Living in the Moment

If I want to fulfill my resolution to Don't Rush, then I have to start living in the moment.

Living in the moment really means moving on from your past, and not fretting about the future. For me, someone with a history of severe depression and general anxiety, it's not that easy to do.

Thankfully, there is a book to help me along the process.

'Living in the Moment' by Dani DiPirro brings together mindfulness and meditation to guide you through how to increase your awareness and focus on the present.

For DiPirro, Living in the Moment means 'fully concentrating on what's happening in the present' and 'not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future'.

The book was designed to be accessible and make it easy to cultivate awareness everyday by interspersing quotes and activities throughout.
Di Pirro gives tips for staying present like Don't Look Back.

And advises us to accept difficult times, live fearlessly and use your time well. In fact, the book is full of advice and rather cliched phrases: -
Get the most out of everyday.
Keep your eyes (and heart) open to opportunities.

But it also has great advice for living mindfully. Di Pirro advocates for mindful moments where we make more of an effort to observe the world around you. From trying to observe an experience objectively to the more practical writing down your worries to set them aside, these are practicable activities to increase awareness of the present.

The book is very short, but I found it to be the perfect starting point for trying to live in the moment. Hopefully it's something I can keep up as I continue to live my resolution - Don't Rush.

Until next time,

Mindful Journaling: 10 Beautiful Things

I have another mindfulness journaling tool for you all today.

Having enjoyed my Here I Am reflection, today’s tool also focuses on accepting and responding to your surrounds. A large part of mindfulness is based on finding happiness in the present, rather than seeing it as a far-off in the future achievement.

I'll be happy when I'm rich.
or I'll be happy when I find a man.
These thoughts just put happiness off, and relegate it to something that you have no control over now.

Instead, mindfulness accepts happiness as more of a mindset, something achievable in the present. This journaling tool will help you find beautiful moments of happiness right now.

10 Beautiful Things I Noticed Today

To capture your 10 Beautiful Things you must reflect on what you see, hear, taste, smell and feel and keep note throughout the day. This tool forces you to notice the little things going on around you. I spent my day actively seeking out beautiful moments and found myself constantly noticing how much beauty there is around me. I was surprised at how many little things are actually beautiful moments when we take the time to stop and appreciate them.

Mindfulness: An Introduction

I've tried mindfulness before, but I don't often get very far as it's a concept I've always struggled with.
Living in the now requires a hyper-awareness that I try not to possess. Over the years I’ve conditioned myself to stop paying attention to what’s going on in my head. I’ve preferred to ignore my low moods and hope they pass rather than examining and trying to understand them. It only serves to amplify my mental health issues rather than solve them.

"Mindfulness shows us what is happening in our bodies, our emotions, our minds, and in the world." - Thich Nhat Hanh, 'Moments of Mindfulness: Daily Inspiration'

But I’m trying again as part of this month’s resolution – Don’t Rush. I want to learn to appreciate each moment, and to do that I need to become mindful.

One of the best brief guides to mindfulness is available for free online. Padraig O’Morain’s ‘The Quite Short Guide to Mindfulness’ answers all the most common questions on mindfulness and even contains some short and simple mindfulness practices.

The Mindful Morning

I love free printables. The only thing I love more, is free mental health related printables.

The Mindful Morning blog offers a weekly planner to help you prioritise self care every day. By signing up to the newsletter, you get this free sheet sent to your email.

The sheet allows you to select three areas of your life you want to work on that week. Centering your week around personal growth goals is not something I've ever done - and as a result I often find it difficult to see the bigger picture.

Last week, I gave the to-do list a try to see if it helped me to bring mindfulness into my daily routine.

At first it was motivating. I selected the three areas I wanted to work on. Monday and Tuesday got off to a good self care start.
But I found the things I wanted to work on too broad. And I was afraid of repetition in the lists of what I wanted to do for myself each day. I wanted to make the extra effort to read, but writing 'read' every day seemed silly.

Be Mindful | Online Mindfulness Course

Part of my Mindfulness Online Series.

Mindfulness is an ever growing phenomenon. As more and more people look to mindfulness for help, answers or just for relief, it's important to learn the practice from trusted and reliable sources.

The UK's Mental Health Foundation is just one of these sources. I've been using their website for the past three years for high standard information, explanations, as well as their array of free publications. They've been of great help to me particularly when I was involved in mental health education and outreach in college. One such publication, is on Mindfulness.

Mindfulness Technique

I overhead a conversation on the Luas the other day. A guy was trying to explain to his friend the difficulty of trying to practice mindfulness on your own.

"With an instructor and a room of people it feels so easy. Trying to be mindful on your own can be a bit - ugh."

I've definitely had the same experience. It's difficult to be quiet, close your eyes and relax your muscles when you're not being told to do so. It can be enough to turn you off mindfulness altogether.

But, there's one simple mindful practice I learned last year; a simple breathing exercise. I get stressed a lot. And a huge part of my stress has been mild panic attacks when I'm upset or overwhelmed. Regulating your breathing is a great technique for helping you to calm down and return to a more neutral state. Mindfulness, as discussed in last week's post, can help you with this.  

Inhale for 4 seconds
Hold for 2 seconds
Exhale for 6 seconds

It sounds so simple, but it's ridiculously effective. Deep breathing is a highly lauded practice in helping with anxiety. Basically, it's the ultimate in de-stressing, and it's worked for me.

But, as it's tough to remember to use these techniques on your own, I had to make a visible reminder.

Reusing an old Scrabble board, I painted the board gold and waited until it had dried fully.

On top of the gold paint I spelled out what I wanted to say via stickers (the Stickers I used are also gold, making them hard to read in this picture, but a bargain at €1.49 in Dealz). I also included an anchor because anchors are quite possibly my favourite ever thing, and this breathing exercise is perfect to keep you anchored.

Then, I spray painted over the stickers in pink spray paint (picked up from my local hardware store).

All that's left is to peel off the stickers and ta-dah it's complete! My own little personal reminder to turn to mindfulness when things get tough.

Seriously, give mindfulness a try.