3 Simple Ways To Practice Mindfulness In Your Daily Life

Practicing mindfulness is taking a step towards a better quality of life. However, it is not always easy, as we need to adapt this ancestrally rooted philosophy to modern times. To achieve this, we can use several paths and strategies: we need to find what best suits our needs, our daily lives.

We have to admit: Most of us are attracted to mindfulness, not because it’s fashionable, not because we’ve been told about its practices, or because we’ve found this word in virtually every book, magazine, or self-help article we read. We are interested and seduced because it invites us to understand our mind as a mirror, from which we can appreciate the world in a broader, closer and clearer way. It’s revolutionary and, above all, useful.

However, our daily life drags us with its obligations, with its rigid schedules and our always busy gaze. We cannot use a few hours a day to learn to meditate, we cannot find free time, and we tell ourselves that meditation is definitely “not for us”.

This is a mistake. Mindfulness is closer to us than ever and in the most diverse forms. There are those who start at home, following the guidelines of a book or even an internet course. Furthermore, there are people who cannot be quiet, who cannot integrate into the dynamics of a class with more people. For them, there is the option to meditate while doing sports, while walking.

Mindfulness is always here, within reach of our mind…

Mindfulness in modern times, in times of movement

Times change, but the roots of our philosophy, our spirituality and this exceptional legacy brought about by mindfulness not only remain, but are needed more than ever. Now, given the current complexity of our busy life… How and in what ways can we learn to develop mindfulness? How to learn to meditate, breathe and get in touch with the “here and now?”

• Rohan Gunatillake is an author who is revolutionizing the field of mindfulness for a very specific aspect: to conceive meditation in a dynamic and active way, thanks to new technologies or even sport.

• It explains to us how and how we change. Currently, our needs are more intense, our worlds chaotic, but our channels of learning are broader: the internet and new technologies bring us closer than ever to the field of personal growth and even initiate us into the world of meditation.
• Rohan Gunatillake calls this new behavior “urban meditation”. Because, even if it surprises us, the urban environment and our digital and work culture are what define us today. How can I participate in a 10-day retreat to learn to meditate? If that’s not possible, we have our own home, work and these wonderful technologies capable of teaching us to quickly connect with our reality…

In this dynamic world, we are all part of the movement. However, we shouldn’t be fooled, because mindfulness is also a dynamic practice: we become magnificent receivers of the present moment, of each of its wonderful nuances, its oscillations, its changes, smells, flavors, sensations….

Some ways to learn mindfulness

Daniel Goleman said that  attention is a muscle that we must work daily to be more receptive to what surrounds us, as well as what happens inside us. However… how to do it if we hardly have time? Can we really learn to meditate by attending a class once a week?

Some people will certainly succeed, but many of them go to these classes out of curiosity and end up dropping out in a few days because it doesn’t work, because they can’t control their fickle mind and find the perfect balance point where everything else takes a back seat.

However, if this practice of Buddhist origin with more than 2,500 years of age reached the West, it was not by chance. Some scientists like Dr. Kabat-Zin and many others have understood that our demanding society speeds us up and therefore we need the help and benefits of mindfulness. To start this practice, we have countless options, ways and paths.

mindfulness at work

Companies like Apple, Google, Nike or eBay already apply mindfulness to their daily lives. Of course, for this technique to be effective, without a doubt, we need an environment and a labor policy that facilitates its integration, but in reality, it is not that complicated to do. These would be the guidelines:

• Start working slowly (you may not make it the first week, but little by little it will be possible)
• Take 5 minutes to get your bearings, to structure the day, to become aware of what you need to do and how you feel.
• Breathe deeply and become aware of the here and now, your body, your postures and possible tensions.
• Take a 5 minute break to meditate every 40 minutes, to breathe, to reconnect with yourself.

meditate while walking

The ideal is that we do half an hour of light walking every day, half an hour of walking at a fast pace and with comfortable clothes. The goal is to train not only our body, but also our mind in the basics of mindfulness. These would be the main guidelines:

• Start walking at a normal pace. Gradually, you should find the most relaxing, most cathartic, and liberating rhythm for you. There are people who prefer a slow pace and others who decide to start with a faster pace.
• It’s time to focus your attention on some point. Visualize your mind as if it were a flashlight that directs your light to a specific point and then to another: first on your breath, then on the feeling of your feet as they touch the ground, on the wind that caresses your skin… Focus your attention on those points cyclically: first one and then the other.

• Little by little, you will find that you no longer need to focus your attention on each of these points on your body. After a few days, your flashlight’s focus will be so wide that you’ll notice everything at once.

mindfulness at home

If you are one of those people who are not comfortable in a classroom following the guidelines of a face-to-face facilitator, or do not have time to participate in a face-to-face course, don’t forget that we will always have books and courses at our disposal. online. Thanks to them, we can learn the basics of mindfulness at home.

For this, we can follow these guidelines:

• Choose a space, place and time of day that best suits your needs to practice meditation. Remember that you must commit yourself firmly and willingly, because it must be continuous work.
• Start with 10 or 15 minutes. Gradually, as you adapt, you can meditate longer.
• Choose the technique that best suits your needs.
• Be patient and don’t expect immediate results. Mindfulness takes time and commitment.

Times change and, despite our very dynamic and demanding lives, we will always have this interesting and beneficial practice within our reach. We just need to find the path that best fits, is most comfortable and closest to us. Let’s expand our experiences and take a step closer to the knowledge that mindfulness gives us.