A Beginners guide to Mindfulness

Do you ever feel like your thoughts are running wild and it seems impossible to get your mind to switch off?

All you want is just peace inside, but the more you try to stop your thoughts, the faster they seem to go. Ugh.

Our spirit has a tendency, to show us the way, to the things we need. Maybe you’ve already heard about mindfulness? And how it can help you with stress relief and therefore create more peace inside of you?

And it could sound like something you want to learn? No, maybe it feels like something you need to learn. But, I understand your sceptics about “just sitting there, breathing for 30 minutes. Yeah, I’m not the mindfulness type”

I know, because I was once there and you are giving up way too soon.

There is a simple way, to get into the mindfulness universe with just small, simple steps.

I’ve been going through difficult times in my life and in those times, I was spending most of my time inside my own head. I just wanted to make peace with the chaos in my mind, but I just couldn’t. I was beyond exhausted at the end of the day.

One time, while I was traveling, I met a girl, who I later ended up sharing a house with. She invited me to that new world of meditation. I was inspired and I wanted to try.

I tried and it felt okay. It just felt like I couldn’t get the same benefits out of it, like she could. It was too difficult; I didn’t have “the time”. So I gave up.

But at one point, I was walking around in a bookstore and I stumbled upon a little book about mindfulness for beginners. I wanted to try again, so I bought it.

I don’t know how, but it made it so much easier and I practiced it by myself; in my own tempo, my own rhythm and my own rules. And it worked. And it can work for you too.

But before you get yourself into all this, I will tell you shortly what mindfulness actually is.

To be honest, I must say that it's kind of difficult to me, to explain what mindfulness is. Because it's something you have to practice. It's something you have to feel, before you'll feel the benefits from it, but I’ll try.

Mindfulness means to be fully present of what's actually happening right now. It goes from what you are doing, to where you are and who you're with. That might seem a bit irrelevant and something unnecessary for you. But mindfulness is truly important for your mental health.

Our minds and our thoughts are often taken flight. We lose touch with ourselves and our bodies and sooner or later, we are wrapped around in obsessive overthinking about something that just happened. We also have tendencies, to be very anxious about the uncertainty of the future, that we forget being in the NOW. We forget to embrace and enjoy our journey. Even worse, we are often caught up, analysing and thinking, of the bad things in the past. It’s okay to think about the past – the past have shaped us, into the person we are today – but we must remember to forgive our past, our past self and our past experiences.

If you’re always living in the past or in the future, you’re never fully present in what’s happening right now. This is what mindfulness can teach you.

When you are fully present, you are being rewarded with a tool to always show gratitude. Gratitude is one of the most important things to learn, to being present and also being happy. Because when you are truly happy, you become the absolute best version of yourself. This is not just a gift to yourself but also to the world around you. You deserve this.

When you teach appreciation, you discover, what you are gifted with. You’ll focus on positive thoughts and for a while, you let go of your fearful and anxious patterns in your thoughts.

Being mindful helps you to reduce stress, anxiousness, it enhances performance and awareness through observing your mind and also increases your attention to others well-being.

Mindfulness helps you reconnecting to life. It’s like you learn, this little skill that may not “heal” all ills, but it will change your perspectives on discomfort and it’ll open new possibilities into your life. I know it sounds like Uh-uh magic, but it really isn’t. When you are being mindful, you’re feeling alive. Your mind expands and you will learn to connect with your feelings. Therefore new perspectives and new possibilities will open up to you because you simply allow them to.

You’ll learn to live around the pain, rather than focus on it all the time. Pain in the shoulder will become a pain in the shoulder and maybe even fall back into the background of your awareness, while you focus on your breath or listen to sounds around you.

Even though that mindfulness had shown, that it can increase happiness, it can also return your awareness to the childlike curiosity, we all had when we were young. It’s possible, to once again experience the wondrous qualities of life; a blade of grass, the smell of the rain, clouds in the sky, the taste of a delicious strawberry and the importance of surrounding yourself with friends and others who care deeply for you.

You come to realize, that it’s these small moments, that are the true wonders of being alive. These moments of joy matter, because they connect you to your life rather than divide you from it.

When you drink just drink When you walk just walk

Every action you are doing, can become a mindful practice, a slowing down and a appreciation of life. For example when you take a walk to the grocerystore, when you’re stuck in trafic jam, when you’re doing the dishes. It helps us being patient and calm in stressful situations. It seems so simple, that it’s almost embarrassing to have to study it – but that is the outcome of this high-tech, modern and busy lifestyle we all are caught in.

I would like to remind you, how meaningful and giving it can be, to taste a strawberry, to smell lavender or to hug somebody we love and really feel and connect with them.

Of course life is a two-sided experience, as you also will become more sensitive to the painful aspects of life. But because you will be much more aware of your feelings and your mental health, it may prevent you from eating an out-of-date sandwich or staying with a partner or job that is destructive to you.

When you realize, how it truly feels being happy, you won’t accept anything less than being happy. You will avoid people and situations that brings you down.

If you just give yourself a few minutes a day, to skip doing so much in your busy life, you will enrich your experience of life and help your body and mind to stay healthy and well.

I've uploaded a video. I hope you'll watch it. It has helped me, changing my perspectives in so many ways. I put it on every time I need refreshing energy and just to feel much better. Be patient with the video and try to embrace her words. I know, this might seem a bit out of the edge of you. But I promise you, that only good things will come out of this video, as you can go on with your life, with much more gratitude and positive energy. Have fun.