Mindfulness Isn’t Quiet - It’s Honest
This is a challenge to the common belief that mindfulness means being perfectly calm, peaceful or “zen.”
Sitting with your morning coffee or tea with your mind racing. Trying to meditate but thinking about everything. Feeling like you’re “failing” at being calm. You’re not doing mindfulness wrong.
The misconception of mindfulness is that it’s emptying your mind, having constant peace, or that it’s about perfection. I hear the same thing from a lot of people when talking about mindfulness. People think about Buddhist monks (who spend most, if not all their time practicing mindfulness) and think this is what regular, everyday people should aspire to. I used to think that too. I spent a lot of time trying to emulate as best I could and I came up short every time. I felt like I must be doing it wrong, I wasn’t good enough, my mind still wasn’t calm enough. So, I gave up. I unfollowed all the mindfulness influencers that I thought had achieved something I could not, because I felt like I failed and didn’t want a constant reminder. Fast forward a few years and I thought I would give it another try. Guess what I finally realized: Mindfulness isn’t silence – it’s awareness. It finally clicked that it isn’t always calm, always quiet and that is when I decided to become a Meditation teacher. To help other people who are interested in mindfulness but get discouraged because they feel like they would fail, so they don’t want to start.
If that’s what mindfulness isn’t, then, what is it? It’s noticing your thoughts without judgement of them. That means that you acknowledge their presence without analyzing them or getting emotionally involved. Another big one is feeling your emotions instead of avoiding them. It can be really daunting to sit with your emotions rather than using a means of distracting yourself from them. It is possible. An easy way to practice mindfulness is to be present in ordinary moments, such as washing the dishes, scrolling, and resting.
This is what Everyday Mindfulness looks like: Drinking your coffee without distraction, really tasting it, feeling the warmth; Pausing before reacting to a situation; Focusing on your breath for a few moments when you feel overwhelmed. These are easy ways to incorporate mindfulness without taking a lot of time but make a big difference.
Just remember, you don’t need to “fix” your thoughts. You don’t need to be calm to be mindful. Showing up for yourself is enough.
Mindfulness isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about finally being with who you already are.
Angela
