I have been reading a lot of self-help articles recently about how to become more successful, how to be more productive, how to do EVERYTHING right. You know when you get in that phase when you just want to better yourself in every way possible? That’s the phase I’m in. So I turned to the internet (where I turn for all the answers). The articles I found offered me a variety of advice ranging from eating healthier and exercising, to writing down ideas every day. But a common theme throughout was the solution of mindfulness and meditation as making a difference. “Mindfulness lowers stress.” “Mindfulness makes you a better person.” “Mindfulness makes music sound better,” and so on. What a simple concept. So I thought, oh yes sign me up! Who doesn’t want all these benefits? However, mindfulness may not be as easy and straightforward as it sounds. It takes discipline, interest, and time.
Mindfulness is living life in the present moment. It is “the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” Mindfulness has multiple benefits on our mental, physical, and spiritual health, work productivity, and relationships. It has so many positives and almost no negatives – so it seems like everyone would do it. It is something so simple. But it is the simplicity factor of it that leads me to struggle.As humans, we are intrigued by complex things. We like to make ourselves busy and we enjoy challenges. However, mindfulness is something so simple, that it becomes hard to follow through consistently. One form of mindfulness is meditation, a means of transforming the mind. I recently downloaded a meditation app that has various recordings of guided meditation to assist in meditation. They last about 15 to 35 minutes long. I have been trying to dedicate time to meditating every day. And the recordings are usually just sounds and instructions to breathe in and out. That’s it? I initially wondered… all this hype just for someone to tell me to breathe in and out? I can do that myself!
But that’s the point… how often do we let ourselves have time to do something so simple. To just breathe. Most of the time we are rushing from one thing to the next and become so busy that we lose interest, or claim that we don’t have time to dedicate fifteen minutes to just breathe. This is the reason I have such a hard time meditating. I love being busy, and I love feeling productive. And something so trivial as sitting, breathing, and allowing thoughts to enter my mind is something I have a hard time allowing myself to do. But this could be a technique that increases productivity and saves time in the long run. That fifteen minutes – while it seems like an eternity to sit and do nothing – is exactly what we need in order to clear our minds and become more productive, healthier, happier, etc.
How often do we run from one place to another, and in that commute, not observe a single thing that we passed? So caught up in our own thoughts, that we don’t even remember what we saw or who we passed. How often do we take the time to look around us and only think in the present moment? As humans, we are easily distracted and often fail to notice what we are doing or what we are actually seeing. We are preoccupied with what happened in the past and what will happen in the future, but forget to focus mental energy on the present.
Someone once told me, mindfulness is living life in HD (high definition). When you are mindful you allow things to pop out at you and mean so much more; “Look it’s a tree, that’s a nice tree, nice branches, and so green!” “And look there is a dad and his son and they look so nice holding hands and laughing in unison together.” Next time you walk from one place to another, look around you and really think about what you see. Allow to things to pop out at you in HD. It sounds crazy - but it could be just what we need in our everyday lives.
