Day 7: (In Daily Life) Focused Attention & Open Awareness

Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Challenge, designed to help you build a meditation habit and seamlessly integrate mindfulness into your daily life. You can access this whole challenge through the playlist at the bottom of my profile on Insight Timer.

Think you're too busy for mindfulness? This track is designed to show you how simple it is to fit mindfulness of breathing into your hectic day. Today's track supplements the previous guided practice, so be sure to listen to it after this if you haven't already. But for now, I’ll share practical tips on weaving mindfulness into everyday moments, no extra time needed. I’ll give examples of when and how you can incorporate the formal practice effortlessly into your routine, even if you're constantly on the go. You’ll be surprised at how easily it can become part of your day!

Image Credit: By Leolo212 via Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome to this Mindfulness Meditation Challenge.

I was talking about how we can incorporate this into our daily life,

Right?

You can take these mini breaks,

You know,

Just how you tuned in into this life to just,

You know,

Consume something helpful,

Something healthy for your mind,

For your life,

For your well-being,

Right?

So similarly,

During the day you can take some breaks.

You can schedule them while doing a certain activity or after doing a certain activity,

So like before sleeping or while you are moving from one task to another.

So yeah,

You can take these mini mini breaks and in those breaks you can maybe set a timer and just be like we were sitting,

You know,

In open awareness and just being,

Not doing anything,

Not focusing on anything,

Just resting our mind.

Because all day we keep on,

You know,

Having a stick and we are like,

Okay,

Mind,

Do this,

Do this,

Focus on that and have this figured out for me and do this,

Right?

So just giving our mind a break and just resting,

Not doing,

Just being,

Right?

Because as it is said,

We are human beings,

Not human doings,

Right?

So we need to incorporate that beingness,

That being mode into our life because it will help bring balance to you and not have your mind run all the time and that's why sometimes we are not able to sleep because our mind is like figuring out stuff for us.

Our mind is good,

Our mind is a very,

You know,

Amazing machine but we cannot like overuse.

When we use any machine,

Like if I use this laptop all the time then it will get heated up,

It will get drained,

It will,

You know,

Get malfunctioning,

It will shut down,

Right?

So we need to include these breaks and yeah,

That's what we are doing with our mind when we just set a timer and just be for maybe two minutes.

It doesn't have to be a long break,

Right?

Just sit,

Set a timer for two minutes and just be,

Just be aware of whatever is happening,

Whatever is coming up and if nothing is coming up,

Just being,

Just observing,

Just being aware and that's it and that's how you can include this particular practice into your life and when you will do this,

When you will take these breaks,

Then you will see the impact of them.

They might sound very simple,

They might sound like,

Okay,

What would they do for me?

But when you practice,

Things actually work.

These simple things work and they work so effectively.

This is one thing that you can do to include this.

Similarly,

You can also include like focused attention part.

So not even set a timer,

Just be aware of three breaths,

Okay?

Just focus on three breaths or maybe if you are doing a task,

Then focus on the task and when your attention wanders,

Which it will,

Then bring it back.

So that's what happens,

Right?

When we are studying,

When we are doing work,

A notification comes,

A sound comes,

Anything even minutely interesting happens and our mind like,

Follow it.

So by cultivating this in the formal practice and doing this informally,

Like in our day,

We are cultivating that awareness to first of all notice that we have wandered because usually what happens is we are doing our work,

A notification comes or we open our phone to search for something and then we go on and on and on.

We are crawling on social media,

We are reading about the celebrities or the news or the stock market or whatever it is and we just get lost in it.

We just get hooked by it.

So this practice help us recognize that okay,

I have lost my attention on the task I was supposed to,

Just like a breath and then once we notice,

Then we can like,

Now we can come back and coming back compassionately that it's okay,

It's natural for our mind to wander.

So not being harsh on ourselves that okay,

I was supposed to sit down and you know just focus on for one hour and now our attention has wandered.

Yeah,

So now we are doing it compassionately,

We are just noticing that okay,

Our mind wanders,

It is the nature of our mind.

Now I can shift my attention back to the task and that is what is concentration,

Right?

To sustain our attention,

To redirect our focus and that's what we are cultivating through this practice.

So yeah,

I think I've covered like what I was supposed to in today's lesson.

So if you guys are finding these lives helpful,

The tips helpful,

The meditations helpful,

Then I would really appreciate,

You know,

Any donation from you guys because this makes me feel like you guys value,

You know,

The work,

The time,

The effort and everything and it support me in doing this,

In doing what I love the most,

You know,

Guiding meditations.

And if you can't do that,

Then please,

Please do check out my profile and just go to the content,

Go through the courses because I have also have courses on like negative thoughts,

Limiting beliefs and stuff like that.

And additionally,

I'm doing an emotion regulation series.

So if you go to my profile and scroll till the last,

You will see a playlist.

So I am like compiling a list of emotion regulation techniques that you can use when you are feeling like overwhelmed,

Anxious,

Stressed,

Angry,

You know,

Different emotions.

So you can go through them.

So every Sunday,

I'm releasing a new emotion regulation exercise.

So yeah,

Please do check out my work,

Please,

Please and see if it resonates with you.

Okay,

So the session has come to an end.

So thank you so much everyone for tuning in,

Sending my love and healing to all of you.