Incorporating mindfulness
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to incorporate daily movement into my life. If you’ve been following along for a while, you know I started running a few months ago and that has been instrumental to keeping sane as a stay-at-home parent of a small child. I started the new year by adding in yoga and by doing Adriene Mishler’s 30-day yoga challenge (link here). The goal of the challenge was to commit to it for thirty days and to get the movement piece from it, but it’s given me so much more.
While this is probably obvious to anyone who’s done yoga before, yoga brings with it a mindfulness practice. I’ve done yoga in the past, and in fact, I’ve even done this same annual 30-day challenge. But, this year, it’s hitting different. Every time I am on the mat, working through a pose, being led by Adriene’s voice, I find myself going down my to-do list, or thinking of, well, anything else. Next thing I know, she has said something incredibly profound, and I notice myself realizing I have been stuck in my own thoughts. This pattern goes on throughout my daily yoga practice and while it is frustrating, it is akin to my experience with mediation. This makes sense – yoga is the movement to mediation. In meditation, a goal is to work to quiet the thoughts and focus on the breath. Yoga is much the same, and the movement is a means by which to help still the thoughts and focus on the breath.
This awareness to my distractedness has me paying attention to how much of my life I do mindlessly. Nearly any task I do I find myself distracted by something else.
Yoga, meditation, running – these are all great ways to practice mindfulness. I recently had another life experience which gave me one of those big “aha!” moments and shed light on what mindfulness can look like and reminded me of how I can incorporate it into my life in simple ways.
Learning mindfulness from a toddler
As my son and I were playing the other day, I noticed the dogs’ water bowl was empty (note the irony here – playing with the baby and seeing the dogs’ water bowl empty). I picked up the baby and the dogs’ bowl and we walked to the bathroom. I placed the bowl in the sink and turned on the faucet. As the water slowly filled the bowl, I looked up and saw our reflections in the mirror. I started making funny faces, attempting to get the his attention. But he was intently focusing on what we were doing: filling the dogs’ water bowl. That was it. We did not need to make silly faces in the mirror because we were doing something else. He watched every movement as the bowl filled with water, as I turned off the faucet, and as the water sloshed around while we slowly carried it back to its home. He was completely present with the task at hand.
His attention to only the one thing we were doing was amazing to me. Since that day, I’ve noticed how he focuses on that which he is doing. Everything is new to him, and he gives it his undivided attention to understand it. He is mindful with that which he is doing.
Practice mindfulness around money
Like the baby learning for the first time and giving his experiences his full attention, we must acknowledge that for a lot of us, we might be learning about money for the first time and we have to give it our attention. Here’s a baby step (pun intended) to practice bringing mindfulness to your purchases: Next time you are out (or online) shopping, pay attention to how present you are. Are you focused on what you’re doing? Is your mind in other places? Are you paying attention to what you’re buying and how it fits in the bigger picture?
My guess is, like me, you might be distracted. Start small and make small, daily moves in the right direction.