29. Learn to Look After Yourself with Mindfulness Teacher Roya Hekmatpanah

March 9, 2021

Roya Hekmatpanah

Mindfulness Teacher

9 March 2021
Health & Fitness

A Way of Life

Roya Hekmatpanah is the mindfulness and yoga teacher behind All Humanity. She is passionate about helping driven professionals to achieve success without sacrificing their wellbeing. So, is mindfulness just a buzzword? Or is it something with the power to transform our workplace and our lives? This episode has a lot of laughs, and you’re in for a treat! Roya will lead you on a lovely mindfulness grounding practice.

Roya's Links

Website: All Humanity

LinkedIn: All Humanity

Inspiration

The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama

“It’s very uplifting”.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

“It’s just a must-read. So, you could read it in 20 minutes. It will change your life. You will reread it. And it should be a must-have in every household”.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Helps you see clearly

“When we know what’s happening as it’s happening, there’s an element of choice that comes in. And when you cultivate that awareness and you’re able to see what’s going on as it’s going on, you have the option to say, can we step away?”

Supports your mental health

“If you’re experiencing depression as a result of certain patterns of thinking—which is very often the cause of it—then yes, you can manage it with exercise, with lifestyle, with mindfulness. But it’s just a very individual thing. And I would hate for anyone to feel that they failed if they need to rely on medication. It’s there to help, you know. If you had a broken leg, you’d get a cast.”

Mindfulness programmes are offered in our NHS as frontline interventions for things like recurrent depression. You can treat depression but the problem is that it often happens again when the treatment stops.

Roya Hekmatpanah

Grounding Practice

Listen now & follow along

Listen to the full episode and, partway through, Roya will lead you in a lovely grounding practice… So, why not take this time for yourself?

Grounding simply means we know how to stabilise ourselves. So whatever life throws up, rather than being completely knocked off course, we are able to have a sense of stability within us through these grounding practices.

Roya Hekmatpanah

Learn to Look After Yourself

Listen to what your body is telling you

What does that mean on a practical level? In terms of Roya’s business, she says: “it means I’m going slower than I want to. Honestly, I’m not progressing at the speed I’d like to, but it’s recognising my own limitations and honouring those. That is the choice, the choice that maybe we don’t like because there’s an element of sacrifice in it, but it is just accepting that maybe one day wasn’t as productive as I’d like it to be.”

I think there's a lot of suffering, but it’s not become conscious: like anger, like feeling you’re too busy all the time, like feeling this constant sense of pressure. But there’s not (yet) a recognition that things need to change.

Roya Hekmatpanah

Style Notes

When she works with corporate clients, Roya tries to mirror the look of the people she’s dealing with. “And I think that’s really important because people are receptive to people who look like them.”

Top Tip: The beauty of personal style is the freedom to find what’s really right for you. So it won’t be keeping up with current fashion or wearing bold statements for everyone. In fact, that’s often the way to a lot of heartbreak and disappointment. Instead, dare to be yourself. In all ways.

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About ALSO in PINK

Welcome to the ALSO in PINK podcast with host Alexandria Lawrence, a certified KonMari consultant, personal stylist and specialist in biophilic interior design.

ALSO in PINK offers candid conversations with industry leaders and influencers, clients and friends, about what it means to live well.