Mindfulness: Embracing the Gift of the Present Moment
It’s hard not to have mindfulness in mind these days. It’s everywhere.
Mindful of the bandwagon profits to be made, media have embraced the topic in all its hipness (though it’s been around for ages in various teachings and forms). So when you hear about mindfulness, perhaps what springs to mind is, ‘Oh, please, not again.’ Or maybe it sounds like it’s just not how you roll, so you roll your eyes.
But I’m here to tell you it isn’t what you think.
Mindfulness isn’t some ritual or meditation technique. It’s not religious or ideological, nor part of any particular discipline (other than the gentle self-discipline to adopt it over time as an unthinking practice – more to come about this). It doesn’t require you to study anything or believe anything or change anything about your life but your outlook. (Which is, of course, everything.)
Mastering Mindfulness: Simple Steps to Achieve Presence
Here’s all you do to be mindful.
Just remember to include sensing what you otherwise would’ve by-passed. You be aware. You pay attention. It’s just that simple and that sublime. And it’s not only way easier than you imagine, it’s natural. It’s your default mode, you see. You just forgot. Mindfulness is your reminder. As children, we’re entirely absorbed in the present. The instant moment fascinates us. We’re wired to notice everything because we’re still learning it all, taking the world in. But as we age, our focus narrows to school, work, bills, families, health and a whole host of things that must now occupy our attention. We have to plan all the time, focus on the road ahead, juggle multiple concerns like some crazed plate-spinner of pressing adult matters. So being a grown-up always brings stress, as we secretly mourn the loss of liberty, the precious freedom to look and wonder and play.
Understand that anxiety is about the future and depression is anchored in the past. But mindfulness dwells in the present.
And the present is all we have. The past is gone and the future’s not here yet. Now is your fulcrum of power. And that’s the key, as basic as can be. Like Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Achieving Mindfulness: 7 Tips
Realize that we experience the present through our senses. Pay attention to what you hear, see and physically feel instead of the blather of the thoughts in our heads, often repetitively negative, that we attend to instead of our surroundings.
Go for walks and replace the music in your earbuds with the wind and ambient aural inputs that are the real-time soundtrack of our lives.
Observe the way sunlight and trees make a different blend of brightness and shadow at different hours.
When you sit down in your beloved chair to have a hot chocolate, really feel yourself sinking into that leather, savouring the taste of the drink, the warm feel of the mug on your palm.
Keenly anticipate all the little on-going sensory experiences that you use to live right past.
Make what’s around you in the moment today more interesting than whatever you allow yourself to be distracted by yesterday.
Recognize that life is made of plain ol regular moments more than the giant memorable ones, so you don’t want to let them stay off your radar; since there are so many more of them, that’s where there’s collectively more joy to be found over the course of your life.
It doesn’t take that long to get in the habit. And once you’re used to it, you’ll find that it has become your automatic custom.
Be Here Now, as they say, is pretty succinct advice, perhaps the best there is. Look. It’s only look and see. That’s the practice. That’s life. It’s short. See you there!
