Christine Whelan FEO, January 5, 2023, VOL. 4 ISSUE 10

The new year often brings and encourages new beginnings. Being mindful can be a good beginning to a new routine, or new, positive activities and choices for ourselves because the practice of mindfulness is considered a keystone habit.

Mindfulness: The Ultimate Keystone Habit

According to a Psychology Today article, by Charles Druhigg, author of the book, The Power of Habits, a keystone habit is a behavior change that leads us to make further positive behavior changes.

Exercise is a keystone habit. When we start exercising regularly, other good habits tend to follow. We start to eat healthier and improve our sleeping habits.

Druhigg says mindfulness is the ultimate keystone habit. It’s practicing self-awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and environment which can lead to becoming more aware of what we’re eating, how our body is feeling, and how positive or negative our thoughts are. Becoming more mindful can inspire us to make other positive changes in our overall health, behavior, and mindset.

Where It Began

Mindfulness as we know it today got its start in the West with teachers like Thich Nhat Hahn in the 1970s who began popularizing Buddhist and Hindu principles of self-awareness, according to Clay Drinko, Ph.D. in Psychology Today.

The addition of Western science helped popularize mindfulness further by showing that being aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, and environment had positive impacts on stress reduction and overall health.

Drinko added, “Cut to today, and we have an extremely crowded mindfulness industry. There’s yoga and meditation. There are even meditation and mindfulness apps.”

Here and Now

Being mindful means being able to stay in the present, in the here and now — not obsessing about yesterday or stressing about tomorrow.

Many sources, including Eckhart Tolle in his book, The Power of Now, believe that we only really have power and control over our present, and yet we often ignore the present for the obsessive distractions of the past and future.

Mindfulness, at the very least, can give our minds a break from self-induced mental mayhem.

Fun

The key is to make it fun. Fun according to you. What might be considered fun for another may not be considered fun to you and vice versa.

If registering and taking yourself to yoga or meditation classes in new years of the past only resulted in your beating yourself up internally when come Spring, you once again didn’t follow through, maybe trying a different approach will work. Along with making your mindful moments fun, make them smaller moments.

The Little Things

• Begin the day by taking a few minutes to just breathe, before checking emails, social media, and news.
• Set aside short periods, between five and fifteen minutes each day, where your intention is simply to be more mindful.
• Pay attention to the present moment in a gentle, accepting way. It can be while you are walking, sitting, or lying down.
• Have fun with your mindfulness practice. Pick one quick activity you do each day — drinking a cup of tea, washing a few dishes, brushing your teeth.
• As you do each activity, pay close attention to the sensations in your body. Instead of simply going through the motions, notice what thoughts and emotions come up. And if your mind wanders, just note that and return to the present moment.

Playing With the Senses

So, if mindfulness means being in the here and now, it makes sense that it’s often all about the senses — our five senses — sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. By focusing on our senses, we can distract ourselves from the distractions, those nasty life stressors.

You can go on a walk and talk about all the things you notice. Point to objects you see as you walk and call out what they are. Tree, street, dog, car. Instead of being “in your head,” this mindfulness game helps you become more aware of your environment.

Clay Drinko, Ph.D.’s book, Play Your Way Sane: 120 Improv-Inspired Exercises to Help You Calm Down, Stop Spiraling, and Embrace Uncertainty contains some fun games to help with mindfulness of thought and environment.

A Practice For Honouring the Transition To a New Year

As the old year ends and a new one begins, doing a simple exercise can help us recognize this transition and honour all that has happened and all that awaits each of us.

• Sit comfortably, relax your body, and close your eyes.
• Slowly, gently, breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth.
• Now, imagine that you are breathing in all of 2022 and what transpired for you, bringing the whole year into your lungs with each breath.
• Survey your memories as they come in on your breath and fill your lungs, catching glimpses of the year’s high and low moments.
• Allow yourself to feel the good, bad, disappointing, marvelous, and wondrous, thanking for everything that life brought to you this year.
• Feel the fullness of the year, savoring these moments of reflection.
• Let it all go. With a few deep, long exhales, let it all go.
• Next, imagine a field of snow, freshly fallen all around you, pure, expectant, and inviting.
• Allow your heart to swell and your ears to attune: What is calling to you this year? Where does your heart long to go?
• When you are ready, let your eyes flutter open. Welcome to a new beginning.
• If you feel drawn to write down your experiences, grab a notebook.

You may find that it’s the silly little seemingly insignificant moments that have made the deepest mark. Realizing that it’s these little moments that stick, helps us remember to slow down as they occur.

The key factor is, whatever you are drawn to, whatever you believe will work for you, will work. Be creative and have fun. There are so many ways to be mindful. For instance, did you realize that, by reading this article, you just practiced mindfulness?

Photo: Zac Durant