Getting Back Into A Mindfulness Routine

This post was originally posted at KimOrlesky.com

It was my vacation! Why was I so stressed? I was angry. Like, PMS-angry. It made no sense. I was in one of, and arguably, the most beautiful city in the world. Everyone walks around at a stereotypical surfer’s pace. They need to, half of the people are barefoot. Plus it’s summer vacation.

Very few cities would have over half of their businesses closed for any length of time longer than Christmas Day, and yet Sydney, a city of over four million, has entire streets closed for two weeks with “gone surfin’” signs on the doors.

This isn’t out of the norm because as the locals see it, (with the elongated “e” sound as opposed to the north american “o” sounds), “yee-ah, it’s summe-eah”.

So with the chilled out pace of life with all the major city luxuries why would I feel so angry? I just. Didn’t. Know.

There was no reason for it, until I received a message from a friend, “are you remembering to meditate?"

The words hit me. I wasn’t. I was out of routine, and with my days filled with motion, I forgot to remind myself to be still. It was the stillness that I needed to help cleanse the clutter and dust from my mind and emotions.

I was thankful for my meditation practice up to this point. Only because I had been meditating for the last two years I was able to recognize this slight shift in my being. I felt hurried again. I felt like I was focused on the future, on the past, on every moment except the one I was in right now. Literally right now. Such as enjoying a cup of coffee, watching people walk down the street, listening to the sound of wind blow through trees.

It amazed me that something so slight as a vacation was enough to throw me off routine. This was the time that I was supposed to be more relaxed. My goal before I went away was to reflect, write, list out the things I wanted to accomplish over the next year. I was doing most of that, but without the mindfulness aspect I realized I was going through the motions. I wasn’t even really enjoying the actions that I was doing and that was part of the point.

The next morning I woke up and put myself right back into my morning ritual. Sit up on my bed. Concentrate on my breathing; the slow in and out. Become present to my body. Give myself forgiveness for falling off my practice. Provide compassion first to myself, then to everyone around me, and finally to the entire world. After about 15 minutes I opened my eyes and looked around me imagining everything in the room was the first time I saw it. I noticed things I didn’t see any of the days I had spent in that room before. I felt the wave of relaxation waving over me. I could hear my internal commentary slow enough to make out the individual words. “Let’s walk to a coffee shop on Bondi Beach."

No matter how committed we are to something, occasionally we fall off our practice and our routine. When it happens, recognize it, give forgiveness, and get right back into routine. It doesn’t matter if this is working out, eating right, reading daily, or in my case my daily meditation. The moment we start again routine does too. It’s better to start again than to give up completely. It’s about staying on the journey, not counting the number of times we stop and start.

Other posts by Kim Orlesky:

What Surfing Teaches About Being Committed

How Meditation Helps In Making Big Decisions

The Only 16 Pieces of Clothing To Pack

Connect Deeper

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