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Video
Lesson
Mindfulness is about waking up — about paying attention. But for much of our day, we are often on auto-pilot, with minimal awareness of what we’re doing or thinking.
For example, think of all the times you’ve driven somewhere, and when you arrive, you realize you literally were on auto-pilot the whole time! Or when you’ve been reading a book, only to get to the bottom of a page and realize you didn’t take in a single word. Indeed, our minds are much more accustomed to distraction than they are to paying attention.
With mindfulness, we are training our brain’s attention muscle. Each time we bring awareness to the breath, or to a simple activity, we’re activating new neural pathways associated with focus and concentration.
Your Mindful Move
One way we can help ourselves pay greater attention is to Change It Up, and that’s Mindful Move #2! For today, change up one routine task — brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand, sit at a different spot at the dinner table, drink your coffee in a different room, drive a different way to work… the possibilities are endless! When you change your routine, what changes in you? What new things do you notice? What is the quality of your attention when you do something differently?
This practice invites you to cultivate a beginner’s mind, which is one of the fundamental aspects of mindfulness practice. Can you approach this moment as if it’s entirely new and unknown? Because really, it is!
Routine Practices to Change Up
Just a short list to get you thinking. You can change up…
- what you eat for lunch
- how you drive home from work or from your errands
- where you sit during a meeting
- the games you play with your children
- what you do after dinner (go for a walk instead of watching TV)
- the path you walk to get to your classes, or your desk, or your bedroom
- where you park at work or at the store
- how you exercise
Change it up for your friends — click below to share this class and invite others to have a sweet 2016!
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