My Struggles With Mindfulness!

Mindfulness means living wholly in the present moment. As it is, this requires lot of practice through meditation and breathing techniques. During chaotic times as the one we are living in, it becomes all the more difficult. 

I hasten to clarify that I am the least qualified person to write about mindfulness. While I am far from achieving this blessed state, I can surely share what comes in the way of achieving a mindful state.

Multi-tasking:

This is something that I try to do always and in which I fail spectacularly. Trying to cook two dishes at the same time? Why not? It will save time, right!? No. Neither one of the dishes turns right, and the result is a jumbled mess of both the dishes and my mood too. May be some are proficient in multitasking. But for the common mortals like me, this is a sure shot way to fail at the task. 

Mindfulness is about turning every act into a meditation. So how can one do more than one task at a time and retain a meditative state? It is better to take up one task, give your full-fledged attention to it and do it, all the while meditating on the task itself! Dicing veggies? Reflect on the shape of the diced veggies (they need not be perfect!), feel the texture, take in the aromas and see how one simple task of dicing veggies makes you feel blissful! Taking a walk? Count your steps, breathe in and out in rhythm with your steps, attune yourself to your surroundings, take in the sounds around you and see how your walk turns into a mindfulness practice!

Taking up too many tasks upon ourselves:

We tend to do this, you know. Agree to do such tasks which are bound to stress us. Our to-do list keeps on increasing while our capacity to actually do something from the list keeps on decreasing. There is one solution: keep it simple, keep it few. Take a limited number of tasks for the day. Plan for the same. Execute the tasks. And you are done! And remember to do one task at a time, do it slowly and treat it as a mindfulness exercise! And this comes to the third problem in our way:

Always being in a hurry!

This is something that I can relate to very well. Even now as I am typing this, my fingers rush through the keypad when clearly, there is no need to type so. The number of times I have deleted typo errors in this write-up! And it is not just this. For any task, I find myself working in haste. This is something I am trying to rectify. While drawing the daily rangoli outside my home, I deliberately try to draw it slowly. The rangoli looks a lot neater now-a-days. Unfortunately, this is the only task that I have managed to slow myself down. But you all can do this, I am sure! Slow down deliberately in whatever work you are doing, and enjoy the whole process of the work. After all, as they say, the journey is more interesting than the destination! So, slow down, hurrying soul, and stop to smell the roses in the journey!

Not seeking solitude enough!

I know, we can't help it. There is a seemingly never-ending pandemic outside and a full-house inside. But once in a day, everyone deserves a solitude break of atleast 15 minutes. Go for a walk. Or sit in a room (which isn't the kitchen or your office-room or your study-room!) and sit in quiet contemplation without the disturbance of any kind of gadget. Enjoy this solitude-break and refresh your mind and come back (to the kitchen/office-room/study room) with renewed vigour.

Not getting enough silence!

How can one get silence today!? As I said before, pandemic outside,  full-house inside. The online class of the kid clashes with the conference call of the husband which clashes with the sounds coming from the kitchen (the cooker and mixer do conspire and make noise at the wrong time, which is, when it is the turn of the kid or the husband to talk). Jokes apart, it is really imperative that we enjoy a few minutes of silence every day. Grab these moments of silence, friends (and I do not know how to; if you do, please share with me!). Go into silence and calm down your tired and over-stressed mind. It will work wonders for your mood! I tried. I tried to do some meditation when the kid's online classes were going on. The kid came to know. End of story. 

The whole point of this write-up (yes, it has a point!) is to stress the importance of being present in every moment of our lives and living the moment well. I am starting with the easiest way - giving up multi-tasking. Will share my progress with you in the subsequent blogs! In the meanwhile, do let me know which way you opt to achieve a mindful state and how did it work! 

Breathe. Relax. Work slowly. 

Repeat the above!