The Paradox Of Time

The paradox of a mindfulness meditation practice is that it inserts more time in your day, more time to accomplish meaningful goals and tasks. This is a five-minute practice that anyone can do and is especially useful for those looking to take the first step in establishing a mindfulness meditation practice. For the next five minutes, you have Nothing to do.

Transcript

There's a paradox inherent in mindfulness meditation and that is somehow this meditation practice of slowing down and doing nothing gives us more time.

My name is Lori Wald and for the next five minutes you have nothing to do.

When I first started my meditation practice I noticed big things all the time and one of the things that I noticed was I seem to have more time in my day and I started to accomplish more tasks and not just did I accomplish more tasks but I found time to do the things that were most meaningful for me.

So this doesn't make sense in a way because here I was inserting 20 minutes in my day that's how I started 20 minutes every day sitting there doing nothing remembering all the things I was supposed to do as soon as I sat down I would want to jump back up because I remembered the thing I had promised myself I would do that I hadn't done but at the end of each day I had accomplished more.

So somehow by slowing down and inserting this pause in our day it feels as if we create more time.

So sit yourself down or lie down or stand find yourself in a comfortable yet dignified position and now see if you can find your breath you might notice the rise and fall of your belly you might notice the way your chest expands and contracts or you might even notice that whisper of air that comes in your nostrils cool and goes out warm if you exaggerate your breath it's much easier to find but see if you could just let it be natural and what you notice Mindfulness is an awareness of your present situation as it is not as you would prefer it to be with compassion with curiosity and with a whole lot of courage we're not here to accomplish anything we're simply here to notice the state of our bodies the state of our minds without judgment and to teach ourselves that we can tolerate our restlessness our anxiety our delight our tranquility none of it is permanent and emotion generally lasts about 90 seconds so just start again notice your breath and notice your breath if you've been distracted it's okay start again you you Thanks for joining me.

This is Lori Wald.