Conscious Contentment
I’ve learned a lot of valuable wellbeing practices... Right now the simplest and most potent one is re-minding myself to really lean into contentment.
This can take a little practice bc our mind, so quickly, runs us out of the present moment and into the old negativity bias…a predictive pattern based on past experience—an unfortunate evolutionary survival trait.
The practice of conscious contentment naturally flows into allowing joy and excitement to guide our life choices.
The foundation of this approach is embodiment. Embodiment means I appreciate the totality of my experience through my whole bodymind.
It’s not difficult to do, we just tend towards disappearing into disembodied thoughts. Which disconnects us from our intuitive wisdom.
Feeling the impact of the warmth of the sun on our skin, or noticing the affect the view of the ocean has on our bodymind—these are embodied moments.
So conscious contentment is about savouring the felt sense of contentment. This is how it works practically:
I am living my day, observing the totality of my experience (aka looking around, listening, smelling etc.)
I invest my attention in the aspects I enjoy/appreciate (the sky, the clouds, my car, the warmth.)
I am present with the feelings of contentment in my body in response to those aspects.
I do this as much as possible, ideally in every moment. I'm not rushing through it/thinking over it.
This true presence enables us to consciously lean into contentment.
When I am living an embodied life in this way it’s also much easier to align with my intuition, which we can sense through our bodies, rather than getting bogged down in a mind-field of unnecessary details.
When I approach my life like this, I am much closer to my body’s subtle shifts. I notice when it is giving me a direction, when it is giving me a no or a YES!
—And this makes life so much easier, more efficient and infinitely more pleasurable!
So after exploring this approach, and feeling a significant shift, I wanted to create SPACE for people to lean into contentment and clarity, consciously.
