Residency Mindset Journal / May 2022 : Unbreakable Vows of Well-being 🤝
Table of Contents:
I. Mindset: Unbreakable Vows of Well-being 🤝
II. Nikki: Reflecting on Six Years with Residency
I. Mindset: 🤝
In last month's journal, "The Fruit of Practice," we talked about how the result of well-being practice is, you guessed it - well-being. Sometimes life seems so simple! Allowing ourselves to see consistent practice as meaningful in and of itself begins with mindset. In this month's issue, we're asking the question, "how does mindset become reality?"
One of the keys to healing, growth, and transformation is the awareness that our choices are often based on avoiding the temporary discomfort required to cultivate well-being. Each month, we come back to these central mindset concepts. But in order for ideas to become real, we have to put them into practice.
Mindset 🌿 --> Practice 🌸 --> Reality 🍋 . In other words, what is true in mindset is shown to be true through practice and in our experience of reality. When our minds and bodies are working in sync, mindset, practice, and reality are all expressions of the same thing. Ultimately, is there ever a justifiable reason to choose against our well-being?
This is the question we should be asking ourselves in moments of indecision, not to suppress our negative feelings, but to learn to see what it is that is actually happening when we make these choices. Transformation involves full experiencing and processing - a full acceptance and understanding of reality. Suppression works to deny feeling and therefore to deny reality.
Something happens in areas of our lives and identities where we lose perception of what truly makes us feel good and alive. After periods of suffering, we can end up learning to perceive healthy discomfort as a threat rather than as a necessary aspect of life, healing, and growth. To better perceive reality, we have to cultivate awareness without judgment, ie. without emotional bias and self-condemnation. Either we allow ourselves to feel and experience reality, or we'll be forced to unconsciously distort reality to the point where we lose connection to our feeling in general.
Reality involves and requires personal evolution and the cutting away of what's false and conditioned (patterns that lead away from well-being). To recognize conditioning is to learn to see life as a result of cause and effect and to see the influence of generational trauma. We become compassionate when we see the effects that suffering can have on those who have been victimized. Greater compassion will lead to greater understanding, both for ourselves and others. This is the mindset we need to bring into practice to stay rooted in a more comprehensive reality.
On one hand, our mindset is about cultivating future well-being, and on the other hand, about practicing present acceptance. The more we learn to appreciate our life as it is, rather than a romanticized version of it, the easier it is to make well-being options into commitments. The more we have faith in what is true, the greater opportunity we have to evolve and experience well-being. The ideal is to be finding peace and joy within our experience and circumstances while also promoting the well-being of others - to perceive and transform our feelings rather than suppress or struggle against them.
Residency Mindset is a commitment to personal well-being, not to pursue a different form of status, but to recognize and appreciate living truth. The commitment isn't to a particular system or group, but to the path that well-being choices put us on. Our mindset can stay undifferentiated and focused not just for some immediate gain but for generational influence. We value our personal well-being precisely as a means of creating greater communal transformation. 🤝
I. Mindset: Unbreakable Vows of Well-being 🤝
II. Nikki: Reflecting on Six Years with Residency
I. Mindset: 🤝
In last month's journal, "The Fruit of Practice," we talked about how the result of well-being practice is, you guessed it - well-being. Sometimes life seems so simple! Allowing ourselves to see consistent practice as meaningful in and of itself begins with mindset. In this month's issue, we're asking the question, "how does mindset become reality?"
One of the keys to healing, growth, and transformation is the awareness that our choices are often based on avoiding the temporary discomfort required to cultivate well-being. Each month, we come back to these central mindset concepts. But in order for ideas to become real, we have to put them into practice.
Mindset 🌿 --> Practice 🌸 --> Reality 🍋 . In other words, what is true in mindset is shown to be true through practice and in our experience of reality. When our minds and bodies are working in sync, mindset, practice, and reality are all expressions of the same thing. Ultimately, is there ever a justifiable reason to choose against our well-being?
This is the question we should be asking ourselves in moments of indecision, not to suppress our negative feelings, but to learn to see what it is that is actually happening when we make these choices. Transformation involves full experiencing and processing - a full acceptance and understanding of reality. Suppression works to deny feeling and therefore to deny reality.
Something happens in areas of our lives and identities where we lose perception of what truly makes us feel good and alive. After periods of suffering, we can end up learning to perceive healthy discomfort as a threat rather than as a necessary aspect of life, healing, and growth. To better perceive reality, we have to cultivate awareness without judgment, ie. without emotional bias and self-condemnation. Either we allow ourselves to feel and experience reality, or we'll be forced to unconsciously distort reality to the point where we lose connection to our feeling in general.
Reality involves and requires personal evolution and the cutting away of what's false and conditioned (patterns that lead away from well-being). To recognize conditioning is to learn to see life as a result of cause and effect and to see the influence of generational trauma. We become compassionate when we see the effects that suffering can have on those who have been victimized. Greater compassion will lead to greater understanding, both for ourselves and others. This is the mindset we need to bring into practice to stay rooted in a more comprehensive reality.
On one hand, our mindset is about cultivating future well-being, and on the other hand, about practicing present acceptance. The more we learn to appreciate our life as it is, rather than a romanticized version of it, the easier it is to make well-being options into commitments. The more we have faith in what is true, the greater opportunity we have to evolve and experience well-being. The ideal is to be finding peace and joy within our experience and circumstances while also promoting the well-being of others - to perceive and transform our feelings rather than suppress or struggle against them.
Residency Mindset is a commitment to personal well-being, not to pursue a different form of status, but to recognize and appreciate living truth. The commitment isn't to a particular system or group, but to the path that well-being choices put us on. Our mindset can stay undifferentiated and focused not just for some immediate gain but for generational influence. We value our personal well-being precisely as a means of creating greater communal transformation. 🤝
II. Nikki: Reflecting on 6 Years with Residency
With the launch of our Residency Mindset Therapy Program, we wanted to ask our staff member and first participant Nikki why therapy has been important for her. After a shocking amount of trouble finding an affordable and available therapist over the years, Nikki has at this point had 3 sessions through the RM Program, and we plan to keep this rolling! 🚆
Nikki: "Why are therapy and mindset important to me? This is the question. Can I go back six years to when I first started working for Povertees, now Residency? As I write this, April 18, 2022, will be my six-year work anniversary and I can’t believe it’s been that long. For years, I didn’t understand how much I needed therapy and how I was avoiding it. Now, I believe therapy and mindset are important for me because they make me accountable for my well-being and help me deal with the hard feelings of the past. I have Tyler and Hughie to thank for being examples.”