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"When we change our mind, we change our life"
Mindset is a necessary component of Mindset By Amanda, and why we must focus on mindset if we want to optimise our health, our finances, our career, our relationships...and our life.

29/10/2025

TIP Skills
TIP skills are designed to quickly change your body chemistry by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms emotional arousal (as opposed to the sympathetic nervous system, which triggers fight-or-flight responses). These skills are especially helpful when emotions feel overwhelming and immediate relief is needed.

🧊 Temperature: Use cold water or ice packs on your face while holding your breath (30–60 seconds) to trigger the human dive reflex. This reflex activates the parasympathetic system, reducing physiological and emotional arousal rapidly. A cold shower or splash of cold water can also help calm your system instantly.

🏃‍♀️ Intense Exercise: Engage in intense aerobic activity for at least 20 minutes. This quickly shifts your mood, decreasing negative emotions and ruminative thoughts while increasing positive feelings.

🧘‍♀️ Paced Breathing: Breathe slowly and steadily to regulate emotions. Inhale for three seconds, hold for three seconds, and exhale for four seconds (slightly slower than inhaling). Aim for five to six breath cycles per minute to achieve a calming effect.

💪🏽 Paired Muscle Relaxation: Pair muscle relaxation with your out breath. Tense muscle groups tightly (almost to the point of discomfort) while inhaling, then release the tension as you exhale slowly. Focus on the sensation of relaxation as the tension fades, and say a calming word like “relax” to reinforce the effect.

🔔 When to Use These Skills 🔔
⭐️ When pain feels unbearable: To reduce intense pain to a level where you can manage it and avoid destructive actions.
⭐️ When acting on emotion would make things worse: If you feel the urge to do something impulsive that might backfire, these skills can help you pause and regain control.
⭐️ When emotional distress feels overwhelming.
⭐️ When you’re overwhelmed but still have responsibilities: stay grounded and functional.
⭐️ When timing isn’t right to solve a problem: If you can’t address an issue immediately, these skills help you step back and approach it later with a clearer head.

26/10/2025

Tips to Manage When You’re ‘Freaking Out,’ ‘Losing It,’ ‘Having a Meltdown,’ or Panicking.

Build skills to tolerate distress and bear pain more skillfully.

Distress tolerance is about learning to accept, without judgment, both ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in. It’s about seeing reality without demanding it be different, feeling emotions without scrambling to numb them out, and observing your thoughts without wrestling for control.

That said, acceptance doesn’t mean approval. Tolerating reality as it is doesn’t mean agreeing with it. It’s about building the skills to get through those moments when emotions feel intense without adding fuel to the fire.

Getting Through Tough Moments
When you’re overwhelmed, it’s easy to react in ways that make things worse. That’s where these skills come in. They’re not a fix-all, but they can make the moment more manageable, giving you the clarity to approach things differently later. While their effects might be temporary, even brief relief is a win.

They might not resonate with everyone, but maybe one will click for you – or even just part of one. That said, don’t write them off too quickly. Give them a go – especially if what you’ve been trying so far hasn’t been working.

Keep an eye out this week for:
TIP skill & The STOP skill

26/10/2025

If you’ve never tried mindfulness or if the idea of sitting still and clearing your mind sounds ridiculous, START HERE.
Simple. Just a few breaths.

🪴Sit down. Comfortable, but not slouched. Feel your feet on the ground.
🪴Breathe in, slow. Notice the air moving in through your nose. Breathe in and know you’re breathing in.
🪴Breathe out, slow. Feel your chest drop. Breathe out and know you’re breathing out.
🪴Notice what your mind is doing. Maybe it’s calm, maybe it’s running wild. That’s fine. Just notice it and SIMPLY START AGAIN.
🪴Bring your focus back to your breath. Feel the inhale. Feel the exhale.
🪴Repeat for 60 seconds. That’s it. Nothing fancy. If your mind drifts (and it will), just gently bring it back to the breath. SIMPLY START AGAIN.

🌼This isn’t about “winning” at mindfulness. It’s about practicing the skill of noticing and returning, training your brain to step back instead of getting lost in the noise.

🌼Do this when stress spikes. Do it when overthinking kicks in. Do it before a tough conversation. Do it anywhere, anytime.
The goal isn’t to erase thoughts, it’s to build the skill of not being consumed by them.

23/10/2025

When your brain throws up something like “I’m not good enough”, try this:

💥 Catch it.
“Oh, there’s that thought again.”

💥 Step back.
Instead of “I am worthless”, say “I’m having the thought that I am worthless.”

💥 Hold space.
No fighting, no engaging. Just noticing – like watching a cloud drift by.

🍃 That’s mindfulness. Not forcing your thoughts to be positive, not shutting them down, just seeing them clearly. And once you do that, you get to decide how to respond.
The storm always passes.
The sky remains.
And you are the sky.

21/10/2025

Observing self. 🧚🏼‍♀️

Self as context. 🦋

(In a nutshell, context just means the background or space where something happens.)

Your life has a context. “The space where your thoughts, feelings, and experiences unfold.”

Self as Context means that you are that space. Not the THOUGHTS, not the EMOTIONS, but the one who notices them.
You are not the cloud. ☁️
You are the sky. 🌌

The 3 Levels of Awareness
Imagine you’re feeling overwhelmed:

First level: “I’m overwhelmed; this is too much.”
Second level: “I notice I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
Self as Context (Observing Self): “There’s a calm part of me noticing that I’m overwhelmed.”

🚨 Why This Matters 🚨
Recognising this means:

You are more than your thoughts
You are more than your emotions.
You can experience something without being controlled by it.

This shift puts distance between you and the mental noise. Instead of being stuck inside every thought your brain spits out, you can step back and observe it.

19/10/2025

Mindfulness has been hijacked. Instagram quotes, wellness influencers, and a whole lot of uneducated talk have turned it into something it isn’t – like all you need to do is be present and suddenly life feels easier.
But real mindfulness isn’t about feeling calm. It’s about seeing clearly.
Because when the s**t hits the fan, clarity matters more than comfort.

You Are the Sky, Not the Storm
Your mind is the sky. Thoughts, emotions, and experiences? They’re just clouds – some light, some dark, some rolling in fast and heavy. But no matter what they do, the sky remains. It holds everything without being defined by it.
⛅️ ☁️ 🌧️
Most people get caught in the clouds. When things go wrong, they become their thoughts. “I’m a failure.” “I can’t handle this.” “I’m broken.” These thoughts feel absolute, like they are you. They’re not.
☀️
Clouds Aren’t the Full Picture.
This isn’t to say that the facts you know or the stories you’ve been telling yourself about your life aren’t based in reality – some of them might hold elements of truth. But those stories aren’t all of you. They’re snapshots, not the full picture.

☀️ ☁️ post to follow: OBSERVING SELF

10/10/2025

This is how we think motivation works: Feel motivated —> Do something

In reality, here’s how it actually works: Do something —> Feel motivated

🌸
“good days” come from making progress. If you are able to move forward with the goals, tasks, and projects that are important to you, you will feel satisfied and fulfilled. It’s this progress that builds your motivation: it’s what makes it easier for you to show up and make more progress tomorrow.

Waiting to be motivated is a bit like sitting in your parked car holding the car key in your hand, while wondering why you’re not going anywhere. You have to take the action first: you have to put the key in the car and start the engine, and then you’ll be able to move.

Here are four ways to start your own motivation motor running:

😃Put yourself in an energized mood. What makes you feel powerful and positive? This could be exercise or movement, asking a friend for a pep talk, or doing something that brings you joy. Action is easier when we’re in this energized state.

😃Make the first action really, really small. Ask yourself: what can you do, in ten minutes or less, that would move you towards your goal?

😃Find a way to make the task fulfilling in and of itself. Is there a way that you could approach it using your unique gifts and strengths, so that you find it enjoyable and meaningful?

😃Celebrate your progress. You are probably making more progress than you think; you’re just taking it for granted.Noting down your wins, learnings, and experiences will sustain your motivation.

08/10/2025

Why This Question Works

1. Empathy and Support: It shows that you care and are willing to offer help in a way that is most beneficial to them. And after all, it’s about them and their needs.

2. Empowerment: It empowers the person to talk about their needs and preferences, giving them a sense of control.

3. Non-judgmental: It avoids making assumptions about their situation or how they should feel.

4. Actionable: It opens the door for practical support, whether emotional, physical, or logistical.

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

Example Scenarios

🌸Workplace: “I’ve noticed you’ve seemed a bit off lately. How can I best support you right now?”

🌸Friendship: “I care about you and want to help. How can I best support you right now?”

🌸Family: “I’m here for you and love you. How can I best support you right now?”

🌸Adopt your own language: “Hey mate, I can see something’s up. How can I help you out right now?”

03/10/2025

Mental Health Vs Mental Illness.
What is the difference?

Just like we have physical health, we also have mental health.
But important to note, whilst we all have mental health, we don’t all have mental illness.

Our mental health exists along a continuum.
Our mental health refers to our state of mind and how we think, feel, behave and interact with the world and people around us.

We all move along this continuum depending on a range of good, bad, indifferent chaos that is happening in our lives at any point in time.
We experience ups and downs regularly in response to stressors and experiences in our lives.

So how do you know if what you’re experiencing is a problem?
🌸if your sleep is consistently poor, and your tiered or lacking energy.
🌸if your experiencing difficult behaviours and feelings, stuff that you just can’t seem to shake.
🌸if your appetite has changed.
🌸if you feel anxious and can’t turn off those negative, annoying and unhelpful thoughts in your head - that seem to get louder and more persistent.
🌸or if you feel your behaviour is out of character.

If this is happening over an extended period of time, 2,3,4 weeks …
And has begun to impact your relationships, your ability to do things you usually enjoy, or your ability to do things that need to be done, like being productive, showing up to work.
This is when it’s recommended to seek professional support.

Stop pause.
Check in with yourself.
How are you feeling?
How are you really feeling?
What is good mental health?

We can take control of our mental health and prevent moving in the direction towards mental illness.
Just like we can take control of our physical health (eat healthy, drink water, rest, exercise).

Mental illness does not discriminate - anyone can develop a mental illness.

With the right support at the right time, everyone can be helped, regardless of where they might be sitting on the mental health continuum.

There is hope for everyone, ups and downs are part of life.

Focus on your mental health to reduce the risk of mental illness.

🎀connect with others
🎀set boundaries
🎀express feelings
🎀practice gratitude
🎀seek purpose- hobbies
🎀ask for help/support

18/09/2025

Note to Self
When the weight feels too heavy,
pause.
Take it slow.

One thought at a time.
One task at a time.
One day at a time.

You don’t have to do it all.
You just have to keep going.

13/08/2025

Just because something hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it’s too late. Life isn’t a race, and your dream isn’t “expired” just because it took longer than you hoped.

07/08/2025

You don’t have to rush you don’t have to force, what’s meant for you is making its way day by day.

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Penrith
Sydney, NSW
2745

Website

https://www.mindsetbyamanda.com.au/

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