What is Mindfulness? How can you be Mindful? And Most Importantly, Why be Mindful?

 Before knowing ‘What is Mindfulness?’ and ‘How can you be Mindful?’, we need to know why we want to be Mindful. Once we are clear with ‘why’ then ‘what’ and ‘how’ will be derived from that, this is not only for Mindfulness, this applies to any work we are doing.

I do yoga stretches daily as a part of my morning routine. Usually, I do the Surya Namaskar 12 times. While counting, 3, 4, and the next time I doubt whether it is the 5th time or the 4th time! Again, while doing the Shishu Balasana, I count …., 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, and 43 mechanically whereas I plan to do 40 times!

Do such things happen to you also?

Why does this happen? Thinking of something else while doing work? Many times we dwell in our past experiences, I should have done like this or I should not have told him why this happened like that, etc. Other times we are thinking deeply about the future, what will happen in that issue or whether this will go as expected or if something happens what will I do, most of the time we think about planning things, have to do that, etc,. I was thinking about these things, what I am writing now when I was doing my yoga this morning!

Almost every moment we are either dwelling in the past or thinking about the future and we fail to live our present moment! Have you observed this?

Yesterday I noticed the missed call from Padma akka, she had called me when I was at college. Evening I took the phone to call her back and do you know what happened next? I saw one WhatsApp message and from there I was looking at the other messages, some link to an Instagram page, and I totally forgot about making a call to Akka. Another time, I wanted to check the posts by Niranjana on her Mudhrai Instagram page, but once I opened Instagram I saw one catchy drama trailer and went behind that😃 Many times I had taken my phone to do something but I totally forgot what I have taken the phone on hand!

What is going on in your mind now? Do you wonder how I am telling these things as if I have seen you from your inside? Have you ever walked to your fridge and wondered what for you opened the fridge?? Is there anyone who has never hit your knee or foot in your cot? All these things happen because we are not living in the present moment. If you recall, at those times you might have been thinking something else or you might have had your mobile in your hand! 

Mindfulness or living at the present moment is the only solution for this. Being mindful we can be more productive and live every moment of our life happily.

“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we are doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” - definition of Mindfulness as given in mindful.org.

Many of us find the concept of mindfulness very tough to understand and practice. You might have noticed in my blogs I have mentioned mindful eating, mindful walking, planning mindfully, mindfully managing our time, etc. Reading that some of my friends asked me, what is mindfulness? What does it mean and some felt it is difficult to practice.

Mindfulness is nothing but remembering to notice the current moment as it happens. Practicing mindfulness doesn’t have to be difficult, if you notice your mind wanders somewhere away from your current activity, gently bring your attention back to what you are doing at that moment. For example, when I was writing this suddenly my thoughts went around planning a meeting at College tomorrow. When I observed that I was thinking something else, my thoughts were around the college meeting,  I slowly brought my attention to writing this😊

Now, the next question is ‘How can we be mindful?’ You can learn some mindfulness meditation techniques and practice it regularly. If that’s not possible for you, just sit with your eyes closed gently in a quiet place and observe your breathing or observe your thoughts for a few minutes daily. Practicing meditation for 30 minutes twice or thrice a day might improve your mindfulness. Or even you can split the 30-minute duration into two smaller segments as well. 

Actually, meditation means being mindful and being aware. It’s not that we should be mindful only during the meditation sessions! We can have awareness every moment, meditative every moment. We can do every task, every activity being aware! Then we will not end up worrying why did I do that or wondering for what reason I did that etc.

Tim, the author of How to Ikigai, writes “Mindfulness is an important skill to be developed for your Ikigai to thrive. Mindful meditation rewires your brain to understand each moment as it happens more clearly. You are calmer and more tuned in. You are kinder and even-tempered. Mindfulness is an attribute that makes life easier. The more you do it, the more enjoyable your life becomes.”

This is not as easy as I am telling you! Even if you bring back your attention here, in a few moments it will go somewhere to the past memories or future plans! It requires a lot of patience and practice to live mindfully. We can not have control over our thoughts, we can not order our mind to think about a particular thing. What do you say, give it a try to check whether this is possible for you! But, when we notice that our thoughts are randomly going around somewhere else we can bring back our attention to the current task. The more you practice mindfulness, the more quickly you can notice that your mind started wandering somewhere. Also, the frequency of your mind taking off and landing will decrease, increasing the duration of the time you are aware.

Let us practice mindfulness every moment and enjoy our life the most!