Mindfulness: The Way to Cope with Life in the Fast Lane

Find peace and your inner voice amidst busyness

In today’s fast-paced way of life, time is scarce. People feel increasingly pressed for time from having to juggle multiple priorities — career, children, household matters, relationships and more.

Menial chores which can be outsourced has been quick to be outsourced to free up time for more deserving matters. Online food delivery has taken the place of home-prepared meals. Taking a cab is preferred to self-driving. Frost & Sullivan estimated that the gross revenue bookings of the online food industry is set to double in 7 years by 2025 from $82 billion in 2018.

For those who can swap money for time, great! For those not able to or who feel guilty paying someone for a task they could easily do themselves, it is important to stay composed — and be mindful — with so much vying for your attention.

Stress is the product of not having sufficient resources to cope with the demands. Stress leads to frustration, worry, anger, sadness, and other ill feelings. These ill feelings are, more often than not, the result of our judgment of the stressful event(s).

Why Do People Judge?

Adults and children both view the world differently. Take for example a fire ant. The reaction of an adult and a child towards the fire ant are worlds apart. An adult would stomp on the fire ant before it bites whereas a child would watch the ant inquisitively.

Children watch the world with fresh eyes — untainted eyes — open to finding something new and different each time. Adults, on the other hand, unconsciously view the world through colored glasses; colored by the influences of life experiences, family, religion, school, and culture. The adult brain is also more receptive to negative stimuli than positive because our ancestral survival mode of dodging danger still runs in us.

The adult thus perceives the fire ant as a threat and reacts to prevent potential harm by killing it.

The Consequence of a Negative Judgment

Negative judgment saps energy. The energy goes towards conjuring criticism that the person or event being judged has not lived up to standard. Passing judgment comes as second nature to many — someone not living up to your value of “hard work” is judged as “lazy”, someone who does not reciprocate with your idea of “kindness” may be judged as “selfish”.

Such negative judgment sparks repulse because of the ill feelings it ignites. Imagine you are the sole breadwinner and your other half is a stay-home mum caring for your baby. You expect dinner to be laid when you come home from work.

Many months pass. The unkemptly sight of used utensils piling over the sink and chaotic disarray of the living room has become a norm. Nothing more than a small plate of leftovers await you on the table.

Out of frustration, you stereotype your other half as inefficient and inadaptable to juggling between household responsibilities and the baby. These stereotype thoughts soon manifest as cold and abrupt backlashes towards your other half, eventually leading to arguments and unhappiness. Left unchecked, the relationship slides towards jeopardy.

Judgment alters our perception and reaction towards the person or event. As we shut off a part of ourselves due to repulse, so will the person or event towards us. That is when the downward spiral in the relationship starts.

Our Busy Life Suppresses Our Intuition

Life rushes by. We are often overwhelmed by the tasks to be completed, goals to be achieved, expectations to be met, in the finite amount of time we have. Our minds reign with a loudness to grab our attention of the actions that will drive us towards our objective, often with consequential feelings such as anger and fear as a result of the urgency and impatience.

This “noise” in our minds drown our intuition — our inner voice beneath the layers of logic. Psychology Today defines intuition as the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between conscious and non-conscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason. The subconscious mind searches through the past, present, and future, and connects with hunches and feelings in a non-linear way to bring into your conscious mind knowledge and solutions.

The Huffington Post quotes Steve Jobs calling intuition “more powerful than intellect”.

Access Our Subconscious Through Mindfulness

We have to notice the “noise” around us to slow down. We have to realize that we are in emotional chaos and making mistakes. We have to be conscious that our heart pounds rapidly amidst the commotion. It is our health and mental state that bears the brunt of this upbeat pace of life.

“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing” — Lao Tzu

The “noise” becomes apparent when we slow down to mind — observe — our thoughts and senses at the present moment without:

· straying into the past or future and

· judging the thoughts and feelings as “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”

Not passing judgment while observing the thoughts and feelings enables you to detach from them. It is when you have detached from those thoughts and feelings that you will realize, the thoughts and feelings may not be you — it is happening in your mind, your private world. It feels real because of the attention paid to recognize, answer, and vary them. Without attention, the thought or feeling does not exist.

Mindfulness in Practice

I was at my regular grocery store choosing peaches. Having filled my bag with 6 peaches, I decided to put the lighter colored peaches from my bag back onto the shelf. I was struck by the thought that darker colored peaches will be more flavorful than the lighter colored ones when they ripen — exuding a more delicate aroma and a stronger tinge of sweetness. As I offloaded the lighter colored peaches back onto the shelf, I heard a faint voice beside me saying, “Are you touching every fruit without buying it?”

I quickly turned to look at the person; a well-sized lady with a wrinkly appearance. She continued, “Our country is battling coronavirus. There are signs everywhere telling patrons to limit the handling of produce on the shelves.” The lady’s demeanor of questioning whether I touched every fruit without buying aroused defensiveness in me. It was at the tip of my tongue to tell her that I sanitized my hands before entering the store — hand sanitizers were provided at the store’s entrance — and that my hands are clean.

I bit my tongue, then took a deep breath, as she finished off, “Touching every fruit causes the virus to transmit.” My defensiveness mellowed as an inner voice in me indicated that the lady was merely reminding me to respect the signage put up in the store to reduce the spread of the virus. As I returned the last fruit from my bag to the shelf, I nodded and smiled at the lady, acknowledging her “reminder”, and moved on.

Imagine the consequence had I spoke my mind — replying that I have done no wrong touching every fruit having sanitized my hands before entering the store. Such a defiant response provokes anger. By allowing my inner voice to prevail, neither persons’ feelings were ruffled.

How to Hone Mindfulness?

· Meditate

According to the Insider, meditation is not about learning how to empty your mind or stop your thoughts. Meditation is an intentional practice of mindfulness. By concentrating on each breath — the inhale and exhale — this mindful breathing anchors your focus to the present moment; your breathing. When your concentration wanders to a thought, sensation, or distraction and you become aware that you have been distracted, you are mindful.

· Immerse in a single task

Multi-tasking may seem to be the answer to accomplishing the many to-do activities in the limited 24-hour day. Little do we realize that multi-tasking keeps the mind full, busy, and under pressure. Focus on a single task instead, giving the task your full attention. When your mind drifts to another task, bring your mind back to the current task. Also, the result of a task will be a lot better when you work on the task wholeheartedly.

· Spend time in nature

Give yourself a break to unwind. Walk through a park, mountain trail, or by the beach. As you arrive, open up all your senses to the place — if you are at the beach, listen to the sound of the waves lapping the beach, feel the sand between your toes, gaze into the never-ending horizon — stay at the present moment without getting lost in thoughts, thinking about or judging what your senses pick up.

Life is Too Short Not to be Mindful

For most of us, when despair and fury engulfs, mindfulness is the last thing on our minds. The whirlwind of thoughts in trying times is so overwhelming that disengaging from those thoughts can be extremely difficult. It is during these trying times that our mind needs us to tame it so that it has space to recalibrate objectively.

Paying attention to the present moment — mindfulness — spares the mind the space it needs. Mindfulness frees the mind from the jumbled thoughts that cause stress. As our minds quieten and calm down, not only does peace fill in, our intuition — also referred to as hunches and gut feelings — sharpens. Just as the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, a mindful moment or two a day keeps the stress away. Life is too short not be mindful!