Start Your Week With #Mindfulness

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Start Your Week With #Mindfulness

Most of us spend almost every waking moment thinking thoughts and feeling feelings. Thoughts and feelings can absorb us so completely that we can miss everything happening in real life. In fact, we miss most of what is actually happening while it is actually happening. We are so caught up in the movies in our minds, most of us are rarely present at all.

Worry, stress, fear, and arguments on a repeating loop all live inside the constant inner chatter of the mind. A great deal of unhappiness is generated inside our chattering minds. Turning that chatter off, or turning attention away from it, leads to lower stress and greater well-being.

Mindfulness is the practice of exiting the perpetual state of automatic mind running. Mindfulness practice is often recommended for stress reduction, for lowering anxiety, or for improving mild symptoms of depression or anxiety. But many people have trouble understanding what to it takes to be more mindful.

You may be familiar with meditation, but not know how to do it “right.” But meditation is not the only path to mindfulness. There are simple ways to practice being more mindful. Done intentionally, these everyday activities can bring greater peace into your life.

Mindful pauses don’t take long.

Set your week on a mindful track by pausing for mindfulness:

Take a deep, mindful breath. Notice feeling the breath from your nose, chest, or abdomen. Tune in for 10 breaths in a row.

Pause and notice the sky. How still. How vast.

Sit near a tree or a flower. Observe how perfect and peaceful it is.

Take a walk. Hear and feel each one of your steps.

Listen to a beautiful piece of music. Hear each note.

Notice how each of the practices only takes a few moments, and yet how calming they can be.

Posted on October 22, 2018 by Melissa Deuter.