Mindfulness

Good evening, friends! Hope you’re having a good week so far (remember, we started YESTERDAY) and you’re feeling good about the work week ahead.

And since we are now beginning our days on Saturdays and switching our mindset from rest-from-work to work-from-rest, we need to spend a few weeks talking about rest. Because frankly, I think we could ALL use some improvement in this area.

What I’ve discovered is just like everything else, rest begins in our MINDS. One of the trendy words right now is ‘mindfulness.’ This is totally a thing. And it’s totally opposite of how most of us function all day.

In case you haven’t heard, multitasking is on the way out. It’s no longer something to brag about, as research is coming back saying that not only is our brain not created for that, over time, it can actually be harmful.

And yet, for most of us (especially women), multitasking has been hardwired into our lives. We talk about going through the motions and being on autopilot. Often I get in my car and am thinking about

so many different things that before I know it, I’m home and I have no recollection of the drive.

We need to slowly ease ourselves off of the addiction of multitasking. Will we get less accomplished? Probably. But you know what? If you’re multitasking, that means you’re trying to do too much anyway. (We’ll get to the topic of healthy scheduling later.)

We’re gonna trade multitasking in for mindfulness (still talking about Saturdays and Sundays now). So what does that look like? Engage as many of your five senses as you can. Here are a few examples:

If you’re at a child’s sporting event or school activity, PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN (unless you’re taking a picture/video). Don’t look at Facebook, don’t check your email. BE PRESENT. Focus on the children’s faces, the sounds, the smells of the concession stand, chat with the people next to you.

If you get a phone call, either sit down and take the call or ask if you can call them back when you CAN sit down at take the call. Don’t be on your computer at the same time. It really is okay to JUST talk on the phone to someone. That counts as doing something. Something IMPORTANT even. I promise.

If you’re doing chores around the house, let yourself appreciate every little thing: your home, the furniture that needs to be wiped down or dusted, the floor that needs to be swept, the laundry that needs to be folded, the dishes that need to be done. Because you know what all that means? People LIVE there. YOU live there. Not a robot, a human being with feelings, senses, memories and emotions. BE PRESENT even in the chores. Embrace the mess.

If your kid or spouse wants to talk to you while you’re in the middle of something else, stop what you’re doing and listen. (There are VERY few exceptions. You can almost always stop what you’re doing without the world ending.) LISTEN to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Notice body language, voice inflection. BE PRESENT. People always win over stuff you’re doing.

(That doesn’t mean that kids get to interrupt you whenever they want and you have to stop and tend to their every desire at that very moment. Of course there must be healthy boundaries. We’ll talk about time blocking later too.)

This is why no matter how hard we try, we can’t stop texting in the car. We’ll see a video about how dangerous it is, we know it’s illegal, we’ll read an article about someone who was killed because of it and we resolve to NEVER DO IT AGAIN. And then time starts pass and we start to forget.

We get to a stoplight and we panic because we’re not doing anything! Better get out my phone and check my email or Instagram or send a text. Ooh! I just had a thought! Quite clever actually. I better share it on Facebook and see how many likes I get. Sometimes it feels like we’re really incapable of just being still.

I think if we can get this, we will find that we feel more rested, even on busy days.

All of the screens in our lives have trained our brains to function at a level of ADD that keeps us from truly being where we are. If we don’t have three different things going on at once, we get nervous. No wonder there’s no rest for the weary. Our brains have learned to NEVER STOP.

This is not the abundant life, my friends. The abundant life is about quality, not quantity.

What do you think? How big a role does multitasking play in your life? How different would your life look if you practiced mindfulness throughout the day? Head back to Facebook and discuss in the comments.