The Ultimate Guide to Becoming Mindful Like a Monk

You will learn everything about mindfulness and find out what the 3 most important mindfulness exercises are.

Each of us knows this: At first you are totally determined and ambitious, e.g. in your studies or job. Then finally the time has come! Finally, you reach your big goal, feel super-happy, and are completely satisfied with life.

And this feeling will stay forever, won’t it? Unfortunately not. As soon as this goal is behind us, we somehow notice more and more from day to day that there are still things in life that bother us. They begin to take up more and more space in our minds. And with time, the initial euphoria about the dream job, the dream partner, or the dream house becomes nothing more than a mere habit.

“Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude!” — this German saying is not popular for nothing. It says “Anticipation is the greatest joy”. But must it really always be like that? Isn’t there any way we can bring more inner peace, balance & lasting happiness into our daily lives without having to achieve or possess anything in return? There is one! It is called mindfulness and in this article, you will learn all you need to know about it.

We Live In A Stressful World

The economy is growing faster than ever and automatically demands more from people than ever before. Nobody has time, everybody is under stress and even leisure time has to be planned, effective, and organized.

So we rush through life, follow our daily routines, and literally forget that we can & should actively shape our lives! On top of this comes the increasingly tough competition in our society today. Everyone has to become faster, better, more resilient, more successful & more beautiful. Sleep, relaxation, and quiet moments (which is something like the basis for mindfulness) are luxury and almost frowned upon.

“Instead of the individual mastering the habit, the habit masters the individual!” — Unknown

A Short Introduction To Mindfulness

Mindfulness is originally a very old Buddhist idea. Don’t worry, mindfulness is not something totally esoteric or outlandish that you have to join Buddhism or any other religion to practice. On the contrary! Scientists describe mindfulness as a state of purposeful attention to the present, that is, the present moment.

Mindfulness is a state of consciousness in which you do not categorize (in good or evil, in “This helps me now” or “This just wastes my time”) and do not make any judgment. Some things may seem esoteric to you, but this mental attitude can actually be taught and then practiced — and it has many positives effects.

1. Stress reduction, health, and inner peace. A study showed that mindfulness training and greater awareness leads to greater concentration and social openness. In this way, stress can be prophylactically prevented, which is extremely beneficial for your health.
2. Increase in satisfaction and happiness. Mindfulness helps you to focus your attention on the current situation. This “change of attention” makes the automatic negative thoughts fade away.
3. Growth on physical, mental, and emotional levels. Mindfulness strengthens your introspective (and retrospective) perception and thus paves the way for successful personality development.
4. Learning to control emotions. Mindfulness reveals our fleeting emotions and their exaggerated meaning.

The 3 Most Important Mindfulness Exercises

1. Coming Back To The Present

Mindfulness can be related to two things in particular: Mindfulness for yourself (emotions, actions, thoughts) and mindfulness for your environment.

You don’t have to change your actions and you don’t have to move to a faraway monastery to practice mindfulness. It only depends on what happens inside you as you walk through the day. And that’s why we’re going to start right at the point where your day normally begins.

• The mindful standing up: Instead of shuddering in your thoughts when you imagine the coming working day or letting yourself be sucked in by your smartphone & social media, just pay attention to the possible sensory impressions in the first 2 minutes after waking up.
• The mindful breakfast: Especially when eating, many people are often on their phones and are not consciously aware of the taste of the food at all. Therefore, you can now make it your task to consciously perceive at least one food at every breakfast (or every meal).
• The mindful way to work: Especially when we commute, we are often bored and reach for our cell phones or listen to music/radio, which quickly leads to unconsciousness & lack of mindfulness. Instead, you can consciously pay attention to all green or especially to all blue cars while driving and try to perceive your surroundings more consciously and attentively.
• The mindful workday: Take regular breaks & pause briefly! Take 2–3 minutes of your time and take a really close look at your workplace. Just concentrate on your perception and you will notice that your thoughts about the job or your current task will decrease because you come back to the present.
• The mindful end of the day: Now is a great opportunity to briefly review your day (even if we don’t deal with the present, it is still a helpful exercise). Find a quiet place and allow yourself 5 minutes for self-reflection. How was your day? What did you think & feel during it?

2. Meditate

Meditation enables you to become more mindful of your inner life. There are many different variations of meditation, but most of the time you concentrate on one thing: your breathing, an object, a word.

While you are not concentrating on anything else until your alarm clock rings, your focus will occasionally drift away. Don’t be angry because this mental digression is inevitable and even intentional during meditation, because you learn or train to consciously direct your attention. After all, this is the essence of mindfulness.

Do not hold on to feelings or thoughts, but focus again on the object you have chosen.

In this way, you train to take a certain distance from your thoughts and feelings, which makes it possible to be more attentive in important situations and thus to decide & maintain yourself differently.

3. Perceiving The Inner Critic

Of course, a certain amount of awareness is necessary to perceive the inner critic. Change of perspective (“framing”) can help you to perceive your inner critic more attentively. If you notice how you evaluate or judge something, be it bad or good, then actively think in the other direction. Ask yourself:

• What could be good about the train being late again?
• What positive consequences can I conclude from my boss’ criticism?
• Why could the “dream job” possibly not be as great as I think at the moment?

It happens again and again that we get upset about our fellow human beings. Be it the boss, colleagues, or close relatives. There is an excellent method to take away the inner critic’s power over our thinking.

By recognizing the similarities between the criticized and oneself and making oneself aware of them, one cannot necessarily draw so much satisfaction. Such disarming thought processes could look as follows:

• He is so unreliable! — And sometimes I am too.
• He is really often unpunctual! —Yup that’s me.
• He is so easily irritable! — Again me.

Conclusion: Living Mindfulness

The final word at this point is not called “Living Mindfulness” for nothing — what really matters is that you apply some of what you have learned here in this article and (hopefully) thereby make your life more beautiful and more satisfying.

Even if you can fill entire books with the topic of mindfulness and there is still a lot to say about it, you can still start living more mindful right now. You do not always have to live 100% attentively and mindful.

You will fall back into your usual routines in the beginning. Don’t worry about it! It is progress if you build small moments of mindfulness and awareness into your next day. That could be for example:

• feel a surface (when you reach for a cup)
• listen (try to identify all noise sources and consciously record their sounds)
• inhale (you can also visualize how the oxygen flows into your lungs)
• reflect (in the sense of broadening horizons — pause and think: What is actually happening around me?)
• walk barefoot and perceive the more intensive touch of the ground on your feet
• simply do nothing (without looking at your cell phone; this puts you in a similarly conscious state as during meditation!)

Okay. All right! That’s it for this article and the topic Mindfulness & living more mindful. Now all that remains is for me to say: Have fun training your mindfulness and be curious about what a positive effect it will soon have on your state of mind and ultimately on your entire life!

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” — Lao Tzu Quotes

Use your potential!