You Don’t Have to Be Still to Be Mindful

The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

You’ve heard of mindfulness meditation and even tried it a bit yourself.

But you quit early on, thinking it wasn’t for you.

You thought to yourself, “I’m too busy to find time to sit still” or “My mind races around way too much.”

Yes, learning to sit still and focus your thoughts will certainly help you become more mindful, but it’s not always necessary.

The goal of meditation isn’t just to sit still. The purpose is to help us become mindful of our thoughts, feelings and actions so that we become more intentional and less reactive.

If you feel like you’re too busy to experience the benefits of mindfulness, it’s just not true. You can experience mindfulness as you go about your day.

Here are some ways to accomplish this:

1. Observe

Self-observation is the ability to become more aware of your thoughts and feelings and is essential to the practice of mindfulness. Self-observation is powerful because it helps us become less reactive to external circumstances.

You don’t have to sit still to experience the benefits of self-observation. You can learn to become aware of your emotions as you are going about your day.

What might observing yourself in motion look like?

2. Slow down

One practical thing you can do to to increase your ability to observe yourself is to slow down.

For instance, when the phone buzzes in your pocket do you immediately reach for it? How about taking 5 seconds to notice how you are feeling. Is the buzzing causing you to feel stressed? Excited? Take a deep cleansing breath. Then ask yourself, “Do I need to take this call or text right now or could I attend to it later?”

When you’re about to eat, instead of digging right in, you could take a few seconds to notice how the food looks or smells. You can be mindful of those at that moment who are without a good meal and say a prayer for them. You can express gratitude for the food you have.

3. Take advantage of the times when you must sit still

A good example of this is when you are driving. Most of us keep the radio turned on all the time so as soon as we start the car, the radio roars to life.

But what if you could enter a quiet car, and just take a moment to become aware of yourself sitting in your car seat. You could drive mindfully in silence for the first 5 minutes of your journey. How? Notice everything about the drive – how fast you’re going, the sound of the engine, your surroundings as you pass things by, people walking on the street, etc.

If you’re sitting at your desk at work, you can engage in a similar process. In any case, you’ll find that those moments of quiet will stay with you long after the 5 minutes are up.

Experience the benefits of mindfulness now

Are you yearning to be the boss of your emotions rather than the other way around?

Do you want to reduce your stress and experience greater happiness and well-being?

Do you want to improve the quality of your relationships?

You don’t need to be an expert in mindfulness meditation.

You just need to be willing to take a little time to notice all that’s happening inside you – and pause for a moment before deciding how to respond to whatever comes your way.