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I am a huge advocate for mindfulness.

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I know for myself that when I do not focus on myself and practice mindfulness, I notice it and I feel it, but there are a few times when you should consider not being mindful, and we're going to talk about that on this podcast episode.

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So let's get started. Welcome to Mindful Hypnosis Podcast.

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It is time to cultivate a purposeful life.

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Learn all about how to create new helpful habits and mindset changes with integrative hypnosis Plus.

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With a sprinkle of mindfulness throughout your day, you can easily shift into a calmer state of mind.

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I am Cheryl, your hypnotist and podcast host, and I welcome you to a better way of living your life, one minute at a time.

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Would you like to melt away the worries of the day?

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? Go on over to Cheryljreynolds.

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com/ grounding. .

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As you know, I am a huge component of mindfulness.

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I think it is one of the best ways to allow us to really feel alive and settled and calm, and there is something magical that happens when you allow that spaciousness of mindfulness to take over.

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However, there are times when you should not be mindful, and we're going to talk about that on this podcast episode.

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So let's get right to it.

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So, first off, as you know, mindfulness is being fully present in the moment, without judgment.

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If you think about that, that right there can give you an indication of when you should not be mindful.

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Now, mindfulness has so many benefits and most often the benefits will outweigh any reason not to be mindful.

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But let me give you these four reasons why you should not be mindful.

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Number one has to do with the reason behind mindfulness and what it is it's to be present without judgment.

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So number one is if you need to be judgmental In this way, when you need to process information or think about something important, mindfulness is not going to be helpful to you at that time.

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When you need to think and to need to rationalize the situation, recall a memory or pull up information, you need to step out of mindfulness to do so, because you need to use your analytical side of your brain.

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Now, I'm not saying that throughout this process, you can't settle your mind into mindfulness and then go back and process information to settle your mind.

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In some ways, that is good, because it gives you space between doing this, where you might instead overthink or overanalyze too much.

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So there is a balance there. But it is really hard to be mindful when you're trying to think and be judgmental about a situation.

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This is also in the same sense of when you need to distinguish between what is right or wrong in your situation.

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Therefore, you need to take two sides of the coin, look at them, evaluate them and decide the best route to go.

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And you can't do that when you're mindful, because when you're mindful, you're in the present moment and you're not analyzing, you're absorbing and you're pulling in the moment, so you're not thinking in the same way.

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Number two when you are in the midst of severe anxiety or fear, it is very difficult to drop yourself into that state of mindfulness.

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See, anxiety and fear automatically throw out all those chemicals and they narrow your focus.

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They narrow your focus to protect you and keep you safe when you have that flight, fight or freeze response.

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So automatically your brain wants you to analyze and look at the situation and to distinguish where safety is and where the bad thing is, and so it automatically pulls you out of mindfulness to do so.

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And if you were trying to drop into mindfulness during that time.

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It can be very uncomfortable.

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My suggestion instead is to use calming effects first, like activate your vagus nerve with some breathing or do some powerful hypnosis technique to decrease the anxiety and then, once you have the anxiety decreased a bit or that fear decreased, then you can use mindfulness to develop a more relaxed state and to begin to regulate your emotions a little bit.

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Number three when mindfulness becomes a crutch.

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In other words, if you would rather walk out to the park and sit under a tree and be mindful and not to think about your problems, it is not a good thing for you at the time.

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Mindfulness is not escapism, it is experiential.

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It is being in the now.

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But there are some situations where you want so bad to be in the now that you're willing to steer at your navel and watch your thoughts to the point where you're not taking care of the situations in your life that need your attention.

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It is not helpful when you don't take care of life situations.

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It can be harmful. This was something that I was doing this past year and it is one of the reasons I stepped away from the podcast and I pulled myself back.

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I didn't pull myself back from mindfulness completely, but I had so much I had to take care of and I was trying to force it, if that makes sense, and it wasn't helpful.

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And this also brings me to the last part is processing.

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Number four is processing your trauma.

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Mindfulness can and will help you become more resilient and more in touch with the world around you and it will help you to feel more settled.

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But when you suffer great trauma, you need to process it.

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You need to deal with it personally and with professional people, because if you don't do that, the memories that your trauma is associated with, all that information is held there and it is attached to an emotion and it will stay there and it can come up at certain times for you.

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It can come up as unresolved issues for you and it can also come up as triggers for you.

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So to process that trauma is not easy.

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It is uncomfortable. But as you start to process it, you can bring mindfulness into it to settle you and to help you with the processing.

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But it can't be just you being mindful and not dealing with the situation at hand.

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Please seek a counselor for that.

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That is really important. Having said all that, mindfulness is who you are.

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It is not what you do. It is your natural state of being.

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But we are in a time when life is busy and life can be challenging, but it also has a lot of information coming at us.

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So we do need a time to reprieve and just to be present and just to watch and notice and see without judgment.

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But there are also times when we do need to take ourselves out of mindfulness and think and react and analyze and just understand and use our mind for that.

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And sometimes it is fun to look at a future as the magic that it may be, or to recall a memory and to become nostalgic.

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That is okay. You can do all that and you can sprinkle that mindfulness on top of it Because again, it will make you stronger.

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It will connect you to the world around you, the people you love, you'll become more confident and you'll be able to handle stress much better.

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But don't discount the other part of your life.

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And another thing to remember 100% of anything is never good.

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There are layers and we are complex people and it is okay.

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All right, take a big, deep breath in and exhale.

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Thank you for listening to the end of this podcast.

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Go on over to the show notes at cheryljreynolds.

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com for more information and valuable resources.

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While you're there, sign up for the newsletter so you never miss an episode, and if you wanna find the link to work with me one-on-one, you can find it there.

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Remember, you have a powerful mind and it can be changed to support the life you want to live.