Falling Softly Into You
Wherever you are,
and whatever you do,
be in love.
~ Rumi
This is Mindfulness Day, and today I learned that the Chinese ideogram for “mindfulness” is made up of two characters. The top one is “presence” and the bottom one is “heart”, so mindfulness is presence of heart. ♥
All of your life counts, not just the end result, not only your arrival. So much of living, and the magic, is in the moments that happen in between the idea and the completion. So whether you’re making breakfast, cleaning up, taking care of someone, creating something beautiful, sitting, or any of the myriad of things you do, you owe it to yourself to bring awareness to each moment, to live it fully with appreciation. How much richer your life will be as you do that? Try it and see. It’s pretty amazing.
Anyone of any faith can practice Mindfulness. It can easily be incorporated into your life, because it only involves becoming aware of what you are doing right now, without judgment. In other words, you aren’t thinking about what you did, or what you’re going to do, your attention is on what you are doing at this moment. It feels to me like savoring my life.
You don’t have to set aside time for practice. Your life is your practice, and you don’t miss out by being distracted. You’ll be more fully aware, improve the quality of your life, and experience reduced stress.
There are so many benefits! I’ll list a few they mention in the video clip below from Mindfulnet.org, an independent, not for profit website dedicated to providing easily accessible information on mindfulness. They tell us research demonstrates that mindfulness:
- strengthens the immune system
- lifts our mood and reduces stress
- improve our brain’s ability to process information
- reduces brain related problems in old age
As many times as I remind myself to be present, I still get distracted by my busy mind. Many times I don’t bring mindfulness and presence to each thing I do. So…I begin again, and really that’s okay. It’s progress just to notice you’re off track, or out of the flow. It’s a waste of time and energy to get on to yourself, when a gentle reminder will do nicely. Take a nice slow breath, and bring your attention back to this moment, or just back to what you love and appreciate.
Take your life off autopilot, and notice all the good stuff! Be in love, wherever you are, and whatever you do.
What is Mindfulness?
What is Mindfulness? This simply produced 3 minute video from Mindfulnet.org
briefly describes what mindfulness is, and how it can be used.
