Welcome to Mindfulness Monday! This week I’m going to share with you 5 things I love about mindfulness. We’ll learn some easy ways to be more present “in the moment” at our jobs, in our homes, with our families and friends. By learning to be more present, right here, right now, you will live a fuller life, love more completely and free yourself of unnecessary stress and anxiety!
Learning to be “Present”
The more I practice mindfulness, the more I realize how much of life I was missing before I started. Most people fall into one of two categories; they either spend their time dwelling on the past (in a negative fashion), or focused on the future, on to the “next thing”. I fall into the second category, I am very future focused, constantly thinking about what I am going to do next, rather than what I am doing now. Very few of us are actually “present” in any given moment of our day.
As a society we do everything in a hurry. I would have disputed that fact, at least about myself until I started practicing mindfulness. Realizing just how much of my life I was really missing! I ate my food without tasting it, drove to work and couldn’t remember a thing I saw on the way, had conversations without truly engaging, and even rarely “saw” wall art or other decor in my home any more. Thankfully, that has all changed. Mindfulness helps me to be fully present and engaged with as many moments in my life as possible. This allows me to truly experience my life without missing anything! Today I’m sharing just five of the reasons I love mindfulness.
- Time Awareness– have you ever found yourself wondering where the time went? Do you find yourself saying things like, “I don’t have enough time” or “I need more time”? We all have the same 24 hours, but that looks different for everyone. No one is promised ‘tomorrow”. How many of us have experienced a tragedy, the loss of a loved one, or even a sudden illness or accident that altered the way we do life? Mindfulness has taught me time awareness; to redeem and relish each moment I am given now. I can’t get back what is gone, nothing is promised in the future. Commonly I lost so much “time” because I focused on the “next thing”. I lost the experience of the present moment. I’m not saying we shouldn’t learn from the past in a reflective way or plan for the future. What I’m saying is that when we focus on those things to the exclusion of the present moment, we lose the gift of the time .
- Mindfulness is Supported by Science. Several studies have been done from a neuroscience standpoint as well as a psychological vantage point. In this study published in February in the journal, Current Directions in Psychological Science, it found that mindfulness positively influences health by stress reduction. It increases activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for decision making, emotional regulation, impulse control, and feeling of connection with others. Simply said, mindfulness alters your brain in a positive way. Successfully proven by scientific research. I’ll be the first to admit before starting mindfulness, I was very skeptical. Even after I experienced some positive results, I wanted to know this was the real deal. Thankfully there is plenty of research out there now to illustrate the benefits of mindfulness.
- Emotional Regulation. One thing I learned early on in my mindfulness journey: my emotions were totally out of control. Another more unsettling truth also emerged: I was burying my emotions, denying their existence. Now I didn’t avoid every emotion, only the “bad” ones, the ones that would be difficult to engage or “feel“. I remember my first exposure to mindfulness. As the coordinator for our hospice and palliative medicine fellowship, I work very closely with the fellows on their academic goals. We had one fellow several years back who was very much “into” mindfulness, long before it was “a thing“. She wanted to do a research project on the effects of mindfulness in relation to the stress levels of hospice workers. Naturally she pulled me in as a participant. This happened to be a particularly stressful time in my life. Struggling with a number of hard situations in my personal life, I reluctantly agreed to participate. Like the Mindfulness Based Stress Relief (MBSR) program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, which I discussed more in depth in a previous post, she chose an eight week model, each week presented a different aspect of mindfulness, involved a breathing technique, meditation and instruction. We completed a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the course to show how much progress we made. In the end I made very little progress. The reason for this I believe is because I shut down completely when she started dealing with the emotional aspect; I basically “refused to go there” and so made zero progress and this ended my mindfulness journey.
- Breaking emotional control-Actually, I reaped some benefits, and as stated in the point above, found evidence from neuroscience and psychology research studies that backed this up. I became more open, started a meditation practice, (not the same as mindfulness, but a topic for another post) and learned more about breathing techniques. I began to see results in my life, though not what everyone else stated they experienced. The hospice agency I work for implemented voluntary mindfulness classes. I took another chance on getting this mindfulness thing down. Same eight week MBSR course, only this time, I allowed myself to engage in the emotional regulation session. For me, it was revolutionary. The very first session, I was able to determine exactly what I was feeling. I no longer “feared” the emotion, and I viewed it “non-judgmentally” and let it go. The instructor called this “Name it and Tame it”; as soon as you name what you are feeling, it no longer controls you. I had the opportunity to try it out the next day. Something happened at work that caused me to be angry. Normally I would have fumed about it all day, but I immediately remembered what I had learned the day before. I found a quiet place, sat down, practiced the twenty breaths exercise to ground myself. While I knew I felt anger, I simply looked at it without justifying the anger. I simply acknowledged the emotion, recognizing how it felt in my body. I identified the underlying emotion that went with it, (shame). This took 5 minutes. As soon as I did these things, I felt the anger melt away. I literally felt it leave my body, freeing me to actually see the situation more clearly and receive instruction from the situation. Growing through the process rather than continuing to allow the anger to control me. I was sold! Since then, I practice this in various forms and find it to be extremely liberating. I no longer allow my emotions (good or bad) to control me; I no longer fear them.
- Cultivates Compassion– mindfulness aids loving kindness and compassion. It enables a better ability to see suffering, be present with suffering and those who are suffering. Increases the ability to offer kindness and take action to reduce the suffering. Practicing mindfulness has allowed me to be more present. As a result I am more aware of suffering around me and willing to help ease that suffering. Over time of practicing mindfulness, I have become open to engaging others that are in hard places on a deeper level. With my fear of emotions in a better place, I am able to simply sit with them in their pain without judgment, criticism or “helpful” advice. Loving kindness and compassion are interconnected; compassion is fed by loving kindness. Mindfulness taught me first to be kind to myself by not judging my thoughts and emotions. To offer grace to myself in difficult times. Slow down to actually experience moments throughout my day, again without judgment. This in turn opened my mind and eyes to opportunities to offer that same non-judgmental loving kindness to others, developing compassion in my life.
- Practiced Anytime, Anywhere– and it’s FREE! I love that there are no rules to follow, or exact timing needed. If I feel my day getting out of hand, or I am dealing with a difficult situation, I can pause, do a mindful check in, and ground myself in the present to better respond to my situations. Think about all of the time and money you could spend on things to “escape” your reality, binge watching Netflix, alcohol, video games, binge eating, shopping. The list goes on, but mindfulness is free and available anytime.
These five reasons are just a small illustration of why I love mindfulness; I can honestly say that this practice has revolutionized my own life and the way I interact with others. It has taught me to slow down, to recognize emotions that are taking control and pause to ground myself in the present moment. As a result, I have learned how to respond to stressors in my life. Rather than reacting, this allows me to make wise decisions from a place of calm.
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