I discovered mindfulness 8 years back when I went to do a 10 days course of meditation in complete silence using the mindfulness technique and found it to have a profound impact on my thinking. I grew up in a generation that was highly ambitious, driven and wanting to go the extra mile to get to their goals. Being a type A personality myself I was very driven and ambitious and never understood the importance of slowing down and realizing what’s important in life till I had an emotional burnout from work and constant travel in my late 20s. That’s when I found mindfulness and while I haven’t managed to completely transform my lifestyle, I’ve found that taking even small steps to re-connect with yourself can be very powerful to avoid another work burnout. Mindfulness has helped me realize that while there is a world outside that we live in, there is a more important and powerful world inside us that grounds us and helps us know what is most important to us in our own lives.
We all live in a highly charged world where we are getting more and more used to getting what we want delivered instantly, whether it be our Uber, our Prime grocery order or knowing about our friend’s latest holiday updates. And while a lot of articles advocate disconnecting from technology, sometimes it is just not possible to do so. But what is possible is to start with small steps. Take that 10 to 15 mins every day to spend time with yourself and shut off your brain from thinking. Whether you do that through a walk, sitting down to meditate or just lie down and close your eyes with no thoughts, without sleeping and just breathe. Mindfulness can be practiced in many different ways and you can easily find the method that works for you in your own routine.
I still travel constantly and feel I am more connected than I should be, but today I take out that 10 minutes for myself every day even if it is at the end of the day. 10 minutes to reconnect with myself and remind myself that while one may get stressed for all the issues we have in our lives, at the end of the day whatever happens we always have a world inside us that allows us to deal with all the challenges in life and all those feelings of being overwhelmed by just slowing down for a few minutes each day and allowing ourselves to just breathe.