Why Now is The Time to Practice Mindfulness Everyday

What do you have to lose? What might you gain?

Mindfulness is ordinary. It’s just here and now as it is. But it’s like clearing off the table of its dishes and piles. A relief, a found simplicity. Photo by Jason Abdilla on Unsplash (Thank you, Jason)

How are you doing right now? Right now in the most uncertain of uncertain times. How is your mind doing and how about your body? Are you finding a steady sea for portions of your day or week? Are you staying connected to what’s important to you? Are you staying connected to Who is important to you? Are you allowing any sense of ease to enter a moment or a day? Are you noticing any of your breaths?

We are all shouldering oppressive uncertainty and the absolute inability to bank on any notions of the future. The illusory nature of Future is stripped of its veil and standing here brazenly in front of us. The thing is we’ve never really known the future. We’ve just assumed. Like, assuming we will put the kids to bed and watch a movie but then the power goes out or the tornado sirens blare. It requires a pivot and what becomes clear is that right now, we must deal with what’s in front of us. Never before have I felt so acutely that the only thing I can do is attend to right now. My mind tries to carry forward imagining the future we were banking on but the imagination won’t buy in, it knows too much. So the building of images and fantasies dissolves in the moment and I’m back, simply here. In lower moments, I lament the loss of my life as it was. The freedom, the time to myself, the multiple people I would BE through the course of the day — the therapist, the business person, the pal, the customer. And now my roles have shrunk to 2: mother, partner. And that can feel suffocating.

So I can’t go back because it haunts and taunts me and I can’t go forward because those thoughts have no assumptions with which to fly. What used to be stimulating or at least neutral fodder for the active mind, a form of busy-ness to fill the space, they are now vivid, gut-wrenching forms of discomfort. No illusions left. I have to come back here, now. It is the practice I’ve shown up for every morning of the last many years. Be here, notice now, when the mind wanders off this mark, notice that, bring it back and notice this now. Come back over and over to here and now. Practice this. It is a practice. Not a performance each morning but a practice that i’m not particularly good at to be honest. Years and years of practice and the practice remains an activity of coming back. Not, as a real baller might experience, staying.

But I have to assume being good at it isn’t the point. And perhaps if mine were a practice of staying in the moment with some blissfully quiet mind, I’d not be able to relate to all the people who tell me they can’t do it or they’re not good at it. I wouldn’t be able to tell them that I’m not either. That with 20 years of practicing I’ve never had even a two-minute practice in which I wasn’t noticing my mind wander and bringing it back. I wouldn’t be able to tell them that that practice of noticing and having lots of chatter to notice in here is the practice, for me at least. The practice of noticing. I notice that my mind has wandered off. These days toward a future I don’t buy or a past that makes me sad. These days noticing so clearly how thoughts can hurt and then using the pain as a signal to return to here where it’s simple and I’m breathing.

This whole time has been about practicing this. And while it remains a practice, it also feels quite a bit like The Game now; the reason for all the practicing. Though it remains a practice, don’t get me wrong. There may not always be a perceivable win but there will never be a loss. Like a practice, the whole idea is just to do it. Again and again and let the benefits reveal themselves in context.

This practice, the practice of mindfulness is anchoring me right now, in the midst of personal and collective tumult and grief. It is not solving anything but it’s at once deepening my sense of steadiness and groundedness AND raising the bottom — so that my bluest days don’t take so much from me and my more anxious days gain a bit of breeze. I wish very much to convince you that, if you aren’t already practicing, now is the time to start. Because it is something you can do. And because:

1. Our minds are trained to move away from here and now by habit so being here where we’re breathing and safe is something we can also train it to do by habit
2. Here and now is almost always less complicated than the versions we drum up with thinking
3. Here and now has facts, we usually don’t suffer from facts, we suffer from our interpretations and opinions of facts, when we live our life through the facts gathered by our senses — only available here and now — we suffer less
4. When we notice our real experience of here and now we get a chance to choose how we respond to it; it is empowering
5. Practicing mindfulness does not, as you might assume, promote self-centeredness. It strengthens self-awareness which makes us more skillful in relating to others as well as making wise choices for ourselves
6. Practicing mindfulness teaches ease to the body and mind

If you don’t already have a practice, simply start with this one:

1. Find a seat where you can feel stable and supported, set a timer for 2 minutes
2. Feel your feet on the ground and lift up through the crown of your head
3. Relax your face and neck and shoulders
4. Find your breath — perhaps at your nose as a cool breeze entering and a warm one exiting, perhaps that same feeling at the back of your throat, perhaps the gentle expansion and contraction of your rib cage or a soft rise and fall of your belly. Wherever you feel it most clearly, rest your attention there
5. When you notice your mind wander, bring it back, the thoughts, if you don’t pursue them, will go away on their own. Re-soften through the shoulders and neck and face, return your attenion to your breath — over and over until the time is up

If the uncertainty of now is gathering knots in your body and complicated, uncomfortable stories in your mind, mindfulness is a skill, a capacity you can cultivate to soften these knots and release these stories. And from that, allow for space to choose what today or simply right now will be like for you.

PS, If seated mindfulness practice is simply not going to be your thing there are options — little, 2 minute or even 1 minute options. Walking practice — notice the full sensation of your body in motion. Set a timer, go slowly. Spending a moment outside where you notice the moment with all your senses, giving yourself the full sensory experience of one of your here-and-nows. Choosing a task to do mindfully — to do while noticing doing it — eating, folding laundry, drawing a picture, having a conversation, walking up stairs. Deep, slow breathing. Set a timer and breathe slowly in and slowly out. Responding to others — whenever someone calls your name, pings your inbox or messages you, take 2 mindful breaths before you respond.