On Feb. 29, we were all given an extra day this year. We will not experience a day like that again for the next four years. I overheard a teacher ask her students, “What are you going to do to enjoy this extra day we were all given?” What a powerful question!
What do we do with all of our time and extra days? Without having healthy outlets, we may experience disarray in our lives. This can lead to neglecting self-care, depression, stress and negative self-talk. This happens both to children and adults. We all have something going on; we all have our plates full with what we should be, could be and ought to be doing. When is the last time you gave yourself a couple of minutes of freedom from all of it? For some of us, we may not even be able to recall the last time. Here’s the good news, we are not ruined … yet.
Starting today, starting right now, we have the opportunity to begin being mindful of our well-deserved attention and balance. When we start doing this, we will have the opportunity to see all the pieces on our plates, in control. Happiness and optimism are contagious; I don’t know about you, but that’s something I would not mind catching!
Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and one of the people who brought Buddhist meditation to the United States in the 1970s, says, “Meditation is about having the capacity to understand ourselves more fully and to care more deeply both for ourselves and others.”
Mindfulness meditation is taking over. We are now seeing it in classrooms, hospitals, offices and recovering communities. Just because mindfulness meditation is rooted from Buddhism does not make it a religious ritual.
Mindfulness meditation delivers us ways to calm our stress, concentrate on ways to better ourselves and others and speak more kindly to ourselves. Think about the impact it would make in our careers, homes, relationships and, most importantly, within us. How can we simply start this break for ourselves? There is no catch; there is no wrong way to practice it. And the best part? You can begin being mindful in a way that will fit your needs, in your own unique way. It takes as long or as little as you want it to take. You are now in control and you will now have the opportunity for more control over other areas of life by creating your well-deserved balance.
To begin this healthy way of living, some of us may start by taking 90 seconds every day to focus solely on the 90 seconds of “me” time and incorporate deep breathing. Some of us may feel attracted to experimenting with active mindfulness. This may include positive self-talk as you are driving, walking to your car or waiting for the oven timer to go off. Others may enjoy the savvy technology approach by using a free Mindfulness app on your phone during a lunch break. The choice is all yours.
“As you journey through life towards your Happy Destiny, choose your destination wisely, but don’t hurry there. You will arrive soon enough. Seek out new voices, strange sights, and bold ideas. Such things are riches for the soul. Know that the true worth of your travels lies not just in where you’ve come to be, but in who you became along the way,” said Certified Prevention Specialist Tiffani Jones-Montgomery.
