Mindfulness Practice Simplified

Mindfulness is non-judgmental moment-to-moment awareness. And you can start your own mindfulness practice with experimentation.

The thing is, mindfulness is a practice; always unfolding and always revealing. Practicing mindfulness and opening awareness of breath, body, mind, and surroundings (with curiosity) can be life-changing. For me, mindfulness enriches experiences, and enhances enjoyment of everyday activity (even things I may not usually like to do). I've also found that mindfulness is also a key to cultivating joy.

Here are six tips from my mindfulness practice that you can try.

1. Slow down. When I take my time, and lose my anticipation of (future) outcomes, my awareness opens and I can appreciate doing yoga, walking, cooking, eating, making the bed, folding laundry, even 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 memories of the past, or anticipation of my next move.

3. Activate your senses. The senses are the doors to overall perception. When my senses are activated, experience is rich with sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. For me, this is awareness of living. And, a lot of the time, enjoyment too.

4. Experience directly. (And avoid inserting yourself into the picture.) Notice any habitual, internal storytelling or narrative. For example, is it possible to just see the moon as it is? Notice whether you're thinking, "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 or tea 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 all of your attention on that one thing. As in our Pranayama breath practice, experiment with being fully present to just one thing.

I invite you to share your mindfulness practice in the Comments section.

Photo: Yoann Boyer