104-Mindfulness Is Stressing Me Out

 

I’ve been struggling with this concept of mindfulness because I kept thinking I had to do this perfect meditation.  But when I flipped the script, I came around to what is mindfulness and how I could do it without meditating all day long.  

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and I’ve been struggling with this concept of mindfulness. 

 

Perhaps it's just semantics that I was getting caught up on, similarly with gratitude and appreciation, but being mindful is not easy for me and I’m not a girl who meditates.  

 

But then I heard an explanation that was less about meditation - the kind where you try to think of nothing and more about being present in the moment.  That’s still hard for me, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve started to change the way I think of mindfulness.  

 

I started to flip the script and think about mindfulness as being present and something I can do all day, instead of a time that was strictly devoted to meditation.  In a way, it was freeing me from the guilt of thinking I needed to meditate. 

 

I learned, through my research, that Mindfulness is simply the art of being completely present in the moment.

 

I looked up mindfulness in the thesaurus to try to better understand and it led me to words like appreciation, present, thoughtfulness, state of consciousness, wholeness.   

 

So I started to look at “mindfulness” as “being present” and that is where my journey has led me so far.  

 

I haven’t gotten to the mindfulness state of pure awareness, beyond mental activity that is the state of being found in the Buddhism origination of mindfulness. 

 

I’m just working on being present in the here and now.  

 

It looks like being in the moment and not on auto-pilot, moving through life without paying full attention to the journey.  I wonder if my less than ideal memory is because I wasn't present in the moment - for years - because I was already moving on to the next thing? 

 

I’m curious, how do you describe mindfulness?  What works for you?  I’d love any tips you’ve got for me. I’m over on social @ everydayhappinesswithkatie. 

 

 

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