Mindfulness Practice and Your Life
The world of work often feels too fast, too complicated, for me. Monday mornings come around and after a weekend of free time those of us who work are expected to “hit the ground running.” We are supposed to tackle multi-tasking and various projects with a vengeance. I write this on what is for me a slower paced Tuesday morning. I survived yesterday, a crisp and sunny Monday in mid-November.
I am grateful for Tuesdays when I usually work for Creative Transitions. And I am in love with any day when my job is to write. Writing involves simply sitting – quiet, still, listening to an inner feeling and voice somewhere deep within me. And then moving into doing by writing. Writing starts with Being, not Doing. Writing is a practice full of mindfulness, a practice at which we know we are not perfect, yet we do because it is often fruitful and full, filling us up with ourselves, our lives, our world in a way that feels deeper and fuller than if we just keep on rushing through our days, our to do lists, one activity to the next, and the next one after that. And the next after that. . . . . . .
Photo by Loretta Crespiatico
I feel tired just thinking about this kind of busyness and multitasking. Some of my coworkers in the mental health world say they drop into bed at 8:30 p.m. most weekday nights. My clients who work in the corporate world say that 5 p.m. is considered the middle of the workday. Twelve hour days, 72 hour (or more)weeks were their norm, until they crashed and burned in both body and mind, and had to take medical leave to recover.
In my first blog post for Creative Transitions I asked:
Where are we racing off to? What are we trying to accomplish? What is it that each of us wants and needs? Is all of this fast doing giving us what we want and need, in our lives, in the in our work, and in the world?
Mindfulness for Making a Difference
We live in a fast culture, at least in the United States. It feels to me as if we do most things fast – eating, emailing, working, errands, conversing – and we’re multitasking much of the time, all in the interest of getting more and more done. (I’ll bet if we could sleep faster we would.) Everyone I know seems to be always on the move except those few who are retired. I feel as if many of us are racing against time during our waking hours.
What are we trying to accomplish? Where are we racing off to? What are we wanting and needing? Is all of this fast doing giving us what we want and need?
These are my questions as my friend and the director of Creative Transitions, Jean Meier, and I prepared for one of our online events.
I’ve had the good fortune to study mindfulness and meditation with two top teachers, John Welwood, Ph.D., and Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. Welwood’s work on the healing power of unconditional presence has become embedded within my being and my life through many years of retreats with him. And from one retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and many readings of his books, I learned the value and power of slowing down and paying careful attention to whatever I am experiencing, in the present, even in the midst of my very busy mind and every day life.
The teachings of both Welwood and Kabat-Zinn focus on each of us listening to our inner selves in a deep way, and to extend that listening out to others with whom we interact. Even through years of mindfulness practice I still find deep listening, to myself and others, a challenge which lands me on my learning curve and creative edge.