We’ve talked about how mindfulness can encourage self-compassion, lack of judgment, and acceptance for things as they are.
It can also help us to slow down so that we start to notice more of what’s happening. This helps to encourage curiosity and perhaps reconnect us with the experience of newness.
Newness is the same thing that sparks a look of wonder on the face of an infant in discovery mode. It’s often called “beginner’s mind” and one way to practice it is to incorporate it into everyday life.
An exercise from Elisha Goldstein’s book, A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook* gives us a fresh example,
“ . . . if you’re cooking, you can practice doing it as if for the first time. Approaching the task with a beginner’s mind, feel the textures and experience the aromas as you cut the onions, carrots, and greens, without judgments about yourself, the food, or your cooking.Acknowledge your self-reliance – that you can care for yourself and others by cooking this meal…
If your mind kicks into high gear and tries to rush through the experience of cooking, practice nonstriving, knowing that you’ve already arrived at the present moment and coming back to the task at hand…
Notice how your body and mind feel when these attitudes are present and how your mind and body feel when they aren’t.”
Small exercises like this help to remind us to continue mindfulness practice through out the day.
For more on Elisha’s work, check out our mindfulness programs here.
Are there activities that you recommend your patients incorporate into their daily routines? Please share them below.
* Used with permission from the author
Fantastic!! So glad to hear you are doing well. I sent you an email some time back but never heard from you…maybe it got lost in cyberspace. My appt. got moved back so we go Thursday.
I used a free self-help program i found on line and it took some practice, but it worked. The key for me was learning about the effects of adrenalin, and understanding that anxiety symptoms are caused by adrenalin, and that no matter how severe the symptoms might be, there is no actual risk. Fast heart beat, shallow breathing, light headedness, nausea, feeling shaky, and feeling woozy are normal responses to adrenalin. Most of my anxiety was caused by worrying about the effects of anxiety – a viscous circle, but one that was easy to break once i got the whole picture. . . Here’s the link:
I read something very much the same to your post over at google news… I became interested and started looking around, and then landed here… at any rate, I think that I agree with what you talk about here. But I’m going to go see what else I can locate too.
I have enjoyed adding Mindfulness practices to my therapy practice recently. My clients are reporting very positive results. I love the concept of “the wonder of newness”. It reminds me of beginners mind and I am working on accessing beginners mind in my own life more and more. Thank you for sharing this empowering work!!
I love reading these comments. Especially about utilizing whatever you have on hand (beanie bear!) to encourage mindfulness. And yes, I, too need reminders to be mindful myself! Thanks!
I understand Mindfulness somewhat differently … with an emphasis on the T of the presenters STOP.
“There is a wealth of data showing that changes in the rate and depth of breathing produce changes in the quantity and kind of peptides that are released from the brain stem”. Candace Pert’ in the “Molecules of Emotion”
By bringing your attention to the breath and watching, NOT following, your thoughts you can join the conversation that is always taking place below the level of your thoughts. AND it will change by itself.
Jon Cabot Zinn’s book are wonderful too.
I also use kitchen activities as opportunites for mindfulness (for myself and for my clients). One exercise is to breathe in a strong smell in the kitchen before cooking. I suggest a whiff of peanut butter or coffee, to get the senses engaged. Another exercise is when putting away dishes (from the drying rack or dishwasher) to be mindful of the texture of porcelain, glass and to listen carefully as they clink into the cutlery tray, the cabinet, etc.
Incidentally, I took Gregg Krech’s class on Attention, and Gregg — thank you, it was excellet!
I ask my clients experiencing stress,depression and/or anxiety to take walks outside and be mindful of the nature around them ie. color of plants, the smells, the sounds of the breeze and birds. This is useful to do on breaks and lunch hours when people are dealing with work stress. Just being outside begins to open their perspective. Oh yes, I practice this myself too.
Sometimes stress overcomes me before I am ready.(other times I recognize it quite early). When it happens, I move to the meditation practice of RAIN which helps a great deal. First of all, I get into the here and now by paying attention to my breathing in-and-out through my nose as well as listening to my ears ring.
Then I apply RAIN: R = recognize whats happening A= accept that it’s happening I= investigate it and N= non attach (drop) it.
Of course If I am driving at night in the middle of a real water rain storm, I check the rear view mirror, pay attention to where I’m going and, keep paying attention to my breathing; dropping the I
Incidentally I never play the car radio; it’s too distracting
The practice of RAIN can be used wherever/whenever you are
Honestly, are you reading my mind, or perhaps following me when it comes to thoughts about mindfulness?
As a meditation practitioner for many years I sometimes find myself feeling rushed in spite of my best intentions.
Yesterday, with several interesting things going on, I was thinking I would have to give-up preparing dinner to do all that I needed and wanted to do.
It’s such a great reminder to appreciate the doing of meal,the preparation, be in the present moment, and slow down Kathy slow down. Yum tastes better too! Thanks Ruth.
I try to stay out of the malls, too. Just trying to find a parnkig spot is stressful. I love the idea of knitting chemo caps. I used to knit to relax, but now I have a really naughty kitty and knitting is impossible at home. I watch a lot of silly Christmas movies during the holidays but only after I record them so I can skip through all the annoying Christmas ads.
I think I heard somewhere that Dennis Kucinich is runnnig for president. Maybe you should vote for him. Of course if you’d really like to discuss the kind of “excitement, newness and change” that Obama is going to bring to the country, we could always . Maybe he ought to stick with the rock-star gig after all.I love that Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton are making cameos in political ads, btw.
I teach a course in Mindfulness and Attention and we use an exercise called Quiet Cooking. During the time you’re cooking you try to be as silent as possible. Not just an absence of speaking, but trying to minimize the noise of chopping vegetables or putting the lid on a pot. Cooking is a wonderful practice for mindfulness. I appreciate your reference to the aromas and textures. We can try to use each of our primary senses during the course of preparing one meal. If we do that, we are consistently brought back to the present moment of our lives.
I really do enjoy using this technique when I’m feeling stressed. I find while doing household chores, if I can practice being mindful it has a postive impact for the rest of the day. The trouble I find it to remind myself to be mindful when stressed because (for me) it’s hard to pull yourself back and calm down.
Oh, the power of prayer! Confrontation is inltivabee because after all, two people in a marriage relationship are just that, two people. We get tired, less patient and down right crabby at times. Often my mate is able to bring me through what ever stress I am dealing with due to his funny and dry humor; other times, he can’t. It’s hard for him when he can’t fix it, ’cause my husband can fix anything!Although we are one, consecrated by the Lord we are still two different personalities. My DH often remarks, You are my other ME . I know exactly what he means and I feel the same way. At times, he knows me better than I know myself; that is both comforting and unsettling. No one has ever seen as deep into myself as my husband does. He is and forever be the only one for me My one and only Soulmate.
anything that brings you into the here and now generates a healing environment… i was once working with an elderly gentleman suffering with lung cancer…i was desperately trying to think of a way to help him slow his breathing down…but how do you talk about breathing when someone is struggling so hard? i had a key chain with a little bear on it…a beany baby bear…filled with many beans…i asked him to hold it and feel all the beans…to feel the texture of fur..i had him on an oxymeter measuring is oxygen saturation it went from a dangerous 85% to 92% in seconds!