How to tap into the power of the present

Most of us have heard about mindfulness. According to Mind Space, “Mindfulness is the quality of being present and fully engaged with whatever we’re doing at the moment — free from distraction or judgment, and aware of our thoughts and feelings without getting caught up in them.” Sounds like a pretty good place to be to me.

I believe there are two powerful tools we can use to strengthen our awareness: meditation and journaling. Both strategies have numerous benefits.

Mindfulness aka staying in the moment

Below is a TedTalk presented by Andy Puddicombe, All it Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes. It’s an easy way to pass just under 10 minutes and I believe worth watching.

Firstly, let me say I’m amazed by people that can juggle because it is definitely not one of my strengths. I can do the two balls in one hand thing but that’s it. That’s probably a good thing.

Why keep multiple things in the air when we can focus on just one at a time?

In the hustle and bustle of day to day life we have more trouble slowing down than we do speeding up. As Andy says,

The present moment is so under-rated.

But, this makes no sense since we can only do things, change things, notice things, in the now. Now is where the true power lays and yet we spend so much time giving power to the past and to the future. Those thoughts are impacting us now though.

If I keep going over something negative from my past without attempting to make any sense of it then how am I served? Or, if I keep worrying about what might happen in the future then I am robbing myself of what is good right now. I’m not saying don’t think about your future, just that we can only do what is necessary and/or possible now.

So what does all this have to do with meditation and how can journaling help? Let’s start with meditation.

Meditation

Mamata Venkat defines meditation as, “an exercise that trains your mind to regulate itself. It’s the ability to focus on one thing continuously without break.” She adds, “If practised properly and diligently, it’s a consistent connection with your true inner self.” Now I don’t dispute that. I prefer this more simple explanation though.

Meditation is the ability to observe your thoughts without judgement.

Seeing what pops up when you’re trying to sit quietly with yourself can be an incredibly enlightening experience. Or an incredibly frustrating one at times. When it’s great, rather than following your thoughts you just watch them without attachment. Other times, so many thoughts vie for my attention that to just watch them I’d need eyes like a spider and more practice. But that’s okay. Meditation shouldn’t be something to beat yourself up over. Sometimes you just have to observe your attempt without attachment. That way you have something positive to spur you on to try again later or the next day.

In the past I used to try and empty my mind even though I knew I was supposed to be just letting thoughts go. I just wasn’t sure how to do that. Now I know if I find myself thinking about what I can cook for dinner, I just acknowledge that I’m thinking about dinner, give the thought an internal nod and let it go so you can come back to the present moment. It’s amazing how busy your mind can be. Mine can sound like an overtired attention-seeking toddler sometimes. Yet, I wanted to be that blissed out, empty minded person that my husband manages to be.

“What you thinking hon?”

“Nothing.” And he’s not even meditating. Wow.

That was never me and I so wanted it to be. No wonder he has always been able to fall asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. Me, well not so much. I used to have at least an hour or two of thoughts to process first. But, I can honestly say that has changed. Now if I’m awake thinking about things it is usually because I want to be. So how exactly did I get here?

Well, I tried the sitting cross legged all spiritual like approach. Nope – that just hurt my ankles and reminded me that I have lost a lot of flexibility over the years. And, as quite a driven person, I found that my meditations were generally purpose driven. I meditated to set intentions, or to seek answers. Now I practice mindful meditation sitting wherever, and however, I feel comfortable.

Do I light candles, yeah sometimes. Do I light incense, yeah often. But that’s just because I love incense. It’s not a necessary part of my practice. The only important part is settling into the meditation itself.

Now I have learnt to sit in silence and just watch what pops up and let it go. Today I found myself thinking about Eckhart Tolle’s idea that if you ask yourself what you’re thinking in any given moment your mind will go blank. My mind may have briefly done just that, but then it bounced around with a whole heap of largely irrelevant stuff. After my meditation, I realised just how much I defer to others. Then I had the thought, “Why? Where does that come from?” And as quickly as that, I was thinking about journaling.

Mamata may practice for an hour in the morning and an hour at night and a quick Google search will show you that she’s not the only one, but for me it’s only part of the process. And, to be honest, finding two hours a day to sit in silence feels excessive to me. Maybe I will change my mind about that one day, but I’m much more a fan of Andy’s 10 minute suggestion.

That I feel we can all find the time for. Ten minutes really isn’t long. In fact I find it often seems to go too quickly. I think that’s a good thing. Obviously, the time I allocate is ultimately up to me and sometimes I will meditate for longer, but I don’t tell myself that now it has to be 20 minutes, 30 minutes or 60 minutes a day.

Ten minutes every day – that’s it. If I achieve that I’m happy. And let’s be honest, it’s pretty hard to convince yourself that you don’t have a spare ten minutes somewhere in the day, so it’s a pretty easy goal to achieve. It also helps that I truly believe in the importance of taking the time to quieten your mind. So yes I’m an advocate of mindfulness meditation. The benefits speak for themselves and with practice anyone can do it.

Now, even though I find the best way to uncover and acknowledge the benefits of something is through practice, I thought I’d share the benefits scientific research has uncovered.

Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation

Meditation can

• help you to manage stress
• cultivate peace of mind
• increase awareness
• increase clarity
• increase compassion
• improve focus
• reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety
• increase resilience
• reduce cortisol levels
• decrease blood pressure
• decrease heart rate.

These benefits of mindfulness meditation were taken from an article I found on Headspace, The Many Benefits of Meditation.

But, is it the only way to become mindful? I don’t think so. Journaling is another approach that you can consider. If that feels more like you or your interested to read why I say that then check out How journaling can change you life by clicking here.

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