Every once in a while step aside from
your Life and observe yourself. As a third party. You will then discover how
much you have to change for your Life to change!
We met a young lady recently who is obese,
has hypertension and complained of her inability to stay focused. She said she
is simply not able to prioritize and manage her time and tasks effectively.
Many people are in this young lady’s situation – grappling with their home and work
schedules, unable to find time for themselves, coping with lifestyle-related
challenges like diabetes and hypertension and, overall, just going through the
paces of Life, never really being able to live it fully! There’s only one way
such people can “re-engineer” and “reinvent” themselves. They have to learn to
be mindful. It’s an art – and it can be mastered with understanding and
practice.
Mindfulness is the ability to be, to stay
in the present moment. Many a time, we keep doing stuff – cooking, cleaning,
driving, smoking or eating. We don’t concentrate on what we are doing. Our mind
is elsewhere. Our activities then are just chores. Which is why we are unable
to “see” that what we could be doing is “ruinous”. We know, for instance, that
smoking is ruinous, over-eating is ruinous, not exercising is ruinous. But we
go on doing these things. Mindlessly. Which is why observing your own Life, and
viewing it dispassionately as a third party, helps. When you observe yourself
you will realize how mindlessly you go through your days. You simply are going
through hurried motions. You are not present in any of your actions. You are merely
activity-driven. You are never in the moment. For instance, you are working
overtime to send your kids to school – but never pausing to celebrate and enjoy
their innocence. You are rushing to finish your bath – but are never enjoying
your body. You are eating in a rush – but are not tasting and relishing your
food. You are texting away madly – but are never celebrating how much smaller the
world has become thanks to facebook and WhatsApp. It is only by being mindful
in each moment that you can really understand what about you needs to change.
Try a simple exercise in mindfulness. Make
yourself a cup of green tea. And drink it patiently enjoying every sip. Feel the
tea energize you as it enters your body. Don’t let your thoughts wander. Be
focused on the experience of drinking that tea. Examine how you felt while
drinking it. This experience of being one with the tea, this feeling, is what
mindfulness is all about. Follow this method in everything that you do. When
cooking, focus on the recipe and its preparation. When driving focus on the
road and the joy of navigation. When on facebook, celebrate the opportunity to
connect with the world, your world. Every time your mind wanders, to a past
event and makes you feel guilty or to a future event and makes you anxious, bring
it back to attend on whatever you are doing now. Remember the human mind is
like the human body. It will resist any change first. But repeatedly bringing
the mind back to focus on the present, you can train it to let go of the past
and to not indulge in the future.
When
you are fully present in each moment, you are alive in it. It is only then that
you are living the moment fully. When you live each moment fully, you will
realize its value. And through this realization, you will be able
to transform yourself – your work, your schedules, your health and your Life!
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