3 New Ingredients to Bring More Mindfulness Into Your Life
A step forward in my quest for self-awareness
I want to feel alive. Experience it. Feel my presence in the world, intensely. Stop living in my head, moving through life like a sleepwalker, eyes closed.
This is why I’m on a quest for mindfulness. I try to get better at it every single day. I read about it, think about it, try new things. I’m making progress. Step by step, I’m getting closer to self-awareness. Change occurs slowly. This makes it difficult to grasp without comparing to where you come from.
Practicing daily has brought more self-awareness into my life, but it lacks any tangible results. It’s as if, despite all my efforts, I was still a step back from it. It’s frustrating. Sometimes, I manage to get glimpses of mindfulness. For one second, I feel the world as I would like to feel it more often.
But recently, I’ve taken a BIG step forward.
I’ve discovered and tried out three new practices. Three new ingredients that have taken my journey to the next level.
Two of them are usually not dedicated to mindfulness. The third one is completely understated. I underestimated it too. But when I decided to give it a try, I finally understood what it was all about.
After reading about each of them, I invite you to take a moment to let it infuse your mind so that you can grasp its significance. Take the time to try them on, one after the other. You might be as surprised as I was.
They are listed in order of importance. The end is the most life-changing.
#1: Practicing gratitude
Don’t leave just yet. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it, but gratitude is linked to mindfulness. Let me explain.
My favorite way to practice gratitude is by mentally listing three things that I’m glad about, every night before falling asleep. What are you thankful for in your day? In your life? It might be things you did, ideas that came to your mind, things you possess (material or not), human connections, or even these delicious pancakes that you had for breakfast.
How is this related to mindfulness? Practicing gratitude makes you stop for a moment. You interrupt the course of your actions and thoughts to reflect on the present. To calmly, quietly observe it. You look at the big picture, as objectively as possible. Who you are. What you have. Where you’re at in your life. What progress you’ve made.
Practicing gratitude means taking a photograph of one’s life, to freeze it at instant T and be able to take the time to observe it.
A few days ago, as I was reading something unrelated, I was suddenly hit by the realization that I had the life I dreamt of, but wasn’t aware of it. As if I was keeping my eyes shut all the time. I finally had the days I wanted: I worked for myself, for my projects, I had freedom. I didn’t realize that. Caught in the whirlwind of life, I hadn’t taken the time to settle down and look at the landscape.
To avoid this, it is important to stop frequently, even daily, to take stock of the situation.
Practicing gratitude invites you to take a step back, so that the next step you take is further in yourself, closer to your core.
Besides mindfulness, practicing gratitude will also bring more happiness into your life. You’ll be able to appreciate the positive in your life. How far you’ve come. How your hard work has paid off. It’ll give you a grip on these things.
It also gets you to focus on the moment, which is one of the keys to self-awareness. When you raise awareness for your reality, you open your eyes to the present moment.
#2: Observing your breathing
That’s the one I underestimated. I didn’t get how breathing — the very same things we do literally, and hopefully, all the time — could bring more self-awareness into my life. Every time I read this advice, I would skim over it and move on to the next one, convinced that it would be of no help to me.
How wrong was I.
Breathing is the most fundamental thing that connects you to life. So, by extension, to the world around you. When you’re breathing, you’re filling your lungs with air from the real world. It’s the purest connection to the present moment.
Focusing on your breathing brings you back to the present. Don’t try to control it. Be a quiet observer. Feel the freshness of the air over your nostrils, and all the way through your nose, your throat, before reaching your lungs. Feel how the air coming out is warm, warmed by your body.
It’s grounding.
When you focus on your breathing, you can’t be anywhere else. It shuts down your thoughts and puts you back in your body. Suddenly, you are here. You can see the world and your surroundings with clarity. You’ve gotten out of your head, at least for a moment. The clouds of your thoughts no longer obstruct your vision.
#3: Surrendering
This one was life-changing for me.
I am not a huge fan of seated meditation. I prefer practicing awareness in daily moments. My personal favorite involves standing at the window, at night, and trying to grasp the reality of things. I stand here, barefoot, with no thoughts in my head, focusing on my breath and my surroundings. The smells. The sounds. The fresh breeze.
I alternate between open and closed eyes, the latter allowing me to concentrate more on my senses.
But there’s something I did wrong all the time.
I was focused on trying to raise my level of consciousness. To reach something higher. I tried to feel the moment by adding something to my level of self-awareness.
Until I realized it was the other way around.
If I wanted to feel more, I had to lower my level of consciousness.
When I tried to higher it, it brought me back in my head. When I tried to lower it, I became closer to my body, my senses. Closer to my gut. I thought less and felt more. I came back to the basics of my substance.
Try to lower your being and get back in rawer form.
Try to merge into reality. Become one with it. Nature is part of you, we’re all made of stardust. Let the reality sink in, and sink into reality. I found this out as I was walking alone by the sea, a few months ago. I was practicing mindfulness and, trying to merge into it, I became suddenly more aware of it. It was stunning.
That’s where surrender comes in. Lowering your level of consciousness means surrendering to everything. For a moment, decide that you accept every single thing in life. Accept everything, profoundly. Don’t just think it. Feel it.
I still don’t know exactly what happens at the precise moment we surrender. But it’s as if everything was becoming more real.
Doing so, I realized that, even if I was not aware of it, I was holding on to a lot of things. My mind was constantly wrestling with countless little things. When I finally surrendered, it brought me clarity. And clarity is what makes you see the world.
It clears negative energies. The very same that prevent you from being here, at the moment.
Mindfulness is not about more. It’s about less.
As if we had risen too high in our heads and minds to be able to see the world. Imagine being on top of a skyscraper. You’ve climbed so high that you can’t see anything but clouds. You can’t see the reality of what happens in the streets anymore. The smell of the bakery, the sound of laughter, the people hugging, the restaurants and bars full of life and joy. All this is getting out of hand. You’ve gone too high.
The further down you go, the closer you get to reality. Suddenly you start hearing the distant rumors of the city again. You become more conscious. More aware. You get back closer to your core.
Your core is the simplest thing ever. Human beings are simple. Everything is simple. We’re the ones who complicate everything. Getting back to the basics is the key to another level of mindfulness.
Let’s throw away the blinders. Here’s the magical formula:
Mindfulness = gratitude + breathing + surrenderingUnlock Your Best Life → https://bit.ly/388XW0t
