The other day I was given the task of mowing lawns as a job.
It's not my usual job,
But a friend of a friend injured herself and could no longer do her yard duties.
So it was put upon me to mow the lawns and do the whippersnapping and all of that sort of stuff.
And to be clear,
This is not my usual role.
I'm a teacher.
I'm a writer.
I usually work with my mind,
Not my body.
And in the lead up to this job,
I was a bit anxious.
Not about doing the work,
Not about the actual act of mowing,
But about the social dynamics,
The interacting with the people,
The entering their houses to do the work.
You know,
It's an unknown and I was sort of freaking out.
And then I remembered to do the practice,
To meditate,
To take a moment to slowly and calmly breathe.
And what I realized was that the thought of the moment is far more intimidating,
Scary,
Fearful than the actual moment.
When I'm in the moment,
When I'm doing the thing,
When I'm talking to people,
I'm fine.
But the anticipatory anxiety of doing it can become overwhelming.
But the realization that the actual moment is fine allowed me to push through that anxiety,
Allowed me to use mindfulness meditation,
Present state awareness,
To return myself back to the moment,
To check into the fact that I was feeling safe,
To take a breath and then to step forward.
So then I found myself mowing the lawn and it was a big job.
The actual mowing took maybe an hour of walking.
And rather than putting on a podcast or music or any other form of distraction,
I decided to use the act of mowing itself as a meditation,
As a mindfulness practice.
You know the idea of like walking meditation,
Walking mindfulness practice.
You choose a spot and basically you pace up and down the yard and you focus on the sensations coming into the feet.
I've never had really any luck doing that.
It always feels awkward and I can't quite settle into it.
And yeah,
I know you're supposed to embrace those feelings of awkwardness and use those feelings as a mindfulness focus itself,
And perhaps you should go back to it.
But I could never find myself doing it.
It just didn't quite sit with my mind and my personality.
I just pushed back against it and never did it.
But because I was mowing,
Because I was doing a task,
Because this task had to be done and I'd agreed to it,
I'm like,
Why not use this as an opportunity to embrace the moment,
Embrace the opportunity and meditate.
So that day I ended up doing maybe six hours of mowing and thus six hours of mindfulness meditation,
Interspersed with the anxiety of entering people's houses,
Like I said.
But during those times,
I was able to observe my mind and it was fascinating.
It was fascinating to see just how much it was bouncing around,
Moving to the future,
To the past,
Worrying.
I guess why I'm sharing this is that in your life,
In your job,
In your day-to-day existence,
There'll be opportunities like I found with the mowing to observe the mind for extended periods of time whilst your body is doing something else.
Mowing the lawns,
Doing the dishes,
Vacuuming,
Cleaning,
All of these tasks are opportunities to meditate,
Are opportunities to observe the mind.
And I tell you what,
It taught me something.
I accredit those six hours to unlocking aspects of my personality and my mind and deep seated blocks that I just didn't know how they were impacting me,
What they were or why.
But since then,
It's like I've seen a glimpse into my psyche and discovered aspects of myself and truths of myself that I can now apply to the rest of my life to be able to make better choices,
To better understand myself.
I meditate daily,
20 minutes every morning,
But I've not yet unlocked these things.
And without that mowing job,
I wouldn't have discovered them.
Now,
I'm not going to share them here because they're unique to me,
But rather what I'm suggesting is that there will be a wealth of information that you could discover were you to take the extra opportunities to embrace the silence,
To observe your mind mindfully during otherwise mundane tasks.
If you can,
Take the headphones out,
Get through that initial boredom and simply observe.
Use those mundane opportunities whilst you're driving,
Whilst you're cleaning,
Whilst you're doing the things that your body knows how to do by rote.
They're perfect opportunities to meditate and trust me,
The introspective benefits that will arise and transform your life.
Have a great day.
