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Can you provide more details about what you call mindfullnes and how you combine it with different activities, please.
Mindfulness for me, now, is to be aware of myself and my surroundings. It started with meditation during a one year chronic pain remedy program, and helped with learning to deal with all the noise that comes up (pain, stress, intrusive thoughts). To not ignore them, but to observe them. Detach myself somewhat and just “look” at it. This helped me to eventually do this during monotonous activities: brushing my teeth, doing dishes, combing cats, vacuuming, even emptying litter boxes. Then to external activities where I am observing the things outside and inside me: waiting in line, sitting on the bus, hiking, drinking tea at a café.
When I exit the state I feel a bit more refreshed. If I need more, and have the ability, I will go and sit in my favourite spot and meditate deeper.
This is where I struggle to understand mindfulness. Doing dishes, detach yourself and look at it, sounds like doing dishes on an autopilot and thinking about your feeling, but this is not be aware of surroundings.
Could you dive/explain deeper in this using this example: what does it mean to me mindfulness doing dishes: what do you think about during this etc. Thank you!
i think the simplest way to look at is that, while you're doing dishes, you clear your mind and just think: "i'm washing this dish".. instead of letting your mind sort of entertain itself with all the thoughts that want to take your attention away from the dishes.. thoughts that might make you anxious or sad or something that dishes obviously wouldn't.. if you're thinking about that argument you had while you're doing dishes, you don't really have your mind on that bowl in your hand.. poor bowl.. :(
basically just trying to give yourself a break from mentally being "somewhere else"
Strangely enough, it all clicked once you personified the bowl! It is what matters in that small moment, no matter how insignificant it may seem to be.
that's super cool to hear, putting that emotion on the end did the same thing for me as i wrote it... thanks for sharing!
Personally, if I'm doing something that I find monotonous, I just focus on my breath and my body. You don't have to find joy in the one thing you're doing to meditate while doing it. You can shift the joy to just your breath and your body being a gift to you because you woke up today.
If I feel the need, I also allow my mind to do whatever it feels the need to for a little bit, which is usually planning for something that makes me anxious or thinking about something that happened earlier, then bring my thoughts back to just my breath and my body for a few seconds, and refocus on the thoughts that crept in. It's okay to allow whatever thoughts want to creep up in, and then accept and acknowledge what you want to think about and why.
You can continue doing the dishes and meditate while allowing your mind to focus on the thoughts that wanted to creep in. You don't have to block it all out. Just acknowledge it and make it part of the experience. Once you've acknowledged the other thoughts, you may find you can mix the two together--I'm anxious about this thing coming up, but I also appreciate the warm water running over my hands right now.
I'm sure it's different for everyone. For me, it's about recognizing that every day is a gift and I should do what I can to acknowledge the beauty that is around me. My body, my home that shelters me, my family and friends, my city and surrounding state... it's all beautiful and all I have to do is take a few moments throughout each day to take it in while focusing on my breath.
I meditate while walking or cooking most days. I have a system for walking, where I know how many breaths I normally take while walking and breathing at a slow but steady pace. I start on the left foot and breath in, then switch to exhaling always on the right foot at the right amount of steps. It takes some practice but the whole point of it is to get some exercise and take in the scenery while breathing and focusing on your breath in the background of your mind. I live in a cold area, so when I first learned this I even used it as a method to walk around the house and pick things up that need to be put away since I oculdn['t get outside much.
When I'm cooking I enjoy the process and do it like the article I posted, letting my mind wander if it needs to for a few minutes and then bringing it back to my body and breath for a few seconds, and focusing on the food again. Cooking is something I love to do, so it's easy to meditate while focusing on the aromas and the colors and just in the background of my brain making sure my breathing is even.