098 From Chaos to Calm: The Power of Presence in Everyday Life

Hello, my lovely people! It's Juliette Karaman, and I'm back with another solo episode of The Scrumptious Woman. Today, we’re diving into something that has been on my heart and mind recently—being truly present in the moment. As I recount a personal experience from a hectic day, I invite you to explore how quickly we can shift from feeling rushed and overwhelmed to a place of peace and gratitude.

In this episode, I share a beautiful moment of presence that I experienced during a busy trip to London for my daughter’s graduation. I reflect on how easy it is to get caught up in the frenzy of daily life and how slowing down, noticing your surroundings, and practising mindfulness can transform even the most stressful of days.

I also guide you through a simple yet powerful breathing exercise to help you connect with your body and ground yourself in the present. Whether you're rushing around or simply need a moment of calm, this episode offers a gentle reminder that you always have the power to change your state and return to a sense of peace.

Key Takeaways:

• Slow Down and Notice: The hustle of everyday life can pull us out of the present. Pause, take a breath, and observe your surroundings.
• Gratitude Shifts Everything: Gratitude can change your entire perspective, even when things aren’t going as planned.
• Mindful Breathing: A simple breathing exercise can bring you back to the present moment, allowing you to find peace amid the chaos.
• Changing Your State: You have the power to shift from stress to joy through intentional practice, whether it’s through mindfulness or movement like dancing or shaking it out!
• Presence in Everyday Moments: By being fully present, even the most mundane or challenging moments can become opportunities for connection and joy.

So, the next time you find yourself in a rush, take a breath, ground yourself, and remember that joy and presence are always within reach.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope this episode brings you as much peace as it brought me. As always, feel free to share your thoughts, experiences, or any insights with me on Instagram or in the app you’re listening on. Much love, and until next time!

Find out more about Juliette Karaman here:
https://feelfullyyou.com/free-resources/
https://www.instagram.com/juliettekaraman/
https://www.facebook.com/juliette.karamanvanschaardenburg
https://feelfullyyou.com/products/7-days-of-scrumptiousness/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Episode
• 2:29 The Graduation Journey
• 4:39 Missing the Train
• 6:19 Gratitude and Abundance
• 8:24 Breathing Exercise for Presence
• 10:49 Changing Your State
• 12:24 Expansion and Contraction
• 14:39 The Joy of Authenticity

Transcript

The Scrumptious Woman EP98

[00:00:00] Juliette Karaman: Hello, my lovely people. We are back again with a solo episode of The Scrumptious Woman. I'm your host, Juliet Karaman, and I'm super excited to be with you while we are running up to almost a hundred episodes. Oh my goodness. Where has the time gone? And earlier this week, what came up for me, what came up for my clients, is how present can we be in each moment?

[00:00:34] Juliette Karaman: Most of you know that I've got four children, they're in their 20s, the early side of the 20s, and Earlier this week I went to London, took the train to London to be with my twin daughters because one of them was graduating from the Royal College of Art. Super proud mommy here. And I noticed that on the way to the station.

[00:01:00] Juliette Karaman: I got distracted and all of a sudden I had phone calls, I had people asking me things, and I didn't get into the car on time. And as I was locking the front door, I saw this beautiful feather and I picked it up and it was striped and grey and white and dark or black, and it was Beautiful. And it just reminded me to take a moment, to take your time.

[00:01:31] Juliette Karaman: That if you run so fast, if you go so fast, you're often not in the moment, and you are missing things. So, fast forward, I get to the train station. I'd already bought my ticket for parking there because there's no, there's no reception for my phone mobile phone there. So I got to the train station, I was like just rushing to get across, up the stairs and across.

[00:02:03] Juliette Karaman: And just as I reached the stairs The train pulls out.

[00:02:08] Juliette Karaman: Oh, and I was like, oh, it's going to be one of these days. How many of you can relate, right? It's one of those days. Yeah. Well, I turned around. It's like, okay, great. I've got another half hour before the next train. So let me just get into my car. Let me drive up to the petrol station, but two, three minutes up the road from here.

[00:02:29] Juliette Karaman: And there's reception there. And then I'll quickly just finish all the emails I have to do and finish with everything. And then I can get back down. Get back into the car, into the train. And as I was reaching the car, and as I was reaching my doorknob, part of me just remembered that feather, and I was like, Oh, thank you, God, Source, Universe, whatever you may want to call it, thank you for the sign.

[00:03:00] Juliette Karaman: I've been asking for a sign, so I took a breath, closed the door. Locked the car again. I walked back and took my time taking my little suitcase up the stairs and then across and then down the stairs again and really being with the day. It was a beautiful autumn day here in the UK and I recognized that for the next half hour I was gonna not have any signal so I wouldn't be able to.

[00:03:33] Juliette Karaman: get on any social media, I wouldn't have any other ways to distract me from the presence. Of course we have other ways in our mind, right? We can think, and we can future project, or we can think of the past, the fears. And how often do we do that? How often do we think about the past and we're worried about something that happened then, and just kind of like future projecting that might happen again.

[00:04:05] Juliette Karaman: So this is how we make our beliefs, right, this is how our beliefs get wired into who we are and what we do. So for that time I spent the time walking the little yellow line, I'm just recognizing, wow, the wind in my hair, little patches of sun warming, warming my skin. I'm just recognizing how grateful I am, how grateful that I am that I live in a country where there's no war.

[00:04:38] Juliette Karaman: How grateful that I am that I have this clean air around me. How grateful that I am that I have enough abundance, enough money to buy a train ticket, that I can drive my car to the train station, park it there, pay for parking, pay for the ticket, come to London, see my daughters, pay for their education, pay for the tickets for their graduation, take the time off work, be in a type of work that actually allows me this freedom of working when I want, and to take off days like that when I want to be present with my daughters, when I want to be present for my family.

[00:05:27] Juliette Karaman: And just that beautiful state of gratitude that we can all tap into and that we can so quickly change into completely changed my state. So instead of thinking, Oh my God, it's one of those days, it's never going to stop. Everything is just going to be go terrible. The day turned out to be Beautiful. I had the wonderful gentleman help me up with my, my little suitcase, put me in the carriage had a little chat with him.

[00:06:04] Juliette Karaman: And then I was just with myself, and with my thoughts, and with the gratitude, and looking back over the beautiful life I have lived. The beautiful awareness of knowing that this moment, right now, this breath, right now, is perfect. So I'm going to invite you to just do this little exercise along with me.

[00:06:35] Juliette Karaman: And whenever you have one of those days where everything just seems to go against what you want to try and achieve, slow down. Instead of trying to push through it, slow down, take a breath.

[00:06:58] Juliette Karaman: Notice where does that breath land in your body and where does it exhale from? And then again, take another breath in through your nose.

[00:07:14] Juliette Karaman: All the way, let your lungs just fill up with that beautiful life giving breath,

[00:07:26] Juliette Karaman: and then just notice when you're holding your breath, where is there some tightness, or is there an expansion? What's the temperature? For me, I notice it's between my shoulder blades and the bottom of my ribcage, there's a bit of contraction there. I'm just placing my attention on it. And I'm exhaling.

[00:07:52] Juliette Karaman: So with this presencing, with this awareness, with this as is ing, noticing what's happening right now, We are creating capacity, we're creating a way to be with ourselves in that moment, without having to fix it, without having to move it, without having it be a certain way, but to be present. To be with it.

[00:08:22] Juliette Karaman: So again, just take a breath in.

[00:08:27] Juliette Karaman: If you can, close your eyes, if that's in your practice. Beautiful. If you want to keep them slightly open, just lower them a little bit, that it's not so bright. Perfect. Two, and then exhale through your mouth. And just allow my voice to guide you.

[00:08:49] Juliette Karaman: And get your breath just flowing naturally. Thoughts may come in, thoughts may come out, just let them go. It's a little bit like a leaf in the wind, can't quite catch it, and just think about your thoughts like that, a leaf in the wind, it comes in, comes into your consciousness, into your awareness, and then they just leave, they flow on.

[00:09:23] Juliette Karaman: Beautiful. And then with every breath I want you just to go deeper and relax, a bit deeper.

[00:09:35] Juliette Karaman: Feeling the safety of this moment, being in your body, right now, right here.

[00:09:49] Juliette Karaman: The next inhalation, let it just be a little bit bigger. Hold it at the top, just hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, and exhale through your mouth.

[00:10:13] Juliette Karaman: Just recognize there may be thoughts, there may be body sensations, Or you may have gotten to a point of not so much content, of nothing, nobody.

[00:10:36] Juliette Karaman: And just allow yourself to expand there, and to recognize that you can clear all that energetic interference, because that's all that thoughts and busyness are,

[00:10:53] Juliette Karaman: by returning to this moment, to the perfection of this state. And it's so beautiful how quickly we can change state. So from being frantic and maybe anxious of missing a train, I took myself back to feeling fully in my body, feeling fully myself, experiencing joy again, experiencing scrumptious pleasure, the way that the breath was moving through me.

[00:11:36] Juliette Karaman: Just notice how quick it is. So I'm inviting you to come back to this part of the practice, which is less than seven minutes, and do this as often as you need to. So remember, you can always change your energetic state. This way is one way, another way, which I love as well, is putting on some music and letting your body shake, move, dance like no one's watching, maybe sing like no one's hearing, and just be yourself.

[00:12:21] Juliette Karaman: And even if people are watching, you be you, love, and recognize that the more that you can be your authentic you, in front of you, and then in front of others, the more that that is just going to attract. That kind of abundance, that kind of state to you, that joy. So notice, where are you contracted? And then after both of these exercises, where do you get, where do you get much more expanded?

[00:12:56] Juliette Karaman: Whatever comes up for you, I would love to hear. So please comment on either my Instagram or comment below in any of the apps that you are listening to. As always, much love, and see you next time!