Balancing Mind, Body, & Soul

Hi, my name is Chatri Touch, one of the counselor at George Washington High School. During the spring 2020 semester, I was on a sabbatical where I was lucky enough to participate in a month-long yoga teacher training. During that training, I was able to practice balancing my mind, body, and soul. So during this presentation, I would like to share with you what I learned so you'll be able to use some of it in your daily life to find some inspiration, calm, ease, and joy in your life. So during this presentation, I will talk about why do we need to find a balance, ways that our mind is aligned to us, and then strategies to find that balance. So you might be wondering, why should I listen? So there are a lot of benefits to balancing yourself. So when you are balanced, you are able to tap into the abundance that is within you. You will feel a sense of calmness, easiness, and peacefulness within you, and then that feeling of joy from within. Inspiration and creativity, you will be able to tap into. So when you find stillness and calm your mind from the chaos, new ideas will pop up that will inspire you. Also, you'll be able to allow things in, but also to let them go. So that practice of allowance, but also non-attachment by just letting it go, because you know that change is constant, that it will happen. So these are some of the benefits to practicing balancing our mind, body, and soul. So our mind can be very powerful, so is our body and our soul. We often listen to our mind. You know, that's something that takes a lot of our attention, but we also need to listen to the voice within our body and within our soul, okay? So having that balance of the mind, body, and soul will really tap into your true potential and make you actualize it into reality. How are we out of balance? So when we over-identify with our mind, we forget to nurture our body and soul. So our body might be quiet, and our soul might be hidden as well, because we pay too much attention to our mind. So why is this an issue? So we strain our body because we are not noticing its signal. For rest, relaxation, and also for our soul, we're not hearing our inner voice, right? Your true nature, that power that you have within is being hidden under the disguise of your mind. So our mind takes in things from our environment, so the things that surround us, our family, our friends, our teachers, social media, stuff on the TV, things that we read, right? So there's a lot of activity going on your mind. It's like traffic on the 101 or traffic in LA. There's a lot going on. It's very busy. So oftentimes, that will lead us to be out of balance. So with our mind, there are multiple ways that it could lie to us. One is with the imposter syndrome, so the feeling that you don't belong and you are only here by luck, okay? Hashtag self-doubt. So you're doubting yourself. Why are you here? What am I doing here? Why am I in this AP class? Why do I have this job? I feel like I didn't deserve this, right? Because looking around you, you don't know, you don't see people like you, or you don't think they are like you, so you have a lot of self-doubt. So that's one way that your mind lies to you, but in actuality, you worked hard for it. You do belong there. Another one is self-fulfilling prophecy. So when your behaviors make your prediction come true, so you're kind of self-sabotaging yourself, okay? So for example, if you feel like you will fail this class, you make that prediction, guess what? You might act in a way, for example, like not going to class, not doing your homework, and then when you get your report card, that F for D grade is not a surprise, because you'd be like, yeah, of course I got an F, because I didn't go to class, or I didn't do my homework, or I didn't study for the exam. You kind of have a legit reason of why you earned that F. But in actuality, you're just self-sabotaging yourself. You're making that prediction come true. If you change your behavior and your thoughts, there would be a different outcome. Another way that your mind lies to you is learn helplessness. So you're conditioned to believe that a bad situation cannot be changed. Hashtag you gave up. So you feel that you do not have control, or you do not have any strength or any good in you to make a difference in the situation that you're in, so you don't even try. So all of these things are lies that your mind tells you, because within you, inside your soul, you have all the necessary things to make your life wonderful, beautiful, successful if you tap into it, if you're able to disassociate from your mind, okay? So you have thoughts, you are not your thoughts, right? These thoughts will continue to come, but do not attach to it, all right? These are just thoughts, and then you could just let it go. So now I will talk about how to find that balance, how to disassociate from your mind. So it is a practice to disassociate from your mind, to balance it with your body and soul. So when I say practice, it's something that you continue to do every day. You're not gonna be perfect, you're not gonna be balanced all the time. It might teeter-totter, like when you're on a seesaw, right? You can't really stay balanced on a seesaw the whole time. It will be very tiring. So when you're practicing this, be gentle with yourself. It takes time, it is a practice, okay? So the first technique to finding balance is to use a saying, a quote, or a mantra as a reminder. So one that I really like is, I have thoughts, I am not my thoughts. So this is kind of like a shield that you could use, be like, you know what? These thoughts are coming through my mind, but you are saying, and you're noticing it, so you say, I have thoughts, I am not my thoughts. So there are a lot of other quotes out there. We can definitely talk more about those quotes as well. And then the next thing is breath work. The longer the inhale and exhale, the slower the rate of thoughts that enter your mind. So you have about 10,000 thoughts per day, and those 10,000 thoughts might seem a lot, but they're very repetitive, they're not new, okay? So when you're doing breath work, when you're focusing on your breathing, counting the inhales, and then the exhale, you're focusing on that. And when you're doing that, you're slowing down your thoughts, you're slowing down your mind, okay? And when you do this, you're able to silence your mind or slow it down. And then this is when you have room to allow new thoughts in. And this is where you could be inspired, creativity could come in, right? Or you could use breath work, you know, if an emotion comes up, if you're angry, sad, or whatnot, use this breath work technique to slow down your feelings in your mind, and then you will come up with a better solution on how to act, okay? So breath work is really important. You could YouTube box breathing techniques, or just use breath work in the YouTube search, and you'll be able to see that. So my recommendation is inhaling through your nose, and then counting to four, and then as you exhale out of your nose, count to four, and repeat that a few times, maybe about five minutes, 10 minutes if you can, but even just for a minute is better than none. Something you could do every morning, and also before you go to bed to help you relax and calm your mind. And it's a practice for you to help yourself disassociate from your mind, slow down your mind. Square breathing. And then another technique is physical movement. So when you're in doing something, that movement allows you to focus on an act. So that's why having a hobby is great, right? Like when you are playing a video game, you're focused on that act. When you're playing football, when you are writing a story, when you are drawing, when you are playing basketball, any kind of physical movement, when you like it, you're totally focused on it, you're dedicated on it, that your mind is taking a backseat, and your body and your soul is more in action doing the things. And there's something called a flow state. So when you're really in the groove of things, you are just like in it, you're doing it, your mind is totally taking a backseat, and that's when you're really shining and doing really well. So really find a hobby that really allows you to focus on the movement. So you're not just sitting at home thinking about your thoughts. And then the last technique is the practice of observing your thoughts, okay? Notice as it arrives, then let it go. Don't judge or attach to your thoughts. So the other three techniques that I told you about the same, you have thoughts, I am not your thoughts, breath work, and doing a physical movement. Those are all activities that help you with this last technique to observe, right? To disassociate. So when you are playing tennis, notice the thought that arrives when you are about to hit the ball, right? Do you hear yourself saying, I'm gonna miss it. I'm not good at it. Oh, I'm gonna hit it, right? Those are thoughts that come to mind. Notice it, let it go. Don't judge and don't attach to those thoughts because you have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. So doing these four activities will really help you find a balance with your mind, body, and soul. So once again, my name is Mr. Touch, a counselor at George Washington High School. Feel free to email me so we could further discuss about this. I love talking about yoga philosophies and how we could really tap into the abundance that is already within you, but our mass, or sorry, our mind is masking all of stuff that's hidden inside. So how can we do these practice to reveal who we truly are with all the abundance that is inside us? Okay, thank you so much for listening.