I am continuing to look into Mindfulness and have been reading ‘Mindfulness for Beginners’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn, as well as listening to his CDs.
Mindfulness clearly has health benefits in dealing with stress, anxiety and illness, but how easy is it to maintain mindfulness and ‘live in the moment’ in every day life- even for very short periods of time?
It seems to me that practising Yoga mindfully in a nice, quiet room with a few candles burning when you have already set time aside for the practice is not such a challenge, because it eventually starts to feel quite natural and enjoyable to be aware of your body and your breathing and to detach yourself from your thoughts, at least for some of the time.
However practising a mindful approach in daily life seems to me much harder, as it is too easy to get caught up in what is happening around us. Life and events can spiral and be unpredictable and irritating and we haven’t always got much control over what’s going on.
I live on the busy Norwich Road and for several months there have been roadworks almost permanently stationed here, so that any journey to and from town can mean delays. As I am often trying to get to different places to teach yoga I am frequently caught up in traffic jams and every journey takes longer than anticipated. This is frustrating and also means that I start to feel stressed and worried that I haven’t set off early enough and that I am going to be late. So this has been a ideal opportunity to practise my mindfulness techniques.
Firstly I have been trying to stand back from my annoyance, observe it, understand it and accept it and try not to get caught up in my thoughts and secondly I have been trying to notice what is happening in the moment and practise the art of gratitude- noticing the sun shining, the leaves on the trees and trying to count my blessings. Thirdly I have been practising mindful breathing.
It hasn’t been easy, but it has actually been a calmer and much pleasanter way of using my time! So it seems to me that you have to work at mindfulness and the more opportunities you have to practise in every day life, starting at less challenging situations and progressing, the more you can embrace what is thrown at you.
