How to live mindfully

 Living mindfully!  

Mindfulness has become mainstream. Everyone's using it because everyone's so stressed and it’s seen as a way to solve all our problems.

It seems to be a bit of a buzzword. But actually there's a lot more to it.

What is mindfulness? Taking the time to actually be doing what you're doing. So if you are doing the dishes be fully focussed on doing the dishes.  There’s that story about enlightenment. So before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. Then after enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. 

So what's the difference you ask? Yeah I didn't it get either!

It's the way in which you are being present with the chopping wood and the carrying water or the way that you experience the chopping wood and the carrying water.

Take time in your day-to-day activities and learn how to be really conscious about the activity you are doing. Notice the choices that you make. Becoming mindful about the type of person you want to be or truely are. Allow that truth to shine out in  how you show up in the world.

You might chop wood carry water with resentment, with criticism, with anger. You’re thinking about what you have to do next or what you weren't doing because you had to chop wood, carry water. So you weren't actually feeling and living here in the present moment. You were in the past or the future instead of the present.

How are you  developing into an enlightened being as you chop wood and carry water? Being right there chopping that wood and carrying that water! Being mindful is really being at one with our natural being. All the rest of nature is living right here and right now. You know a cat's a cat and if it's time to sleep, it's time to sleep, and if it's time to meow for food, it's time to be meowing for food. They totally live in this present awareness.

Yoga is pretty good for mindfulness. How many times you've been to a class and notice that's a really fast 60 minutes? Because when you're on the mat practicing you are spending all your time focused on what you're doing right then. You're not chopping wood and carrying water, you're not making a shopping list and you're not worrying about whatever work you're supposed to be doing. You are simply being there, moving your body. Focussing on your breath. Doing it with the consciousness of awareness.

On the mat you can experience those higher self qualities. Let go of resentment and open your heart. Feel the movement of your breath in your body. Be grateful, feel happiness, feel joy. Move your body and see things from a different perspective.

Sometimes a yoga practice gives you time to be silent and meditate and block out all the sensory distractions of the world. And in the practices of silence and meditation you can learn to quiet the voice of the ego. It’s the voice of the ego that speaks first and speaks loudest. That loud ego voice is what  pulls us out of the present moment.

The practice of meditation appears to be a really simple practice on the outside. You close your eyes and sit still. Focus on your breathing. Hmm not so simple! It's a really hard practice. So you have to practice!

A single focus meditation is putting your attention on something that's moving like a candle flame. So when your ego or brain starts thinking about something, just focus your vision back on the candle flame. The flickering of the light allows everything else that's arising to just disappear. You sit gazing at the flame in the moment. Mindfulness.

I remember one of my yoga teachers saying when you learn to sit with yourself in the moment that's when you come to truly know yourself. 

The practice of mindfulness is when you pay attention. You are really with yourself.

Notice what’s happening? Are you feeling stressed or do you notice that you're feeling anxious? So stop and sit and feel it. After a certain amount of sitting and feeling, maybe three minutes, three  hours, the intense feelings dissipates. All that energy that pulls you out of your lived experience, that pulls you into the stress of modern day living releases. You can be in the moment.

A meditation practice can bring physical relief too. So we're not just talking about helping the brain, it has benefits for your body as well. Physical pain and emotional pain are the same so you might not have sore hips but you might have a sore heart. Being mindful brings you relief from pain.

Mindfulness helps you to pay attention to how you're living your life. What serves you and what doesn't.

Through meditation you can learn to pay attention to the choices that you make for your life. What brings you deeper into peace and harmony and joy? How do you find  deeper alignment with your highest vision for yourself? Mindfulness can help you notice  the choices that move you out of alignment. Then you can start to attune yourself  to your highest purpose and move back towards alignment with this purpose.

A meditation practice or a mindfulness practice gives you the space away from your rushing thoughts. It gives you space to find those things that are going to be good for you. Also the things you might need to leave behind for a while. It gives you the space for that inner knowing to come forward.

Maybe with a little space you can hear that intuitive voice in the quietness you’ve created. So all of a sudden you've got that bright idea!  The quietness during mindfulness is a really good space to solve problems.

Yoga really gives you a great opportunity for mindfulness. In the fundamental teachings you are reminded you never know what's going to happen in the next moment. You really have no control. We have this illusion of control. And I think that's why so many of us are so stressed because we've we think we're in control and we're not.  So you have to be  willing to step forward with this complete uncertainty that the ground may not catch you.

So in real-life examples it could be that the man that you thought that you loved, isn't going to be there in the next breath or the job that you're so attached to isn't going to be there in the next breath or whatever.

So use mindfulness practices to stay fully present and anchored in this higher version of yourself regardless. By loving and appreciating the life you are having right here right now! Because this is all there is.

This breath, and while we’re alive the next one comes. That’s it!  Appreciate and love life and live here in this moment.  Namaste.