Being mindful

Based on yesterday’s post, I found this article on the www.  It describes the 7 habits you need to adopt in order to be mindful.

These are:

• Practicing gratitude
• Feeling your palms and feet
• Noticing the environment
• Breathing deeply
• Listening, not just hearing
• Mindful eating
• Mindful showers

Interestingly I found that I do a lot of this anyway within my normal routine and it hasn’t really helped in the mindfulness department.  It is almost as though this is just a part of who I am and what I do currently.  Taking the time out helps on the days that the anxiety bites the most, yet if I do not do these things as rote, I end up a basket case!

So how do I become more mindful and distract myself from the comparisons that I draw and the anxiety that plagues me?  How do I live a life that is grateful and where I listen even more to those around me?

I am running out of ideas.

I believe deep down that once I figure out how to do this and not just because I am anxious or needing to ground myself, life will truly become perfect.  Perfect here does not mean that it will be without its troubles, but it will be perfect in that I will be able to flow with what occurs far easier.  I will be that reed that bends rather than breaks.

Lately I have found dissatisfaction in so much around me.  This is itself unwarranted as I am well aware that I choose the road I wish to travel on consistently.  If I don’t like it, I need to change the road.  Yet sometimes I feel that there is this sense of perverseness that ensures I stay on the road where I am not entirely happy, or as the case may be, completely unhappy.  It is as though I am goading myself to endure.

Endurance does not necessarily equate to strength.  Endurance does not necessarily equate to peace of mind, or even that there is an a certainty of being equipped for the next obstacle.  It just means that there was endurance and probably for nothing.

I am learning that leaving a situation or issue does not mean that I have quit.  I have taken care of myself and moved forward into something better.  Enduring a path does not result in a better outcome – some do, but most don’t.  It is learning to be discerning about that.

I need to find new ways of being mindful and thereby able to change paths as required.  Not because it is difficult, but because I can clearly see that the end result does not end in a better outcome, it just provides access to yet another difficult path.

Today I am choosing the path of acceptance.  There is a reason for what is happening and I cannot see the end clearly, but I will continue on this path, even if I do see some of the obstacles already.