Making Mindful

We see and hear so much about mindfulness, but what actually is mindfulness and how to become 'more mindful'. It seems we are constantly being told to live more, be more and do more mindfulness, but mindfulness is a skill that we firstly need to learn.

Being more mindful is to be more attuned to what’s happening, to what you’re doing, to the space you’re moving through. That might seem trivial, except for the annoying fact that often we find our minds wandering. We lose our connection with our body, and too easily we are distracted by negative or disruptive thoughts, which often lead to overthinking, obsessive intrusive thoughts, which often makes us anxious.

The definition of mindfulness is straightforward enough the idea of being fully present, aware of our surroundings and what we’re doing, accepting what is happening and just allowing ourselves to be in the moment with the sounds, smells and thoughts that pass through our minds, this is the skill we hope to be leaning and incorporating into our everyday lives.

When we are able to find what works for us and practice accessing our mindful space and engage with our own mindful practice we are better able to reduce stress, enhance our performance, gain insight into our own thoughts, feelings, process and ultimately our own awareness through observing our own mind, and increase our attention to our bodies.

Mindfulness can allow us to create space in our busy lives suspend judgment and allow our inqusitimesse or our sense sense of wonder about the workings of the mind, about ourselves as we are and as we want to be, approaching our experiences with a non judgemental natural warmth and kindness to ourselves.

You don’t need to change yourself, generally ideas or Solutions that dictate we change something about ourselves or who we are usually fail us repeatedly. it makes no sense to repeat the same things that haven't worked for us before. Mindfulness recognizes and cultivates the best of who we are as we are.

In creating our own mindful practice we have to acknowledge that just talking about and understanding ,mindfulness at an intellectual level isn't enough. The idea of connection to ourselves runs deeper than just the theory and incorporating a new practice isn't as easy as just deciding to do it one day. Hopefully the ideas discussed in the Blog will help you and your own journey to mindfulness.

Visually Mindful

Starting mindful practice can be difficult when it feels like we 'don't know' what we are supported to be doing. Turning into the moment doesn't sound difficult but it can be difficult to tune out our self doubt, feelings of silliness or pointlessness.

Having a focal point when first starting mindfulness practice can be helpful to focus the mind and thoughts, when we notice your self 'tuning out' or being distracted by our thoughts we come back to focus on something physical.

One of my favorite ways of doing this is to make something to focus on, for example taking something as simple as a water bottle, adding water and glitter. Generally people who identify as visual learners may find this style of practice more helpful as you are engaging visually to start your practice.

Shaking our mixture causes the glitter to swirl and reflect through the water.

The mixing of the bottle signifies the start of our practice and the settling of the glitter is the end of our practice. In this way we are giving ourselves a clear start and end to our practice. We are also giving ourselves something to bring our attention back to when we notice our mind wandering or moving away from the mindful practice we are engaging with.

We can acknowledge the thoughts or distractions we have, allow them to be, accept them for what they are, but bring our attention back to our practice. Noticing our breath, noticing the how we feel in the moment, but always bringing our attention to the present moment and our practice.

Physically Mindful

Another route to mindful practice can be to engage with our physical senses, for example, it can be helpful to be connected to something by touch, a physical connection to keep you grounded to the moment and to your practice.

Some people may find it helps them to attune to the moment if they are able to make that first physical connection and then, when noticing the drift of the mind, or the intrusiveness of unwanted thoughts, be able to re-connect to the moment through touch, inviting back calmness we are creating through or practice, noticing everything else but always coming back to the moment.

Creating your own object can be as easy and creating a string of beads/objects/textures, you can create anything that speaks to your practice and making it work for you.

One of the easiest ways I have made this work for me is to create a mindfulness chain, in doing this I picked beads and trinkets that meant something to me, that connected me to an emotion or feeling that was positive. Equally something pretty, things that I liked and sparked a sense of joy, but could also be as simple as bottle caps or lids strung together that can be held or passed through the hands.

In this gain we give ourselves a start point and ending to our practice, we can control how long or short we practice, but we allow ourselves that physical sensation of touch to guild our practice and bring ourselves back to the moment. we can notice the smoothness of the bottle cap, or the coolness of the beads, the point at the end of the crystal we have attached to our mindfulness chain. Remember this doesn't need to make sense to anyone other than you, it's your chain and your connection to the items you choose, or simply your connection to your practice.

Auditory Mindful

Listening or attuning ourselves to sound may be helpful for some who learns best through listening or incorporating sounds, in this way when we notice ourselves drifting from our practice, or thinking about what to cook for dinner. We can gently turn back into the sound and into our practice, noticing our thoughts, accepting our thoughts, but not being removed from our practice or pursuit of our mindfulness practice.

Another way of using sound and our sense of hearing to support our practice is to use some of the amazing guided meditation apps there are. There are also a number of youtube channels dedicated to guided meditation and music to support mindful practice.