenwan , not Nan , I cannot say your surname , so forgive me for that . Nenwa not Nnam .

I cannot say a certain name , so forgive me for that . And the young god himself , rodney Omokache . It was such an interesting time . Okay , so until I come back from Because , like I said , there's a lot to unpack Until I come back with more thoughts from my uh , reflective season . Stay mindful , I am .