Observe... yourself and your surroundings

Mindfulness is a practice, like anything else. We must dedicate time and training towards being present and aware. It doesn’t just happen. Our nature is to try to predict the future and ruminate on the past. We can become frozen in inaction by trying to prompt action. It is yet another dialectical nature of life.

So what does it look like to practice mindfulness? For one, I like to start with skills. Simple, concrete skills that we can use daily, hourly, even by the minute when we feel ourselves slipping out of the moment. The “what” skills.

To be aware of our surroundings we must first observe them. Sounds simple right? But how often do we find ourselves in situations that we just meander through? How often are we just going through the motions of life?

The first step in practicing observation is that of your physical self. Sensations of the body. What you see, smell, hear, feel, taste. Every conceivable sense. Try to isolate these senses. We often view physical senses as a monolith, a conglomeration of consciousness. Try instead to pick out individual discrepancies.

As you observe your senses, work to pay attention to the present moment. Now work to control your attention, allowing everything to both come and go. No rejection, no attachment. Just aware.

Last we move inside, observing our thoughts and feelings. Avoid assigning words or judgements as these thoughts and feelings arise. Observe them and let them go.

Mindfulness is a skill, it is a practice. Like training for a marathon or lifting weights. Experience is the greatest teacher yet we will never master it. We simply work at different qualities. It can seem overwhelming at first but just start with observing yourself, both inside and out, and all of the little things that occur around us all the time. To be present is to be alive, don’t let life slip away while entrenched in another time that does not exist.