notice something new

A New Day A New You A New World

Neer Garh Waterfall vicinity, nr Rishikesh, India.

The effect of paying attention and noticing things around you and within you, can bring enormous benefits to the body, mind and their health. The terminology we use to describe what we do can also affect our body and mind. Discriminating between work and play and the compartmentalisation of life has led us to not being true to ourselves in every moment. 

Work life balance is good, but work life integration may be the greater achievement. Perhaps we should stop focussing on balancing and start integrating. 

This morning I drove to work listening to the resonating tones of Ellen Langer talking about mindfulness and mindlessness. We tend to associate mindfulness with Buddhist practice or as the new buzzword that seems to be on everyone's tongue. If only it was truly on their mind.

For centuries the practice of being aware has led many to a more relaxed approach to life and ultimately better health and happiness. People like Ellen have been studying and investigating the power of mindfulness and mindlessness since the 1970’s and yet it has taken almost 50 years for it to become a more sought after practice. Ellen does not have a Eastern approach to it and neither was influenced by anything mystic or exotic. She simply began to understand that paying attention and noticing things around you and within you can have momentous effects on the mind, body and health. The terminology we use to describe what we do can also affect our mind and body. Working or playing and our discrimination of these and compartmentalisation of life has led to us not being true to ourselves in every moment.  

Work life balance is good, but work life integration is the greater achievement.
Stop balancing and start integrating.

Just notice something new around you today. In the photo above, I was walking along path through forest and fields taking time to notice everything around me, and there was this beautiful sight of a dragonfly on a water outlet from a village. It was tiny and easily missed, but I noticed it and sat with the scene for several minutes while I observed and photographed. I was so moved by the stillness of the entire scene and the simple acceptance of each other as we co-existed in  close proximity for those moments. It made me smile and still does when I see the photograph, because it was the perfect moment and inspires me that moments can feel like that, if we just pay attention.

That is the simplicity of being aware.

Perhaps when you go home today and see a loved one or friend, try to notice something about them. There is an effort to noticing and this is mindfulness. When you go home and do nothing different, or notice nothing about your loved one, this is mindlessness. You have stopped noticing. Driving to work you often hear people say that they drove here without even realising they were driving. Can you imagine what they missed on the way. The beautiful trees, the clouds, the sun or moon, the sky the birds, people, a street sign, a building or a leaf falling on your windscreen.

Notice yourself.

A new day dawns every 24 hours and with that a new you rises from your sleep. Something is different to yesterday, it just is not easy to notice. A cell has been shed - or a few million have, a blood cell gave up some oxygen and another took some up. The skin repaired itself and the digestive tract had a rest. I could go on about all the things that changed since yesterday, and although they may seem imperceptible, it is your senses that know they have happened. But how do you tune your mind to focus on such detail?

Start with noticing yourself. Physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually if that is what you aspire too. As you shave or apply your face cream or make-up, sense what is different and look at yourself with the focus of your thoughts directed at you. This only needs to be for a few seconds or minutes to begin with but it will bring you into yourself and this will lead to so much more with daily practice.

Often we equate mindfulness with meditation but they certainly do not need to be practiced together, and being aware is much easier than meditating if you are a complete novice. Personally I practice both and it was through sitting I realised how to focus my attention for 1 minute, then 2 minutes, then 5 minutes and then for 30 minutes or even an hour. All I noticed at first were objects and colours around me instead of closing my eyes and looking for a deeper meditative place. I was happy sitting noticing my hands and fingers or how my feet sat on the carpet and how the skin looked. It was very mindful since I was just aware of these things without requiring nothing in return.

My meditation practice began with a simple noticing of my immediate environment and from that it very slowly progressed to something deeper of noticing within myself. I found that an acute awareness of what is outside is necessary to start the journey of noticing what is inside. Once you attain the inner attention, the sharpness of what is outside increases one hundred fold.

It follows therefore that, for me, mindfulness is post-meditation awareness, but is not meditation itself, although meditation might arise from a deep awareness of what is around me. There is a nice overlap and blurring of the two which is a great insight into life and health; the body, mind and spirit are all in an interplay with one another and there is no boundary between them, they serve one another and their union is our greatest attribute to longevity and wellbeing.

I find great pleasure in driving to work after my morning practice of a little breathing, movement and sitting [otherwise referred to as pranayama, asana and dhyana]. I don’t mind the traffic and I like it when the cars all stop so I can look through the railings into the park, at the people walking or jogging in the morning light; or when I’m in a long queue where there are hedges and trees and fields beyond, I can just look up at the sky and notice something about its colour or a bird. Driving mindfully feels like a meditation all of its own.

What am I doing right now? Am I working or exercising? Am I resting or playing?

Earlier on I touched upon the notion of a work life balance and work life integration and how this equates on a deeper level to the integration of mind and body [and spirit] to enhance our resilience and increase our happiness. There are huge numbers of studies that reveal how the way we perceive things directly affects the way our bodies respond. How we respond to situations is our barometer of stress, and when this response becomes exaggerated we start to find the body responding by increasing cortisol levels which eventually starts to wear down the body systems…… And the cycle continues until we find ourselves in dis-ease manifesting different illnesses and a lowered immune system easily invaded by pathogens.

Once we start to consider how we perceive and what terminology we use to describe events around us, we can find so many clues to how to balance and integrate our thoughts and emotions in response to the words we use.

PharmAveda offers a concise way to deal with stress by slowly returning the body to ease from dis-ease; to relaxation from stimulation. Using the three aspects of movement, mind and medicine we can give you the tools to notice something new everyday and generate a new lease of health and happiness. An integrative approach to your self-care needs.