Mindfulness Demystified

In this article, I will explain Mindfulness without using complex terms as there is a lot of information out there which could be overwhelming. The goal of this article is to demystify Mindfulness in simple terms and leave readers with a few practical steps to implement in their daily lives. I will keep this simple and sweet so that any professional can observe and practice Mindfulness regardless of their gender, age and profession. Let’s dive into it.

Picture yourself as you read this paragraph. You are working hard on a difficult assignment with the deadline quickly approaching. You are ‘spending’ more time on it and getting ‘stressed’ out. During one of these days, you wake up from bed and are getting ready for work. As you shower, your mind starts thinking about how to solve the issue at hand and quickly wanders off and now you are deeply processing one thought after another. Then, someone reminds you to get out of the shower because you are running late as you took a 20 min shower instead of your normal 5 min shower. You’re running late, so you skipped your breakfast and you are driving to work. Again, your mind connects with the assignment and is thinking ‘hard and fast’ to get it done today. Your mind is racing with all the possible solutions to crack it and you are more determined than ever. While doing so, you may not have noticed that you ran through several red lights, and assuming you are a lucky person, you made it without getting hurt. Now you are at your workplace and directly went to the cafeteria to grab a coffee as you skipped breakfast. Now you are at your desk and attending your work while sipping the coffee. After a while, you realize that your coffee cup is empty only when you grasp the cup with no contents inside. Now please come out of picturing yourself from the above situation and let’s analyze what happened.

Best way to start analyzing anything is to define the issue itself first. Let’s do so by asking the following questions:?

1) You took a shower for 20 min instead of for 5 min, who is actually enjoying the shower?2) You run through several red lights to make up for the lost time, who is actually driving? 3) Your coffee cup got empty without you noticing, who actually drank the coffee?

One common theme that connects the questions above is who. While your body is doing something, your mind is engaged with something else. You are not really aware of what is happening now, instead you are thinking about something different from what your body is actually doing. Because of that, the shower was longer without feeling the sensitivity of the water that was splashing on your body. You drove through the red lights without even noticing as your sight processing was affected. You finished your coffee without even experiencing the taste and smell of coffee. While the body is doing its own work, your mind is processing something else, causing these impaired sensibilities. With this analysis, you can see that the issue here is you are simply not aware of the present moment. Your mind is either wandering in the future or in the past leaving absolutely no attention to what is happening right now. As your mind gets disconnected with your body actions, you are lost and then the question of who arises. That is the crux of Mindfulness.

The key to Mindfulness is to stay present and pay full attention to the activity that is happening now. Doing so enables the necessary senses to engage fully and process at their full capacity so that the essence of the present is not lost. You will enjoy the benefits of the shower, calming you down and enabling you to think clearly. You will drive safely and so will the other people sharing the road. You will enjoy the taste and smell of coffee so that it can boost your mood and energy levels by stimulating your central nervous system.

How do you do it? The answer is simple and can be developed with some practices. As you do anything (as you read this article as well), pay full and undivided attention to what you are doing now. I call Mindfulness in simple terms as doing one thing with 100 % attention. That one thing can be a simple task like drinking coffee to a complex task like cracking a hard assignment. It is easier to implement Mindfulness for smaller tasks; and being mindful of the smaller tasks can help in applying the same for complex tasks by breaking them effectively. It? requires a different type of skill which is a topic by itself for another day. Let's stay focused in this article on being mindful of simple tasks.

As discussed above, the trick is to be consciously aware of current activity. If you are drinking coffee next time, shut your mind from thinking about anything else and engage it in processing of taste and smell. When walking next time in the garden, look around for a tree, a flower, or a bird and let your senses rise and enjoy nature. You can also identify simple daily routines where you can apply Mindfulness. I will list a few sample routines for you: While brushing your teeth, do not think, just brush and feel the toothpaste. While walking, if you see grass, take off your shoes and socks and walk barefoot on the grass and feel the kindness of nature. Cook something and enjoy the process of making it. Once you get the hang of such simple routines, you can take on bigger activities like learning a new language, writing a journal or a book, painting something, or playing an instrument. Learning something new genuinely engages the senses and helps you practice Mindfulness implicitly.

One negative connotation that goes with Mindfulness is Multitasking. It is important to be?aware of the differences between them and how they can complement with each other in a positive sense. Also, people often confuse Mindfulness with Meditation. Meditation is different and the prerequisite for meditating is to be mindful first. That is again a topic for another day. Also, people often tend to use Mindfulness in the context of conserving something. An example would be being mindful of water consumption during a drought. It makes perfect sense to use Mindfulness in this context. The underlying factor to be mindful of anything is to pay attention to the activity first so that you can be ‘mindful’ of the ‘resources’ that are required.?

As we get close to the end of this short article, I hope I touched the real core aspect of Mindfulness and think that it raised the necessary awareness to be Mindful. Mindfulness practice starts with simple steps: the precursor to it is to stay present and let your mind engage fully on what you are doing right now. If you can get hold of knowing what your mind is doing now, you can instruct it what it should do and even what it can do. This is very powerful and leads the path towards deeper practices. Before that, one has to learn how to be mindful and be proficient at it. It is not difficult and can be practiced with conscious effort.?

Wish you all the very best!

Hari Miriyala

www.dhirubhai.net/in/hari-miriyala?

Date of posting: Mar 12th, 2022