Tuesday, August 21, 2018

The Intention to Live Mindfully

My Fiance and I had a bit of a therapy session tonight.  This psychoanalysis stemmed from me once again moaning on falling short of my own standards and aspirations for good habits.  My frustrations have gone on for years, not understanding how I lost so many of my mindful habits over the years.  This is probably a typical frustration as people reach the later years of early adulthood and start to get busier jobs and more responsibilities but I always blamed Connecticut.  "This just isn't my scene where I can live comfortably"  "The culture is so centered around work it's taken over my life".  And while those may be true to some extent the more James indulged my long winding paths of causal analysis the more it really centered around this: I am a creature of habits and some of those habits are preventing me from living mindfully.

What do I mean by living mindfully?
This doesn't mean my ability to focus on something.  I can certainly stay focused at work all day(even if not always productive), I can certainly stay focused while I'm on my weekly bike ride and I can certainly stay focused when I'm looking at my phone checking my email, Instagram, Facebook, Hangouts, Twitter (and repeat).  But sometimes we can be focused on the wrong things and we forget how to just be present and focus on forming any new habits, taking in & reacting to new information or making personal engagements. 

With the next year focused on weddings and wedding planning and building a life together I don't want this negativity hanging over my head. So we're making a vow to remove some of our dependency on habits that don't fulfill us and replace them with the habits that we want, breaking the spells on dependency.

Here were my revelations on the 5 things preventing me from living mindfully:

  1. The Morning routine - I'm not focused on waking up the mind and body to prepare for the day but only focused on eating my breakfast and sitting in my comfy chair keeping my brain shut off for as long as I can until I absolutely have to get ready for work.  This seemed relaxing for the longest time but I seldom leave myself any chance to vary this routine - take a walk, go to the gym, ride my bike to work, read a book, do some Yoga, SOMETHING.  All it takes is 10-15 minutes to waken up some more senses before breakfast and coffee. 
  2. Chewing gum - I always say chewing gum helps me focus. But no, it's only the fact that when I'm not chewing gum all I can think about is chewing gum so of course I can't focus! 
  3. Letting the urgency at work carry on into out of work - I can't settle myself down long enough to think about what to cook or do around the house.  I find meditation in bike rides because it perpetuates this sense of fast paced urgency but steals all my senses for a new task that isn't work(nothing wrong with that though).
  4. Looking at my phone
  5. Looking at my phone
Yep, root of all evil = the iPhone.  Most of the times of "good habits" I seem to look so fondly back on I did not have this handy and distracting device.  In fact, the main thing that perpetuates #1 and #3 is also looking at my phone.  What do I do in the morning while I'm enjoying my breakfast and coffee for an hour and a half - LOOK AT MY PHONE.  What am I doing that perpetuates the sense of urgency and pace I have at work? - Being able to check my email constantly and actually checking it constantly.

So, over the next year I'm setting an intention.  If I can open up more space in my life for mindfulness by reducing dependency on these, it can only enhance opportunities for fulfilling and enriching habits and possitivity to enter into it.  Or who knows, maybe I'm wrong and I just have ADD...

Cheers to living mindfully - more to come...

-L