February 25, 2024 • 17 mins
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In this episode, Dr. Laurie Little shares insights on how we can discover the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary aspects of life and how this practice intertwines with mindfulness.
Dr. Little identifies common scenarios like being submerged in future-oriented thoughts filled with anxieties, stressing over to-do lists, or simply being 'in our heads,' which act as barriers to recognizing these extraordinary moments. This episode emphasizes that practicing mindfulness does not imply achieving a state of constant awareness, instead, it suggests increasing the frequency of mindful moments.
She shares three practical strategies to enhance mindfulness. These include acknowledging when our thoughts drift off towards the future, setting outside reminders or alarms, and finding an 'extraordinary buddy,' akin to a mindfulness accountability partner.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Inner Healing Intelligence. This is Dr.
Lori Little, and this is Episode 19, where we're going to be talking about finding
the extraordinary in the ordinary.
One of the things that I love most about being a therapist is that I learn just
(00:20):
as much from my clients as I hope that they learn from me.
One of my clients the other day shared that her personal goal for the year was
to practice more awareness and gratitude in her life,
and she was doing this by finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.
(00:41):
And that statement, for whatever reason, really resonated with me.
So today we're going to be talking about what that means, and I'll share with
you three strategies you can use to make this a daily habit. bit. Stay tuned.
Welcome, everyone. My name is Dr. Lori Little, and I'm a clinical psychologist,
(01:03):
mindfulness coach, psychedelic therapist, wife, and mom.
My passion is helping people learn to listen to and trust their inner healing
intelligence, that part of us that is always moving towards health and growth.
Ultimately, when we allow our inner healing intelligence to be our guide,
(01:25):
we can stop looking outside of ourselves for answers.
We can experience more joy, more peace, and more connection with others than
we may have ever thought possible.
Although it may sound simple, it is by no means easy.
Join me as we discuss the many challenges and and opportunities that listening
(01:47):
to your inner healing intelligence can bring to your life.
Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, what does that really even mean?
Let's think about it for a moment. Picture a butterfly.
You can make it, in your mind, any color or size that you want,
(02:10):
But just for a moment, picture a butterfly.
I did a little abbreviated Google search, so I'm assuming that this is true.
But I found a few interesting facts about butterflies that I was never aware of.
The first thing I found out is that butterflies have really large wings for
(02:33):
the size of their bodies.
In fact, research shows that butterflies' wings are much larger than they need
to be in order to fly, and they can actually fly with half of their wings missing.
And because the wings are are so big, it makes it easier for them to maneuver
(02:54):
around and it allows them to move in sort of this erratic pattern,
which is true, but I've never really thought about that before.
And this is unique to butterflies because I guess it makes it harder for predators
like birds to predict which which way that the butterfly is going to fly.
(03:17):
And I thought that was fascinating.
But what is even more fascinating is rather than flapping their wings up and
down like a bird does, which is what I just assumed butterflies do,
apparently butterflies actually contract their their bodies,
making a slanted figure eight pattern with their wings.
(03:42):
And as the butterfly's body contracts.
The motion pushes air underneath the wings, effectively propelling the butterfly
through the air. So how cool is that?
I never knew that. I've never googled how do butterflies flies fly before.
(04:03):
But think about that then in terms of how every day these butterflies are making
these figure eight patterns with these beautiful colorful wings and designs.
I would say that is pretty extraordinary. Yet I am pretty certain that the last
time a butterfly flew past me when I was outside,
(04:27):
I did not give it much of a thought other than, oh wow, look at those pretty pretty wings.
Because most likely the last time I saw a butterfly, my mind was going through my to-do list.
I was probably in my head thinking, oh, don't forget to do that.
Remember to put that on your reminder list.
(04:49):
Remember to text so-and-so. Because I often am just in my head.
And sometimes I'm so in my head that I like bump into people,
I bump into objects because I'm just in my head a lot.
I'm trying to sort out problems or plan my day.
I'm a person who wants to be very efficient, so I'm always maximizing my time and what I'm doing.
(05:14):
And if I really think about it, I often go through my day with this just very
low level of anxiety that sort
of pushes myself to be as efficient or as excellent, I guess, as I can.
That's my perfectionistic nature. So it actually often takes an outside reminder
(05:36):
to help me become more aware.
When you think about this, all of this idea of noticing the extraordinary and
the ordinary is really just coming back to mindfulness.
And although I've been doing some form of a mindfulness practice for probably 30 years now,
(05:59):
it still shows that I am not constantly mindful and really quite the contrary,
as you can hear how I describe my inner goings on every day.
Because I'm so in my head a lot of the time, I am really not constantly mindful,
(06:21):
yet I have practiced mindfulness for so long.
So part of that I want you to notice is that mindfulness is not something that you can get.
Excellent at, or you can be perfectly mindful. Sometimes when people think about
the idea of trying to practice more mindfulness, they think,
(06:44):
I'll never get there. It's not possible.
What I want to dispel is that myth is there's no such thing as being perfectly mindful.
And the goal ultimately is to just practice how often or can I increase these
moments of mindfulness.
Don't try to go towards the goal of being a mindful person.
(07:08):
See if you could practice how frequently can I increase the frequency of these
little moments of mindfulness during my day.
So even though I have been practicing this for so long, again,
it usually takes some sort of a reminder or a trigger to help remind me to be
(07:30):
aware of the present moment.
So here are three strategies that you can use to be more present in your life
and to notice the extraordinary around you.
Number one is notice when your mind is going into the future.
When your thoughts are filled with all of these future thoughts,
(07:54):
which usually look like or start with a what if.
What if this happens? What if that happens? And also sometimes future thoughts
are our worst case scenarios, those catastrophizing thoughts.
If you're having those future-oriented thoughts, most likely in that moment
(08:15):
you're experiencing some anxiety and stress.
Take a moment during those times to notice how anxiety presents itself in your body.
For me, anxiety feels like a ball in the pit of my stomach.
Which sort of grows or stretches and cause this feeling or sensation of tightness in my stomach.
(08:39):
I also might notice that my hands can get cold or a little bit clammy.
And when I'm super anxious, I'll notice that my heart is racing or my hands
might even become a little shaky.
All of these are normal body responses to the brain receiving or perceiving a threat.
(08:59):
When I notice any of those signs, either my thoughts or my body,
that is my cue to come back to the here and now.
It's my cue, it's my reminder to choose to turn my mind away from the future
and towards the present moment.
(09:20):
So what I'm really trying to do right now is take a moment to focus on my breath
and pause and reflect on anything that is extraordinary,
either about my thoughts or about my body.
Like, isn't that incredible how breathing just happens?
(09:42):
You know, when you really think about it, isn't that amazing?
Breathing just happens. You don't choose to breathe. Your body is breathing
itself. Isn't that extraordinary?
I think it is. So, yeah.
Taking these moments when your mind is going to the future and you're noticing
that your body is feeling that anxiety.
This can be your opportunity to reflect and to pause and to notice something
(10:09):
incredible, notice something extraordinary.
Look around you. Maybe there's beauty in a painting, an image or an object that
you've never really appreciated before.
So that's number one. When you notice your mind is going into the future or
your body is feeling that intense anxiety, see if you can see that as your cue
(10:33):
to notice something extraordinary.
The second thing you can do is actually set outside reminders like an alarm
on your Apple Watch or even like certain apps like the Calm app will send you
messages periodically throughout the day reminding you to be present or to slow down your breath.
(10:56):
A lot of the times we just ignore them.
We'll see the reminder and then
just say, okay, I don't have time for that right now. We just dismiss it.
The real challenge is getting yourself to do it when the external alarm or reminder comes up.
I would encourage you to really remind yourself that pausing and reflecting
(11:18):
on the current moment or something extraordinary literally only takes seconds.
At the most, this takes maybe a minute.
So really think about and remind yourself that no matter what you're doing,
no matter what situation you're in, you can always spare a minute.
(11:41):
Remind yourself how it really is worth this sort of little mini investment that
you are putting into yourself.
It's worth it because not only is it going to help you emotionally,
it's going to help you emotionally as well.
Think about how stress impacts our bodies.
We have tons and tons of research which support how stress can impact our physical
(12:07):
health, all sorts of diseases, even our physical pain.
So taking these little mini one-minute pauses during the day can go such a long
way towards improving our overall health,
our mental health and our physical health, but we need to make it a priority and choose to do it.
(12:31):
So see if you can set up some sort of external reminder or alarm and increase
that motivation to pay attention to it and actually do it instead of dismiss it.
Write out all the reasons why you want to have less stress in your life and
appreciate the extraordinary.
(12:53):
The third tip is to actually consider an extraordinary buddy or what I could
call a mindfulness accountability partner.
And I know that sounds a little odd, but just hang with me for a second.
We know how much having a friend or a buddy can actually help us with our exercise habits.
(13:15):
Have you ever had a friend or something where both of you at the same time are
like, we've really got to get exercise more in our lives. Let's support each other.
And I've definitely had times in my life where this has been helpful and there's
no way I would have gone for a walk unless my friend was like, we're going for a walk.
So we know that having an accountability partner with any goal can be helpful.
(13:38):
So imagine if you had someone in your life who also really wanted to start practicing
mindfulness and noticing the extraordinary in the world.
You could text each other during the day and both promise that whatever the
other person is doing, you're going to take 60 seconds at that moment,
(14:01):
notice something extraordinary.
And then share it with each other.
That's it. That takes one minute or less, unless you guys go off on a tangent
and start texting each other about other things.
But really, truly, if you are super, super busy, you can spare one minute to
text with a friend and share together something you notice that is extraordinary.
(14:24):
One thing I just really want to emphasize is remember that mindfulness of the
moment is truly just being aware of whatever is.
So it's not judging or trying to change our moment. That's not mindfulness.
(14:46):
But oftentimes we kind of mix together mindfulness and stress reduction strategies.
They're actually really, they're essentially different things.
Mindfulness is just awareness of whatever is.
Is. So sometimes when people confuse this with stress reduction,
(15:08):
that let me be mindful and try to slow down my breath, for example.
If you're having anxiety and then you notice, oh, my breath is going really
fast, I should slow it down.
That should and anxiety actually is going to increase your breathing.
And when you notice that you can't slow it down and your breathing is actually
(15:32):
going faster, then you get more anxious and you get in this awful loop.
And sometimes I have worked with people that when they they try to notice their
breath, it can actually precipitate a panic attack.
So the goal, remember, of mindfulness is not to slow down the breath.
It's just to notice whatever the breath is doing.
(15:54):
And oftentimes when we do that, and we don't have a goal and we don't have a
should, the breathing will slow itself down on its own.
But it's really important to make sure that you're really understanding that
it's not the goal to change something.
It's just the goal to be aware of it. And if your breath slows down, that's secondary.
(16:18):
That's not the goal. So just kind of that gentle reminder, because sometimes
we can really get those two things mixed up.
So consider Consider getting an extraordinary accountability partner and see
if that's helpful for you.
I hope this episode has taught you something new and I would love to hear from you.
(16:43):
What are some of the things that you notice are extraordinary in your life?
Or have you ever made this a goal to try to find more extraordinary things or
even just to practice more awareness in your life.
Please consider joining my private Facebook group called Inner Healing Intelligence,
(17:05):
where we can support each other and encourage each other in this process.
I hope that you have an extraordinary day, and I will see you in the next episode.
Thank you so much for joining me today. day.
If you'd like to learn more, you can reach me at laurielittle.com,
(17:25):
where I share additional free resources and lots of information.
If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much to me if you could write
a review and share it with your friends.
Music.
Welcome back to Inner Healing Intelligence. This is Dr.
Lori Little, and this is Episode 19, where we're going to be talking about finding
the extraordinary in the ordinary.
One of the things that I love most about being a therapist is that I learn just
(00:20):
as much from my clients as I hope that they learn from me.
One of my clients the other day shared that her personal goal for the year was
to practice more awareness and gratitude in her life,
and she was doing this by finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.
(00:41):
And that statement, for whatever reason, really resonated with me.
So today we're going to be talking about what that means, and I'll share with
you three strategies you can use to make this a daily habit. bit. Stay tuned.
Welcome, everyone. My name is Dr. Lori Little, and I'm a clinical psychologist,
(01:03):
mindfulness coach, psychedelic therapist, wife, and mom.
My passion is helping people learn to listen to and trust their inner healing
intelligence, that part of us that is always moving towards health and growth.
Ultimately, when we allow our inner healing intelligence to be our guide,
(01:25):
we can stop looking outside of ourselves for answers.
We can experience more joy, more peace, and more connection with others than
we may have ever thought possible.
Although it may sound simple, it is by no means easy.
Join me as we discuss the many challenges and and opportunities that listening
(01:47):
to your inner healing intelligence can bring to your life.
Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, what does that really even mean?
Let's think about it for a moment. Picture a butterfly.
You can make it, in your mind, any color or size that you want,
(02:10):
But just for a moment, picture a butterfly.
I did a little abbreviated Google search, so I'm assuming that this is true.
But I found a few interesting facts about butterflies that I was never aware of.
The first thing I found out is that butterflies have really large wings for
(02:33):
the size of their bodies.
In fact, research shows that butterflies' wings are much larger than they need
to be in order to fly, and they can actually fly with half of their wings missing.
And because the wings are are so big, it makes it easier for them to maneuver
(02:54):
around and it allows them to move in sort of this erratic pattern,
which is true, but I've never really thought about that before.
And this is unique to butterflies because I guess it makes it harder for predators
like birds to predict which which way that the butterfly is going to fly.
(03:17):
And I thought that was fascinating.
But what is even more fascinating is rather than flapping their wings up and
down like a bird does, which is what I just assumed butterflies do,
apparently butterflies actually contract their their bodies,
making a slanted figure eight pattern with their wings.
(03:42):
And as the butterfly's body contracts.
The motion pushes air underneath the wings, effectively propelling the butterfly
through the air. So how cool is that?
I never knew that. I've never googled how do butterflies flies fly before.
(04:03):
But think about that then in terms of how every day these butterflies are making
these figure eight patterns with these beautiful colorful wings and designs.
I would say that is pretty extraordinary. Yet I am pretty certain that the last
time a butterfly flew past me when I was outside,
(04:27):
I did not give it much of a thought other than, oh wow, look at those pretty pretty wings.
Because most likely the last time I saw a butterfly, my mind was going through my to-do list.
I was probably in my head thinking, oh, don't forget to do that.
Remember to put that on your reminder list.
(04:49):
Remember to text so-and-so. Because I often am just in my head.
And sometimes I'm so in my head that I like bump into people,
I bump into objects because I'm just in my head a lot.
I'm trying to sort out problems or plan my day.
I'm a person who wants to be very efficient, so I'm always maximizing my time and what I'm doing.
(05:14):
And if I really think about it, I often go through my day with this just very
low level of anxiety that sort
of pushes myself to be as efficient or as excellent, I guess, as I can.
That's my perfectionistic nature. So it actually often takes an outside reminder
(05:36):
to help me become more aware.
When you think about this, all of this idea of noticing the extraordinary and
the ordinary is really just coming back to mindfulness.
And although I've been doing some form of a mindfulness practice for probably 30 years now,
(05:59):
it still shows that I am not constantly mindful and really quite the contrary,
as you can hear how I describe my inner goings on every day.
Because I'm so in my head a lot of the time, I am really not constantly mindful,
(06:21):
yet I have practiced mindfulness for so long.
So part of that I want you to notice is that mindfulness is not something that you can get.
Excellent at, or you can be perfectly mindful. Sometimes when people think about
the idea of trying to practice more mindfulness, they think,
(06:44):
I'll never get there. It's not possible.
What I want to dispel is that myth is there's no such thing as being perfectly mindful.
And the goal ultimately is to just practice how often or can I increase these
moments of mindfulness.
Don't try to go towards the goal of being a mindful person.
(07:08):
See if you could practice how frequently can I increase the frequency of these
little moments of mindfulness during my day.
So even though I have been practicing this for so long, again,
it usually takes some sort of a reminder or a trigger to help remind me to be
(07:30):
aware of the present moment.
So here are three strategies that you can use to be more present in your life
and to notice the extraordinary around you.
Number one is notice when your mind is going into the future.
When your thoughts are filled with all of these future thoughts,
(07:54):
which usually look like or start with a what if.
What if this happens? What if that happens? And also sometimes future thoughts
are our worst case scenarios, those catastrophizing thoughts.
If you're having those future-oriented thoughts, most likely in that moment
(08:15):
you're experiencing some anxiety and stress.
Take a moment during those times to notice how anxiety presents itself in your body.
For me, anxiety feels like a ball in the pit of my stomach.
Which sort of grows or stretches and cause this feeling or sensation of tightness in my stomach.
(08:39):
I also might notice that my hands can get cold or a little bit clammy.
And when I'm super anxious, I'll notice that my heart is racing or my hands
might even become a little shaky.
All of these are normal body responses to the brain receiving or perceiving a threat.
(08:59):
When I notice any of those signs, either my thoughts or my body,
that is my cue to come back to the here and now.
It's my cue, it's my reminder to choose to turn my mind away from the future
and towards the present moment.
(09:20):
So what I'm really trying to do right now is take a moment to focus on my breath
and pause and reflect on anything that is extraordinary,
either about my thoughts or about my body.
Like, isn't that incredible how breathing just happens?
(09:42):
You know, when you really think about it, isn't that amazing?
Breathing just happens. You don't choose to breathe. Your body is breathing
itself. Isn't that extraordinary?
I think it is. So, yeah.
Taking these moments when your mind is going to the future and you're noticing
that your body is feeling that anxiety.
This can be your opportunity to reflect and to pause and to notice something
(10:09):
incredible, notice something extraordinary.
Look around you. Maybe there's beauty in a painting, an image or an object that
you've never really appreciated before.
So that's number one. When you notice your mind is going into the future or
your body is feeling that intense anxiety, see if you can see that as your cue
(10:33):
to notice something extraordinary.
The second thing you can do is actually set outside reminders like an alarm
on your Apple Watch or even like certain apps like the Calm app will send you
messages periodically throughout the day reminding you to be present or to slow down your breath.
(10:56):
A lot of the times we just ignore them.
We'll see the reminder and then
just say, okay, I don't have time for that right now. We just dismiss it.
The real challenge is getting yourself to do it when the external alarm or reminder comes up.
I would encourage you to really remind yourself that pausing and reflecting
(11:18):
on the current moment or something extraordinary literally only takes seconds.
At the most, this takes maybe a minute.
So really think about and remind yourself that no matter what you're doing,
no matter what situation you're in, you can always spare a minute.
(11:41):
Remind yourself how it really is worth this sort of little mini investment that
you are putting into yourself.
It's worth it because not only is it going to help you emotionally,
it's going to help you emotionally as well.
Think about how stress impacts our bodies.
We have tons and tons of research which support how stress can impact our physical
(12:07):
health, all sorts of diseases, even our physical pain.
So taking these little mini one-minute pauses during the day can go such a long
way towards improving our overall health,
our mental health and our physical health, but we need to make it a priority and choose to do it.
(12:31):
So see if you can set up some sort of external reminder or alarm and increase
that motivation to pay attention to it and actually do it instead of dismiss it.
Write out all the reasons why you want to have less stress in your life and
appreciate the extraordinary.
(12:53):
The third tip is to actually consider an extraordinary buddy or what I could
call a mindfulness accountability partner.
And I know that sounds a little odd, but just hang with me for a second.
We know how much having a friend or a buddy can actually help us with our exercise habits.
(13:15):
Have you ever had a friend or something where both of you at the same time are
like, we've really got to get exercise more in our lives. Let's support each other.
And I've definitely had times in my life where this has been helpful and there's
no way I would have gone for a walk unless my friend was like, we're going for a walk.
So we know that having an accountability partner with any goal can be helpful.
(13:38):
So imagine if you had someone in your life who also really wanted to start practicing
mindfulness and noticing the extraordinary in the world.
You could text each other during the day and both promise that whatever the
other person is doing, you're going to take 60 seconds at that moment,
(14:01):
notice something extraordinary.
And then share it with each other.
That's it. That takes one minute or less, unless you guys go off on a tangent
and start texting each other about other things.
But really, truly, if you are super, super busy, you can spare one minute to
text with a friend and share together something you notice that is extraordinary.
(14:24):
One thing I just really want to emphasize is remember that mindfulness of the
moment is truly just being aware of whatever is.
So it's not judging or trying to change our moment. That's not mindfulness.
(14:46):
But oftentimes we kind of mix together mindfulness and stress reduction strategies.
They're actually really, they're essentially different things.
Mindfulness is just awareness of whatever is.
Is. So sometimes when people confuse this with stress reduction,
(15:08):
that let me be mindful and try to slow down my breath, for example.
If you're having anxiety and then you notice, oh, my breath is going really
fast, I should slow it down.
That should and anxiety actually is going to increase your breathing.
And when you notice that you can't slow it down and your breathing is actually
(15:32):
going faster, then you get more anxious and you get in this awful loop.
And sometimes I have worked with people that when they they try to notice their
breath, it can actually precipitate a panic attack.
So the goal, remember, of mindfulness is not to slow down the breath.
It's just to notice whatever the breath is doing.
(15:54):
And oftentimes when we do that, and we don't have a goal and we don't have a
should, the breathing will slow itself down on its own.
But it's really important to make sure that you're really understanding that
it's not the goal to change something.
It's just the goal to be aware of it. And if your breath slows down, that's secondary.
(16:18):
That's not the goal. So just kind of that gentle reminder, because sometimes
we can really get those two things mixed up.
So consider Consider getting an extraordinary accountability partner and see
if that's helpful for you.
I hope this episode has taught you something new and I would love to hear from you.
(16:43):
What are some of the things that you notice are extraordinary in your life?
Or have you ever made this a goal to try to find more extraordinary things or
even just to practice more awareness in your life.
Please consider joining my private Facebook group called Inner Healing Intelligence,
(17:05):
where we can support each other and encourage each other in this process.
I hope that you have an extraordinary day, and I will see you in the next episode.
Thank you so much for joining me today. day.
If you'd like to learn more, you can reach me at laurielittle.com,
(17:25):
where I share additional free resources and lots of information.
If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much to me if you could write
a review and share it with your friends.
Music.
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