Mindful Messages From Natalie Bacon

Hi there. Welcome to the Design Your Dream Life podcast. My name is Natalie Bacon, and I’m an advanced certified mindfulness life coach as well as a wife and mom. If you’re here to do the inner work and grow, I can help. Let’s get started.

Hey there. Welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy to be here with you today. I hope everything in your world and your life is going well. Today I have something so fun and exciting to share with you. I created something brand new. It is called Mindful Messages from Natalie Bacon.

Throughout the month, and really throughout the week, anywhere from five, three, two times a week, I am giving you a mindful message. It’s short. It’s bite sized, and you can get it inside Grow You. This is a standalone feature that makes the $79 a month worth the entire monthly membership. So I know for some of you who haven’t seen how you would be able to use this in your daily life yet, this will be the thing, and this will be the reason, and this will be your most favorite feature. We’ve already gotten so much feedback. We’ve had it rolled out for several weeks now inside the program.

I want to share more about it with you today. What I’m going to do is go through several of the mindful messages so that you get a sense of what that would really be like. So you’re gonna get it here, completely free on this podcast. That would be like what it would be to have it in your ear inside Grow You.

So the reason that I decided to add this feature was because I was noticing that while you only need to come to a group coaching call say once a week to kind of clean out your brain, there’s that in between time where it would be nice to hear from your coach. It would be nice to get a little insight or piece of wisdom to kind of help you think more deliberately and sometimes positively and become a more mindful.

This is the way that I’ve chosen to do it. It is so easy to use. I had the busy mom in mind when I created this because I know for myself included just making it easier for me to consume personal development is the difference between me doing it and not doing it. So it’s queued up on the private podcast, and you just listen to it like you would this podcast except every couple of days, you’re getting a new message from me.

We also have added it inside the portal. So you can listen to every single one of these inside the portal as well if you prefer that. Either way it’s so easy to listen to, and therefore easy for you to have that input in your ear. I’m sharing my new ideas that I come up with. I’m also sharing ideas that you have.

So there is a page in the portal that invites you to request a topic or share something that you would like me to talk about in a mindful message. You just put in the form what you would like me to talk about and you submit it. I will get that, and I then add that to the messages that I’m creating.

So they’re messages from you specifically. They’re messages from me and kind of my ideas coming from what I’m working on personally and what I’m also seeing in the Grow You community. So inside the ask a coach forum, for example. If I see something coming up repeatedly, that’s a cue for me that okay I want to do a mindful message on this and really make sure I can clarify some things.

I think that this is really the difference between knowing you should do the work and doing the work. I know that life can get in the way sometimes even though we have the best intentions. The easier something is for us, the more likely we are to do it. Right.

I’ll take an example from my own life. If I find myself saying oh, I just don’t have time to watch that coaching call or something like that. I’ll notice though that I have time to scroll on Instagram. Well, isn’t that interesting, right? I’m blaming time when really it’s just me being in the habit of using Instagram. Whereas the coaching call is that once a week thing that I’m watching the replay of that I really have to use my prefrontal to remind myself of.

So for me personally I just tried to set myself up for success. The way I’ve done that is for Grow You, I have the website as an app on my phone like a homepage. I can just click on, and it automatically loads so that I can always listen to what’s going on in there. I do the same thing for the podcast. It’s just queued up, and I can listen on the go no matter what is going on.

So I know many of you love podcasts. You’re listening to a podcast right now. This will be something that I really think you might like as a standalone feature just to have something in your ear without promotions, without trying to get you to do something. Nothing against that. That’s what marketing is for.

But when you pay for it, you get it completely free of all that. You just get the content. You just get the tools and the practices that are going to be in your ear, helping you work on any challenge that you’re having in a way that is digestible, and will help you have these practices at the top of your mind. Which means you’re so much more likely to use them throughout the day.

You can sign up for Grow You and test out the mindful messages for this month. You can go to momonpurpose.com/coaching and get all of the information there. As always, I make it so easy to cancel. I don’t want you to you know have to go through loopholes and contacting us and all of these things that make it more challenging for you. On the help page, you can click cancel, and that’s it. You’re done. So test it out for this month.

I will say that in this month of October, the topic of the month is your relationship with your life. So it’s a perfect month to get started as we are looking at all of the thoughts and the mindset that we have in many areas of our life, which will help us show up with a better more positive attitude. So with that, I want to jump in to seven mindful messages. They’re all different to give you a taste of what it is like.

Number one, thinking in models in real life. Something that has made a huge difference in my life in becoming more mindful, more intentional, more thoughtful, showing up as the woman I want to be, has been thinking in models. What I’m referring to here is the thought model, the self-coaching model. I teach this inside Grow You.

It is the idea that thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions, and actions create results, and circumstances are just the facts. They are neutral. This was created by Brooke Castillo of The Life Coach School, and I am certified as a life coach. So I teach this tool, and you get a course on it inside the program.

What I have found is that thinking in models in my everyday life has enabled me to stay calm, to feel my feelings, to not yell, to not go into resistance of anxiety and sort of ruminate and thought loop. Really, I’ve been able to create so much more connection in my marriage and success in my life. Really, it’s affected every single area of my life. The way that I do this is through my practices out of the moment, my morning routines and all of that. But in the moment throughout the day, I’m thinking in models.

So here’s an example. When I let someone over in traffic, and they don’t wave, I have this little feeling of irritation. I will tell myself I’m feeling irritated because I’m thinking that person should have waived. Then the irritation moves through me because I attribute it to my thoughts. I don’t attribute it to the person. This way of thinking in models in real life, of saying oh, I’m feeling this way because I’m thinking X, Y, Z helps me take responsibility for my feelings instead of blaming my feelings, which is what my brain wants to do on default, on what’s happening outside of me.

When you start to think in models, you become so much more empowered as a way of living because you know that you can handle any challenge that comes your way. You’re no longer trying to control what’s happening outside of you. Instead, you are solely focused on what’s happening inside of you.

The next mindful message I want to share with you is three phases of making a change. Did you know that anytime you make a change, there are three phases to it? There’s the after phase, the during phase, and the before phase.

So when you go about trying to change something, you’ll first do so after it’s already happened. That’s how you notice that you even want to make the change because you don’t like the effect of it. Then you will work on it so much after the fact that eventually you’ll catch yourself during it, and you will take different action during the thing that you’re doing. Then eventually, you will notice it beforehand, and you won’t even do the action in the first place.

So here’s an example. I have little pieces of chocolate candy in my refrigerator at any given time. Sometimes they are little Snickers, sometimes they are little M&Ms, just a little something that I can grab whenever I want. Let’s say that I wanted to make a change and not do this anymore. Okay, so I would notice that after the fact, right.

So I’m telling you this now. I’m thinking back to the last time that I did this. It sort of almost feels like it’s happening to us because we are so habituated in it that we notice it after. We didn’t even notice we were doing it. We were thinking about something else. We went into the refrigerator, grabbed a piece of candy, ate it, and the next thing you know, we’re on to the next thing. Not even paying attention. This is what happens when we are in the habit of something. We’ve done it so many times. We don’t have to use that prefrontal part of our brain.

When you want to work on something, you are bringing it to the forefront. So you have to slow it way down and start to pay attention to yourself taking that action. So the idea is that you pay attention so much that eventually in the moment of grabbing the candy, you will pause and put the candy back. Five minutes later, you may even go back in and take it.

But this is the process of change. You are breaking that pathway, that neural pathway, that pattern. So much so that eventually during the moment, you will stop taking that action. Then beforehand you will think about it. You’ll say hey, normally I would go in the refrigerator and get that candy, and I’m not going to do it.

So I am bringing this to you here because someone submitted a question about how to change when the action felt so ingrained. Like it just happens to you. Your actions are always a product of what you are thinking and feeling. You just may be so habituated in a particular thought pattern and feeling pattern and action pattern that it’s mindless for you. You don’t have to think about it.

So making a change to take different action means that you will have to use your mind to do it, and it will feel very clunky. That’s okay. I like to think about the difference between driving the same route to the grocery store versus trying to take a new route. At first, it’s going to be clunky. You’re going to have to pay a lot of attention. You might even turn the wrong way and have to start over. But eventually you create that new habit, that new pattern. So the three phases of making any change are always noticing it after the fact and then you notice it during and then you notice it before.

The next mindful message that I have for you is the feeling of relief. Did you know that the feeling of relief requires negative emotion? You cannot have relief without some version of stress, anxiety, worry, overwhelm. Because of this, it’s not the best emotion that you want to feel most often. Because you will always need to have a negative emotion in order to feel relief.

So just pay attention to whether you really like feeling relief and whether that’s a top emotion for you. Because if it is, it may be that you are creating a lot of negative emotion so that you can feel relief. It’s really interesting to think about my friend.

For the fourth mindful message, I want to share something with you from Mindfulness: Focus. Slow Down. De-Stress. A mindful tasting exercise. Take a small piece of chocolate, a raisin, or a toffee of some sort. Center yourself with a few breaths. Put the treat in your mouth and keep it there without chewing or swallowing but prolonging its presence in your mouth.

Fully concentrate on the taste sensation and all the different characteristics as it moves around your tongue. Be gently aware of your breathing so that the two are harmonious. After the taste has dissolved, focus on your breath for a few moments before resuming your activities. You will have had a brief timeout and enhanced your tastebuds.

So good, right? With mindful messages, I am bringing more content that helps you with your breathing, with becoming more aware of your body, more aware of what you’re saying, more aware of what you’re eating. The increase in awareness will help you slow down and show up in your life in a much more purposeful way.

The next mindful message I have for you is called overwhelm thoughts. Overwhelm is a feeling. A feeling is always created from your thinking. So anytime that you’re feeling overwhelm, it’s always because of the thoughts that you are thinking. Your brain is sneaky and tricky. It would like you to think that it is from your job, or it is from your kids, or it is from what’s going on in your life, but that is never the case. It’s always coming from your thoughts.

So when you feel overwhelm, feel your feelings. Welcome it. Get to know overwhelm and remind yourself it’s coming from your thinking. Then practice thinking more purposeful thoughts that serve you. So instead of I have so much to do and not enough time to do it, which leads to feeling overwhelmed, think there are 20 items on my list, and I will get more than enough done today. Practice that thought.

If you find yourself having a thought, it’s all on me and you feel overwhelmed. Try a different thought. There’s no such thing as all on me. There are simply decisions to make as I work through this transition.

Find the thought that you are thinking that’s creating overwhelm, and create a new better feeling thought and practice that thought. The thought that you’re thinking on default isn’t more true than your chosen thought. You may feel it’s more true because you’ve practiced it more, but it doesn’t make it more true. Find the thought that serves you and that helps you, and I promise you overwhelm is not helpful.

The next mindful message is ask better questions. If you’re getting answers to questions that you don’t like, start asking better questions. For example, if you find yourself asking the question like why does she always act like that? And you’re getting an answer that feels frustrating, disconnecting, defeating. Ask yourself instead, knowing that this is how she acts, how do I want to show up? This question is so much more empowering because it focuses on what you can control, which is always your thoughts, feelings and actions.

Here’s another example. If you’re asking yourself why is this season of life so challenging, your brain is going to go to work finding evidence for why it’s so challenging, which is going to feel very disempowering. Instead, ask yourself a question that helps you get the answer that feels more empowering and is more helpful. So you might ask yourself how can I make this easier? Or what lessons am I learning? Both of those questions are going to lead you to answers that are going to feel so much better.

The last mindful message that I want to share with you today is the difference between in the moment and out of the moment. In the moment, when you are feeling a big feeling, when you are frustrated, overwhelmed, busy, anxious, irritated, any of those challenging emotions, the work is to go inward. Welcome the feeling. Allow the feeling. Get to know the feeling. Befriend the feeling. Then out of the moment. Your job is to create a more empowered mindset and practice thinking on purpose.

So for example, let’s say that your child screams a lot, and you feel annoyed. In the moment befriend the feeling of annoyed. Attribute it to your thoughts. Allow it to be there. Don’t try to fix it. Get familiar with annoyed. Then when you coach yourself next, maybe the next morning or some other time after the annoyance in your body has passed, find the thought you were thinking that created the annoyance and then decide on purpose how you want to think about your child screaming that doesn’t feel so annoying to you.

So maybe you find that the thought you were thinking was she shouldn’t be screaming. I wish she should stop screaming, and then you felt annoyed. An example of a more empowering intentional thought might be, of course, she’s screaming. Kids are supposed to scream. Then you can ask yourself and now what? How do I want to show up? But you’ll show up from a place that feels much more loving, connecting, understanding.

Again, this is one that you’ll have to practice because in the moment, you might be repeatedly going to annoyance, but just remind yourself I can in the moment feel annoyed. I can practice annoyance. Then I can also practice thinking on purpose so that I don’t create that annoyance in the future.

I am so excited to bring you more mindful messages, more of what will help you navigate the challenges that you are facing, help you show up on purpose and create the future that you want that’s better than you’ve ever imagined. This is going to be very collaborative from my own work and from all of you who submit anything that you would like more guidance on.

If you would like to join us for more mindful messages that are released in kind of these bite sized pieces one to five minutes every day, every other day, every few days, come on in to Grow You and you can access the private podcast. I’m telling you this feature alone makes the entire membership worth the monthly fee. You can get more information at momonpurpose.com/coaching. I will see you inside my friend.

If you loved this podcast I invite you to check out Grow You my mindfulness community for moms where we do the inner work together. Head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more.