Five Simple Mindfulness Tips
Mindfulness is present moment awareness; non-judgmental awareness. If you practice it every day, and experiment with non-judgmental awareness of body and mind, and if you cultivate curiosity, you may enrich and enjoy your experiences more. In fact, mindfulness is one of the factors in cultivating joy.
Here are my suggestions for getting started, based on my own mindfulness practice.
1. Slow your activity waaaaaaay down.
If I rush, I miss a lot because I’m operating on auto-pilot and I just rush to my end goal. When I take my time, I leave room for awareness and full appreciation of walking, cooking, eating, making the bed, folding laundry, doing dishes . . .
2. Put your eyes on it.
Once I almost broke a glass I was putting away because I was looking at another glass in the dishwasher below. I wasn’t watching what I was doing. I learned to put my eyes on my hands and attend fully to the present and not anticipate my next move.
3. Activate all of your senses.
The senses are the doors of perception. When fully activated, experience is rich with sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and awareness of our mindstream. I feel fully alive.
3. Experience directly (and avoid inserting yourself into the picture).
Avoid storytelling and narrative. For example, 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. It’s not about you.
4. Tap into awareness of your breath and your body.
Breath and body awareness is grounding and supporting. Most of the time, we’re oblivious to our breathing and the sensations in our bodies. There’s nothing like breath and body awareness to make me attentive to the present moment.
5. Cultivate single-pointed focus (and avoid multi-tasking).
Disbursed attention, like the kind we engage when we multi-task is unproductive (counter to common belief) and unfulfilling. But we all do it: drinking coffee and reading, talking on the phone and cooking, etc. Make a decision about which activity deserves your full attention, and place it there. As in our meditation where we focus on our breath, experiment with being fully present to just one thing.