Mindfulness 101: Are You Mindful, or Is Your Mind Full?

Imagine you’re going on a trip to Niagara Falls. You’ve got a big ol’ fancy camera, and you have an awesome time and take tons of pictures.

You get back home, you go to develop the photos…and you have proof that you were there, but you don’t really feel like you were. You didn’t see those beautiful waterfalls or flowers with your own eyeballs — you were looking through a camera lens the whole time. So you weren’t really there in a way, experiencing those moments for yourself.

How often are you somewhere, but you’re not really there?

In the words of Steven Universe, “Why don’t you let yourself just be somewhere different, why don’t you let yourself just be wherever you are?”

It’s important for our brains and bodies to actually be where they are. To be in the present moment, not thinking about what happened yesterday or what’s going to happen tomorrow.

To use our senses of smell, touch, taste, sight, and hearing to engage with what’s around us. Anxiety often clouds our abilities to do this since we end up always being worried about what’s going to happen instead of what’s actually happening.

Our culture also often pushes us toward the future — waiting in lines for the next iPhone or the next movie to come out.

Today, I want to challenge you to do something different, to choose an activity that you can commit to being wherever you are. Maybe that’s putting your phone down while you’re talking with people, maybe it’s just experiencing the smell of the soap and the warmth of the water during your next shower.

It can take an hour or it can take a minute. Such a simple thing, yet it’s the small efforts day in and day out that lead to our wellness.

Take some time to be mindful today, and be well.