Daily Mindfulness is so easy

Seriously, we often forget how easily we can have small time-outs because we are too stressed to realize.

Life is not that complicated, we make it complicated.

Are you showering? What question is that you may ask now.

Did you ever try to shut down your thoughts while being in the shower and started to be aware of the moment?

Raise your awareness instead of thinking about what to do next. Listen to the sound of the water, smell the soap, really smell it. Watch the water and follow it’s path, one drop against the tile, it’s slowly running down and ends up in the puddle your’re standing in. Realize how your hair becomes softer when it’s getting wet, see the chicken pox on your arm when you turn the water off. This shower experiences is like a little spa visit for free. You will feel better afterwards than before if you give yourself these little brain time-outs.

Another daily mindfulness idea is going for a walk. You don’t have to walk an hour if you don’t like walking because it’s not really about the walking itself, it’s more about the whole experience. You step outside and actively feel and see and smell where you are.

What sound does it make when you walk, are your shoes making a sound or the surface you are walking on and how does it change when you step on another surface from tar to grass for instance. What are you doing with your arms, are they swinging, are you walking with your hands in your pockets? Is your breathing different? Listen to your breath, try to calm it down while you are walking and inhale deeply, how does it feel?

Do you see the little birds along the way or the trees which are loosing all leaves right now? There are so many little things we don’t see when we daily rush by and it’s beautiful to realize them one after the other.

So, and for how long were you walking now, because the best thing is that you start to loose track of time and all of a sudden you were walking much longer than anticipated. These are the precious moment which energize you and give you the power to go through the really stressful times for example at work.

I have lots of other examples but will end up with giving you my favorite third one.

Lay down – yeah, that’s a great one, isn’t it?

If you read my blog for a while you know that I love Yoga and when I say “lay down” I mean laying down in a yoga way.

One wonderful asana (yoga pose) to relax is Supta Baddha Konasana or the reclined bound angle:

Actually my aim was to show you a picture of me in one of my favorite relaxing positions but try to make some yoga pictures when your toddler in running around you.

The result was the following:

That’s life with children and it’s so worth it!

You’ll find millions of pictures on the web but this moment will last a lifetime.

Back to the relaxation pose – besides this reclined bound angle there are several other Yoga poses which are not complicated at all but give you instantly a time out and also time to focus on something completely different.

Child’s Pose is one, it relieves back pain and when you lay your forehead on the floor you will have new sensations I assume you never did since a while – did you smell the floor? I like our wooden floor as it has a wonderful smell which I only can realize when I am like that on the floor.. Outside in the grass is great as well, when the grass is tickling your nose and you close your eyes and just feel the earth below you.

If it comes to relaxing yoga poses I could go ahead for a while I assume, but the essence is that you do what feels good for you and that you just start to open your mind to what surrounds you at that very moment.

It’s indeed much easier than we think as life is not that complicated, it’s all about feeling, tasting, smelling, being, living – mindful moments are present every second of our life, we just have to raise our awareness to appreciate them instead of rushing through our life as if we are hunted. We aren’t, we are here to live this life we have.

What are your mindful moments? What do you like to do to feel yourself again?

I would be happy to know your thoughts.

Take care!