Mindfulness is simply non-judgmental present-moment awareness. And, it’s easy to start your own mindfulness practice through experimentation.
The thing is, mindfulness is a practice; always unfolding and always revealing. Practicing mindfulness and opening awareness of body and heart-mind with curiosity can be life-changing. For me, mindfulness enriches my experiences, and enhances enjoyment of everyday activity (even things I may not usually like to do). I’ve also found that mindfulness is a key to cultivating joy.
Here are six tips from my practice that you can try.
1. Slow down. When I take my time, and lose my hold on (future) outcomes, my awareness opens fully and I can appreciate walking, cooking, eating, making the bed, folding laundry, doing dishes. Any mundane thing may reveal something unexpected.
2. Make eye contact. When I don’t watch what I’m doing I lose a lot. Learning to put my eyes on my hands or feet lets me attend fully to the present. And I’m less distracted by anticipation of my next move.
3. Activate your senses. The senses are the doors of perception. When fully activated, experience is rich with sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and awareness. For me, this is full awareness (and enjoyment) of living.
4. Experience directly. (And avoid inserting yourself into the picture.) Notice any habitual, internal storytelling or narrative. Is it possible to just see the moon, instead of, “I love the color of the moon tonight,” or “I used to love seeing the moon when I was a child.” It’s just the moon, and not necessarily about you.
5. Tap into breath and body awareness. Breath and body awareness are grounding and supporting. Most of the time, I’m completely unaware of my breath and the sensations in my body. There’s nothing like breath and body awareness to root my attention in the present moment.
6. Focus, focus, focus. (And resist multi-tasking.) Unfocused attention, like the kind I have when I multi-task, is unproductive (counter to common belief) and unfulfilling. Most of us drink coffee while reading, or talk on the phone and cook at the same time, etc. Instead, just notice, and make a decision about which activity deserves your full attention. Then place it there. As in our Pranayama breath work, experiment with being fully present to just one thing.
I invite you to share your mindfulness practice in the Comments section.
Photo: Yoann Boyer
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