I said I would write blog posts about mindfulness for 2017. But what the heck does that even mean? I mean, seriously, sometimes I can be so busy being mindful that I miss the point of being IN MY LIFE!!! And I don’t think I’m alone either. The other day I met with a friend. We’re going to have a mindfulness day to raise a little bit of money for our church. I suggested that after our talk on mindfulness that we go for a walk and put some of it into practice. Her response was “but we can chat too right?”. Of course!!
I think that’s part of the problem with social media. There are so many images of mindfulness and people meditating that people equate the two. Mindfulness does not equal meditation.
The actual Wikipedia definition of mindfulness is that “Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training”. So, mindfulness is just noticing. Noticing and choosing. Meditation is just one way of training the mind to notice. And of it is just becomes another thing to squeeze into your day then that misses the point.
The point is to learn to notice what you are thinking about and choose what you WANT to be thinking about. Notice how you are behaving and CHOOSE your responses. Notice your feelings and validate them and then choose how much attention you want to pay to them vs. being mindful of other things in your day. So, on our mindfulness day we decided that we are going to just chat and visit for half the walk and then notice nature and beauty and the sounds and colors around on us on the other half. There is no wrong when it comes to being mindful, you just need to be consciously choosing.
So being mindful can look like this….
Or like this…
Or whatever you decide you want for that day or that moment, in your life. And on that note, I’m mindful of my time and I am going to say good-bye until next week because I don’t want to be late for my next appointment!
Be well….
Written by Lee Horton-Carter. Lee Horton-Carter is an Individual, Couple and Family Therapist in Kitchener, ON at Sage Naturopathic Clinic. She believes that therapy and support groups can be fun, supportive, positive and resource-based while you are in the midst of a transition or difficult time. In addition to family therapy, she has specializations in trauma and PTSD, and offers Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, EFT and EMDR.