About Monica Verplank

About Monica

Monica Verplank is a transformational leader who cares about individuals in a collective, and understands that when individuals thrive, collectives thrive. Monica believes in living life with a positive mindset and promoting evolutionary change through small, manageable steps that inspire further growth and development. She believes in the power of possibilities and the tremendous impact of small, consistent efforts that create new, healthier habits and ways of BEing in the world.

Monica enjoys working with large group, small teams, or individuals to support their dreams for their own thriving and the thriving of those around them. She is the 2022 recipient of the Chamber of Commerce, Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg’s Spirit of Community Award for her work in community well-being.

Workplace Well-BEing

Through simple breathing and mindfulness practices you and your colleagues will bring awareness to your own unique stress response and understand the damaging affects to the brain and physical body of hanging out in the stress response more than once a day, once a week or even once a month. Learn simple tools to effectively navigate stress and balance work or life overload, reducing the negative effects on the mind and body.

Contact Monica for more details or to schedule a session.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of simply being in the present moment. When we are practicing mindfulness, we are noticing what’s happening right now. We harness our mind chatter and pay attention to what is happening around us, within us, right here, right now. We fully utilize our five senses to notice the sights, scents, sounds, tastes and touch of the chair or ground beneath us. In practicing mindfulness, we release our replaying of what happened in the past, and release our planning, planning, planning of what will happen later today, tomorrow, or next month.

One of the easiest ways to connect with the present moment is to bring our awareness to our breath. Holding our awareness at our breath, we notice the cool air rush through our nostrils as we inhale, feel our chest rise and belly expand as we fully, deeply inhale. We notice what it feels like to hold that air in, just for a moment, then release. We notice the contraction of our abdomen as we release the air and the warmth of the exhalation as it rushes past our nostrils, exiting our body. Just one deep, full breath can send a message of calm to our physiology, taking us out of the stress response and back into a calmer state of mind.

Through the practice of mindfulness, we simultaneously develop the three attention skills of concentration, clarity and equanimity. Concentration allows us to focus on what we want, when we want it. Clarity allow us to know, to truly understand, what is happening in the external world around us. Equanimity allow us to enjoy non-resistance and develop the understanding that while life can be unpleasant, we each have the ability to observe what is happening, allowing sensory information to move through us without pushing or pulling us in one direction or another. We flow with the moment and allow nothing unpleasant to stick.

Mindfulness is a tremendous tool to develop pause. It teaches us to pause, just a moment, so that we can process all the information necessary in order to proceed with a creative response that will serve our best interest, as well as those around us. Modern neuroscience helps us to understand how and why this moment’s pause is beneficial to the efficiency and effectiveness of our brain and its capabilities. Through a moment’s pause we negate the stress response, moving us out of our primitive brain (amygdala) and back into our pre-frontal cortex where high quality executive functioning and emotional regulation can occur.

Cultivate mindfulness in your life today. Follow your breath and notice how you feel. One full breath is powerful, three full breaths can bring you fully into the present moment, and five deep, full breaths can can take you out of the stress response allowing you to regain full access to the parts of your brain responsible for emotional regulation and high quality problem solving.