Creating a Mindful Life
Mindfulness and meditation can do a lot of things for a person. They can help you develop a relationship with yourself and with the present moment. They can promote healing from past trauma, as well as personal transformation. They can bring peace, gratitude and a sense of well-being into your life. They can create a feeling of spaciousness and clarity that often leads to deeper insight and acceptance. They can alter your perspective, change how you see and engage with the world. They can bring about a heightened state of consciousness that allows you to experience life more fully. In short, mindful living that incorporates a regular meditation practice can have a significant and noticeable impact on your life. It’s certainly had an undeniably positive impact on my life.
According to multiple medical and scientific studies that have been conducted over the last 30 years or so, mindfulness practices have myriad benefits, including but not limited to (Positive Psychology):
- Stress reduction and, as a result, reducing inflammation in the body.
- Improved working memory (and, honestly, who doesn’t want to have better memory?).
- Heightened metacognitive awareness — basically an increased ability to detach from one’s own feelings and mental processes. This, in turn, can help to decrease patterns of negative thinking.
- Lower levels of anxiety (and, again, in this day and age, who doesn’t want to feel less anxious?).
- Reduced emotional reactivity (so that you don’t just blow up at others impulsively when a disagreement or conflict emerges).
- Enhanced attention and improvements in awareness, concentration and focus.
- A more developed ability to manage chronic pain, helping to improve a person’s quality of life overall.
So, basically, there are many highly positive benefits to adopting a mindfulness and meditation practice and, as interest continues to grow around mindful living, who knows what other benefits future scientific studies may discover.
A mindfulness practice teaches you how to be present, in the moment, to more fully appreciate life.
“That’s not to say that I’ve mastered mindful living in every single moment, not at all. I am just striving to practice more mindfulness, to be more present, to cultivate some loving awareness across my life overall…and, with gentle curiosity and radical compassion, see where it leads me.”
In my case, yoga brought me to mindful living, and mindfulness then introduced me to meditation. I first learned how to be in stillness, not just physically but mentally, through my yoga practice, on the mat, but it was mindful meditation practices that taught me that in that stillness an inner voice starts whispering to you, guiding you, comforting you… At first, I didn’t know what to do with those inner nudges. They were so difficult to discern and they made me uncomfortable, so I shied away from them, allowing myself to get caught up in the ramblings of my mind as I struggled to meditate. Eventually, though, after allowing myself to surrender to the moment, to release any judgement of what was happening within and without me, to just observe and let it be what it was, I learned how to listen to that quiet inner voice…and I began to learn more and more about myself.
Meditation promotes deeper insight and a connection to my inner wisdom, my intuition.
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When I allow myself to give in to this experience — which certainly does not happen every time I sit down to meditate — it helps me to be still, gives me permission to just “be” instead of feeling like I have to “do” all the time; it helps me connect to my truth and illuminates my inner wisdom. Meditation brings me stillness and peace, connection and insight, acceptance and trust. But it is not always an easy process, it does not always feel easeful. In fact, there is almost always some resistance…especially at first, when I initially settle myself with an intention to meditate. I rarely find myself letting go and dropping in, sinking into the moment and the stillness beneath without somewhat of a struggle. I have to breathe my way into it. I have to remind myself that there is no need to clear my mind, that it’s alright if I still have thoughts floating through my head on some kind of repeating loop, trying to get my attention; that instead of fighting with myself to ignore them, I can just observe my thoughts, acknowledge they are there and then let them float on by out of my consciousness.
On the days that I am successful in sinking, in surrendering, meditation allows me to go more deeply into that quiet within myself and just listen. Listen for what my true self — call it my intuition, my deeper Knowing, my inner wisdom — is whispering to me in that moment. Meditation helps me create a space for my unapologetic truth to emerge and be embodied. I still have to fight to maintain that truth, that reality — born of my imagination, of my dreams, of what my Soul cries out for — once I come out of meditation and step back into my conscious mind, conditioned and indoctrinated to have certain beliefs and ideas about myself, my life and the world. That is the hardest part of the whole process for me…somehow managing to hold onto that piece of stillness and peace and inner Knowing, my truth, once “reality” slams back into my life. But, as the wise writer and unparalleled truth-teller Glennon Doyle says in her wildly resonant book Untamed, “we can do hard things”. And it’s true, we can all do hard things.
These days, mindful practices, including meditation, have become essential to my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing. As part of my Morning Routine I meditate first thing after waking up. My favorite meditation tool is the Insight Timer app, that has thousands of guided meditations, music, soundscapes and talks from teachers around the world to choose from. I also tend to meditate before I go to bed, as I’ve found it really helpful for the quality of my sleep. Other than that, I have a daily journaling practice to help me integrate and connect with any insights that come up during my meditations, I do my yoga practice a few times a week and I try to use breath work in moments of high stress, anxiety, overwhelm, or when I feel triggered in some way. I make sure to take time out for some self-care when needed, often turning to one of the many things on my Joy List (basically exactly what it sounds like, a running list of all the little and big things in life that bring me joy). This can be anything from reading a good book to drinking a nice cup of tea to going for a walk in nature. I also try to approach the mundane daily tasks of my life with some mindfulness, some increased awareness, a sense of abundance and acceptance, instead of resistance. Tasks such as driving around to run errands or preparing a meal, which I used to do on autopilot — in other words, completely mindlessly — can now take on a whole new feel when done mindfully. That’s not to say that I am living mindfully in every single moment, not at all. I am just striving to be more mindful, to be more present, to cultivate some loving awareness across my life overall…and, with gentle curiosity and radical compassion, see where it leads me.
Where do you think mindful living could lead you?
Written By Camila
Seeker, Storyteller and Mindful Traveler
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Cami… what a gift this morning! Upon awakening to the new day I found myself sharing in your mindful journey and I am so motivated by your thoughts and insight in your pursuit of finding your true self… this is what we should all be doing 🥰