Mindfulness as a Solopreneur

Alyssa Knapp
Integrative Wellness of RI

This was such a juicy talk. 

We, as solopreneurs, know that our energy is constantly being poured into different areas of our careers and personal lives. Alyssa helps us use mindfulness to identify areas of our life that yield the greatest return on energy.

Here are some of the top takeaways: 

• Mindfulness is a practice that really allows us to train our attention, to better be able to shift that awareness in that energy where it needs to be.

• Set your intentions for the day first thing in the morning. Come back to those intentions if your day seems to be getting away from you.

• Take an energy inventory of your life.

• Affirmations and mantras are really very powerful in terms of, of this kind of staying positive and this mindfulness piece.

Here's a partial transcript:
(I use otter.ai to transcribe conversations)

We really do interact with people on an energetic level.

We need tools like mindfulness to ground and come back. We need to manage that energy. So, as entrepreneurs, we have a lot of areas in our personal lives and in our businesses that require our attention, right? And attention is energy. Where we're putting our focus is where we're putting our energy. So speaking with the current state of the world our energies are being pulled in even more directions than usual.

Mindfulness is a practice that really allows us to train our attention, to better be able to shift that awareness in that energy where it needs to be when it kind of gets out of control when it starts to go into all of these different directions. Because when we really think about it, you know, where we're directing our energy is really where our intention is, right?

So my advice is to really reflect daily, preferably in the morning, first thing before you even start your day and put your energy in any specific area, or please really think about where you want that energy to go today.

It could just be literally opening your eyes and asking the question, Where do I want to put my energy today?

I love that because that's really the essence of mindfulness meditation.

It's the non-judgmental awareness of the present moment.

It's when the mind starts to wander to something else to another thought to what you're eating for dinner that night or whatever it is. So just recognize that, not start to tell a story about it, not start to let it drift to the next to the next to the next. But just notice it, and then allow that to come back to the breath. So really, we're taking that same essence of mindfulness meditation, and we're just applying it to our day.

So again, we begin by knowing where we want to place that focus that energy.

And then if and when we deviate from that throughout our day, we simply recognize become aware of it and come back, is this really where I want my energy to go?

So, the second thing is really taking inventory. I like to say energy inventory of your life. So think of it almost like you're spending your energy, you're using your energy like a currency. Right? And you're kind of looking at your budget. Where am I spending my money, right? So where are you spending your energy?

What are some of those things you can cut out the budget that you don't really need to be spending, you know that that energy currency on?

And the third thing that I wanted to bring up is reframing your thoughts.

So this is really huge, especially as entrepreneurs as solopreneurs especially in this field, you know, there there are a lot of people out there doing their thing. It's awesome. And sometimes, especially with social media, we can tend to kind of start to compare ourselves, compare ourselves to other businesses compare ourselves to other individuals. And sometimes this can, you know, deviate you from where you're spending your energy to. Really think about what those thought patterns are recognizing whether or not they're serving you. And then thinking about how you can reel that back in and use those thoughts and to your advantage.

So this is really especially important, I think when you find yourself spread too thin when you find that the stress levels are up. This is when it's really important to take inventory of those cognitions or those thought processes. So when this starts to happen, again, just like we talked about with the mindfulness and the intention and where you're spending your energy, notice if these thoughts are serving you and you know what you're trying to achieve, and then reframing them into a more positive way.

So, I for one, am a huge fan of affirmations and mantras. So, affirmations and mantras are really very powerful in terms of, of this kind of staying positive and this mindfulness piece.

Affirmations are useful in terms of adopting and reframing the thoughts to a positive frame of mind, which is really, really important, or energy. Because one thing that I think we don't realize is that thoughts are energy, right? And thinking about things is also just another pathway of how we're spending our energy. So it’s very important thing to take notice of and to really pay attention to.

………

Check-in with those intentions. Think about where you're spending your energy and where you can pull it back in so that you can continue to do the things that are really serving you, serving your business, serving your family serving your life. And after taking inventory on that, making changes, right and also seeing where that's happening, and then start to make those little bitty changes.

Alyssa invites you to take 25% off a Distance Reiki Session by signing up here: https://www.integrativewellnessri.com/bookings-checkout/distance-reiki-session-60-min-1

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