Mindfulness is something that most of us achieve daily but fail to maintain it. It is easy to be aware of something but to be only conscious about it for a few minutes and then lose oneself in one’s thoughts is the predicament of our times. To fully attend to what you are doing and practicing awareness only of the place you are present in is what mindfulness is all about.
It is not unknown to many that our mind takes flight from time to time and transports us from the place we are currently in to one we were a part of in the past or to the one in the future where we believe we are headed. No matter how engrossed we become in such thoughts we cannot be physically present in that space and mind and body can only be in harmony when they are involved in one place at a time.
# 1. Savour What You Eat
When we want to accomplish a lot of things we tend to have a mindset which is always racing and even when it arrives at a particular destination that we made efforts for, we race for something else not relishing the result of our efforts. This may provide short-term satisfaction but will provide only exhaustion and misery in the long run. Whenever you feel like the thoughts you have are getting heavy, you need to pause and focus only on what is in front of you so that you can enjoy what you are doing. One of the goals that mindfulness aims at accomplishing is that we keep enjoying life which is made a lot easier when we thank everyone involved in bringing our meal to us just before the meal. This creates a feeling of positivity inside you and makes you appreciate the work of others instead of harboring malice towards them.
# 2. Mindful Breathing
Mindfulness does not need us to do anything extra; it just needs us to stop doing that extra thing. How we already are and what we already do, come easy but their management is difficult when we convince ourselves that we are being hindered. We think that the wicked world demands us to keep moving all the time and this conviction is trying for both body and mind. We already have the capability to be aware of the situation we are in and it just takes a simple practice of incorporating intimacy in what we do. When we breathe in deeply and feel the air go into our lungs, quieting our mind during the process helps us make the moment personal. When we release and breathe the air out, we become aware of this as an intimate experience. It is very important for us to make all our experiences personal in order to practice mindfulness and keep anxiety at bay.
# 3. Embrace It As A Way Of Living
A lot of people embrace their initial distress so tightly that they accept disappointment as a way of life and it doesn’t take others much to bring out their despair in such people. When we understand the concept of mindfulness, we learn the importance of caring and know that carrying a negative attitude will make us neglect our own self promoting thoughts that tell us we don’t matter that much. Life is all about forming the determination to remain mindful at all times as this heightened awareness of the moment is essential for us to be true to ourselves, the ones who embrace it as a way of living are generally happy and free from needless stress.
#4. Prepare Your Mind
Mindfulness is not just about being attentive; one has to be deeply conscious of one’s environment. You need to think about all the things that are a part of your life from what you eat to how you speak and what upsets you. This will make you more aware of your frame of mind and how you think on things which in turn will point to you whether you were being mindful or not.
#5. Keep Only Good Relationships
It is difficult for those who don’t share good relationships with the ones they have in their life to be mindful because no matter how hard they try once they have knowledge of the thing going on in the life of someone they care about, they won’t be able to keep their mind off it. Whether we admit or not all relationships including the most intimate ones we share operate on give and take. So, the relationships where one gives and the other just takes soon stop functioning well. When we embrace the practice of being mindful we need to evaluate all our relationships and limit the ones we thing are not beneficial to us because time and gain they can interfere with our practice of mindfulness. You can extend an olive branch to them and ask them to meditate with you or tell you all that is going through their mind but when this approach doesn’t work, you need to admit that you cannot take positivity from the people who have made themselves accustomed to despair and will soon lose your own light because of their permanent darkness.
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/35/c7/35c76f56-6c43-45ff-9247-700fbbdbebe1/istock_000078646337_large.jpg)
# 6. Show That You Are Present
Be aware of your words and your body language as you need to show the person you are interacting with that you are completely involved in what you are doing and do not drift when you are in the middle of something. If you tell your co workers that you are buried under work or that you don’t even have a second to breathe, it creates the impression that you are in a negative situation and create distance. However if you take the time out to listen and engage and then say must go back to work it will make way for positive body language and increase the mindfulness of you and your co-workers.
# 7. Unplug
Staying connected all the time means that you are giving constantly and not regaining the amount of energy you need to have every day. You owe it to the life force inside you, also known as chi in the Chinese language, that you give it time to relax before you can spend it all over again. This will increase your level of mindfulness and help you be more at peace with yourself and your surroundings.
# 8. Map Your Emotions
Ask yourself question like- What makes me angry and what brings a smile to my face? This positive self talk will reveal the way you think and not only help you get in touch with your feeling but make you understand what stems these emotions in your heart. All of us other than our physical structure have an emotional structure as well which needs constant monitoring and nurturing just like our physical structure. Mindfulness is a state which you can arrive at only when you realize that your emotional structure has no clear shape and it is your responsibility to give it shape and form as if you don’t form a positive core all through life you will be at the mercy of both positivity and negativity.
#9. Meditate
Meditation is an art that requires you to choose a phrase that you repeat over and over again till you have embedded it in your soul and made it a part of your personality and nature. It will reduce distraction and help you become your best self. Every morning if you sit on your meditation cushion, you will be able to sit with no disturbances throughout the day on your seat.
#10. Perform functions with your non-dominant hand
'The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken' is a quote that tells us that when we get used to doing something, it locks us in a particular frame of mind that resists and opposes when we try different things which do not come under its scope. Performing ordinary functions is easy with your dominant hand but when you use your other hand it refreshes the struggle in these activities and breaks the shackles that have numbed you towards these activities. It is very difficult to be mindful when we have been numbed by doing something regularly so refreshing the way we do it is sure to bring a level of excitement that makes us happy and feel alive.
# 11. Use An Object For Clarity
In order to be mindful, we need clarity as all thoughts and feelings hold the power to affect us. In order that you don’t lose the sense of who you are after being overwhelmed with multiple feelings and thoughts, you need to associate with an object that stays as it is when interacting with external forces. The best examples are that you are a sun that shines from every morning till evening or earth will keeps spinning night and day even when changes keep taking place in the universe. This will help you go about your business mindfully.
Tell us how you practice being mindful. Drop comments in our comments section below.
10 Opinions
9 Opinions
