Many people think excitement is happiness.... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace. ― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
Sitting under my patio umbrella, I just completed a fourteen-minute guided, mindfulness meditation. I use a phone app, and after years of trying to stay with a daily mindfulness practice, I'm on Day 138!
We just had a summer thunderstorm blow in and out. The wind was wonderfully wild. I love storms; I find them powerful and awe-inspiring, commanding my attention and admiration. I noticed that I was experiencing the wind via multiple senses. I could hear it, see it (whipping the leaves around and bending tree branches), and I could feel it on my skin. I decided to try to keep my focus on the wind—sight, sound and feel.
Mindfulness can be so challenging! It seems when I choose to focus on one thing, that very thing recedes to the background, and I become more aware of something else. As I tried to notice only the aspects of the wind, my attention soon shifted to the sounds of birds chirping. When I realized I had wandered, I tried to find the wind again, baffled at how I could lose focus on the most noticeable thing in my experience, just sixty seconds prior.
As this pattern repeated itself, sometimes I gave in and focused on the birds chirping. I could stay with that for maybe ten seconds and then something else got my attention.
It’s quite fascinating to watch how our minds work. For mindfulness practice, it doesn’t really matter what I’m focusing on, as long as it is a sensation in my current experience. When I am focused on the present, I’m in my body and I’m in the moment. I’m in reality.
In between breaks of silence for each meditation, the virtual instructor repetitively invites me back to the present when my thoughts have pulled me away. He encourages me to try once more to stay mindful.
It’s all about trying again. I love that meditation is called a practice, because that’s all we’re doing—trying again, and trying again. Staying present all the time is tricky.
Our minds want to constantly entertain us with thoughts, which often, but not always, take us out of the present moment. With practice, though, we can begin to recognize when we’re thinking, and even more importantly, when we’re letting our thoughts affect our realities.
One of the things my instructor says is that our thoughts are especially powerful when we don’t know we’re thinking. They become runaway trains operating our lives subconsciously, guiding our resulting emotions and actions in ways that may or may not be helpful. This is one reason why a mindfulness practice is critical—to know when we're thinking.
When I remember to incorporate deep breathing, the benefits of mindfulness meditation increase substantially. The deep breathing Im referring to isn't just taking some deep breaths. It's inhaling as much as I can possibly hold until I feel I will pop. Until I literally cannot inhale any more, which is usually an extra five seconds longer than a normal inhale. Same with exhaling. For example, when I would usually inhale again, I will continue to exhale for another five seconds to completely
purge my lungs. This feeds many more cells that often don't receive sufficient oxygen levels otherwise.
I’m slowly reading a book called Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. Nestor relays how nose-breathing and breathing deeply are powerful and healing for so many aspects of our mental, emotional and physical well-being. I find that deep breathing for even just a couple of minutes, can completely relax me and increase my sense of well-being.
Our breathing is always communicating to our bodies what state we are in, and thus, how we “feel.” And all our other bodily systems respond accordingly.
If we are rushed, anxious, or worried, our breathing tends to be shallow. Our bodies and minds respond by staying in a survival mode: fight, flight or freeze. When we breathe deeply and slowly, we tell our bodies and minds to relax, that everything’s okay. I find it fascinating to do this exercise and see the same results every time.
Have any of you been inspired to try mindfulness meditation? I’d love to hear your experiences in our
FTG Readers Group. What’s amazing is that even in just three minutes, we can take ourselves out of a fast-paced, anxious state of being to a calm, peaceful place.
And that's real. That’s the craziest thing to me: to consider that calm is the truth of our existence, not the anxious or fearful spaces. Because most of the time, it’s our thoughts about things that make us anxious. Everything else just is.
Additionally, our moment by moment choices and actions dictate our sense of well-being. They lead us to sirens or serenity. Chaos or calm. The sense of contraction or expansion. Enough time versus not enough time. We do that to ourselves, for better or for worse.
Ease is what our life really is, who we really are, when we slow down enough to experience it.
Knowing a thing and doing a thing are two different things! Ease is something I am still practicing to accept and embrace more often.
Following this long holiday weekend, today might be a perfect day to take a few extra deep breaths as we ease back into our weekly routines.
Are you up for a quick mindfulness breathing meditation? I encourage you to stop whatever you’re doing right now and take five minutes to linger in your inhales and exhales.
First, rate how calm and content you feel on a scale of 1-10. Now start your deep breathing meditation by putting a hand on your belly and while inhaling, watch it rise until you can’t possibly take in any more air. Then let your belly gradually sink, slowly releasing the air until you are totally empty. After a couple of minutes, rate your well-being again and notice any changes in your body and emotions.
Congratulations! You just told your body that everything is alright. In mindful meditation moments, you’ll find that it is. And as we continue to practice being mindful, we'll come to know that being okay is always an available option. Enjoy your ease today.
Want to read more about using mindfulness as a super power? Check out my blog from
April, 2019 where I shared how I use mindfulness to navigate challenging emotions.
