Mindfulness
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a word that was overused in 2020. I can honestly tell you prior to this year it was a word that I do not recall using in my vocabulary. Yet, as the year has ended it is a word that drove my life all year.
A few months ago, I signed up with NOOM a weight loss program that teaches you to change your mind about food. During the first few weeks this was a word that was ingrained in my brain and I can tell you it was very successfully done. Before I decided to be mindful about my food decisions, I would sit and eat a pound of Turkish pistachios in one sitting ingesting 2,720 calories, then wonder why I was gaining weight.
In addition to following NOOM, I was also seeing a nutritionist every other week. During my first visit to the office, I was waiting to be seen and looked up on the wall at a poster about mindfulness and decided maybe I needed to be mindful about a lot more than food. Suddenly, a word I never used before was driving my life and all my decisions.
I have always been mindful about the music I listen to and the things I watch, I am quick to guard my heart and if something does not feel right I back away. It is so easy to get caught up in something you never intended to, like scrolling through negative post on social media and next thing you know you are in an argument with someone you do not even know.
Mindfulness is being aware and fully conscious of the state you are in, it is all about being present in that moment. I have found myself in more dilemmas because I said yes when I should have said no. If I were conscious in the moment, I would not have later found myself trying to find my way out of a situation I never had to be in.
I now realize when I am not mindful, I talk too much and give up too much information. The more I think about it I realize being present in the moment is something I have forgotten to do too often. I have planned to be more mindful in all areas of my life, I listen attentively when someone is talking to me. In the past as a multitasker, I do too much at one time and in some respects, it works for me but in others it distracts me from hearing and appreciating the people around me. I learned to be mindful about appreciating all the loved ones in my life because in a moment that warm hug will no longer be felt. I want to be more mindful of other peoples feeling and this is my daily prayer, “Lord I don’t want to hurt anyone intentionally or unintentionally, help me and show me how to be mindful of other feelings”.
I hung out with some young people lately and instead of really enjoying the food they spent so much time posing for pictures and “doing it for the gram” they totally missed the opportunity to eat their food hot! I laughed when they said this is good, but it is cold, well it was hot when they served it twenty pictures ago. It made me realize something we are so social media oriented we are not even mindful of the real blessings we have been afforded. We are posting for attention and not giving some of the best moments of our lives, attention. I am over it and I will declare 2021 the year of being present in each moment!
