The Art of Sitting Like a Mindful Pig in Mud

Remembering to practice mindfulness every day may seem like an oxymoron, doesn't it?!

Mindfulness however is a practice of clearing one's mind to return to the present moment, reducing anxiety, stress, and panic if/when it arises. More so, there is a lot of evidence-based research showing MANY benefits of mindfulness, including making your brain younger, assisting in being able to develop your brain sooner to self-regulate (as our brains are not technically designed to regulate well until our 20’s), and more benefits.

Mindfulness has a few key components that are important to successfully achieving a connected state. In my opinion these are: paying attention, acceptance, not judging our thoughts, and making it a habit through practice, practice, and more practice.

One of these key components to mindfulness I’m sure most of us do is judge our own thoughts. We can try too hard to ‘clear’ our mind and we may be making things worse! There are so many times I have caught myself thinking, “urgh, I shouldn’t be thinking that” or “I shouldn’t be feeling so upset”.  What is interesting about placing the judgement on the thought, is by doing that, I have only given power to this negative thought. I spend most of my energy just pushing the thought away. When we are mindful, there is an aspect of acceptance, and by allowing thoughts to flow in-and-out of our heads without judging we slow down the thoughts!

Seems backwards, doesn’t it?

One of the complaints I hear sometimes is, I try to tell my child to calm down and breathe, but it doesn’t work. My response usually is: “Yep, that makes sense”, and then I take the opportunity to educate the parent/caregiver on the brain, and how getting back to a regulated brain isn’t something we can just tell ourselves to do. We must train our brain to regulate thoughts and emotions automatically.

So, what if mindfulness was something you scheduled in your calendar daily, like exercise? The benefits of practicing mindfulness daily are relative to the benefits of exercising your physical body… transformation begins.  But we all know, it is not easy, and it takes time, practice, and more practice (that’s why we call it training).

Like a vow we make to our self:

I take thee [insert your own name], to be my best self. To have and to hold, from this day forward, to love and to cherish, for better or for worse.

So, my challenge for you this month is this – spend time with your self every day. Only 15-20 minutes a day will do, and just allow yourself to be YOU.

No judgement. No agenda. Feel it. See it. Allow it… just like a pig sitting in mud!