Mindfulness 24/7

I do not want the title of this post to be misleading. It is impossible to practice mindfulness 24/7.  We sleep for several hours out of every 24 and I do not know of anyone who can practice mindfulness during their sleep. What I am implying with this title, is that mindfulness is at our disposal 24/7 to help us cope with difficult situations.

We all have to face adversity from time to time: a challenging job, a demanding boss, an unsettled relationship, a treat to our health, a financial crisis…mindfulness can help us cope with adversity, especially in it is of an ongoing nature.

Mindfulness is all about focussing on one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. When we face adversity, our thoughts tend to travel either into the future – we worry about the possible outcome – or into the past – we dwell on past failures, our past inability to cope with and overcome a similar situation.

Even if we are in a very stressful situation, we can take pleasure in a single moment. All we have to do, it to focus 100% of our attention on this very second and on everything that makes this single second precious, on everything that we are grateful for in this moment in time. There might be trouble ahead, but in this specific instant in time, all is well.

To handle a difficult situation, we can take 5 minutes out to remind ourselves what we are grateful for. Gratitude, profound and intensely felt, defuses stress. We can choose to be happy during these 5 minutes. We can choose not to let our fears about the future destroy our happiness during the next 5 minutes. Or the next hour. Or this afternoon. Or today. Or this weekend. If there is nothing that we can do to resolve our difficulties till Monday, we can choose to mindfully enjoy everything that the weekend has to offer, instead of miserably fretting the whole weekend long.

The funny thing about concentrating on making the most of each moment, about enjoying each minute of your life consciously and on purpose, is that it gives your creative brain the time to come up with an original solution, in its own good time. This solution is often more effective than any solution you may have tortured into life by worrying about a situation. There is a lot to be said for making time to breathe deeply and slowly during stressful periods, not only does it calm our nerves, it also re-oxygenate our brain, making it easier for our brains to come up with solutions to our problems.

For me personally, mindfulness is also an expression of my Christianity. When I face a challenge, I pray to God for help. I then leave the problem with him and focus on enjoying the next five minutes of my life. I thank Him for everything that I have that I am grateful for. I resolve not to let my current difficulties destroy the whole day’s happiness. It is not easy, my mind travels back time and again to my problem – I am only human after all – and time and again I have to stop and re-direct my thoughts to what I am grateful for and enjoying at this moment in time.

Mindfulness has very practical applications. Mindfulness can help you cope with a variety of problems that may initially look like insurmountable obstacles. This is why mindfulness is an integral part of our Connect with Horse Mindfulness Meditation Workshops.

“Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn