Mindful observation

Recap on mindfulness.

Mindfulness: consciously bringing awareness to your here and now experience, with openness, receptiveness, and interest.

Mindfulness is:

letting go of the thinking self and tuning into the observing self.

The thinking self vs. the observing self. 

The thinking self is responsible for just that, thinking. It produces our thoughts, judgments, images, fantasies and memories. You may just refer to it as "the mind" 

The observing self may be a new concept. It is responsible for awareness, attention, and focus. It can observe thoughts, memories and images but it cannot produce them. 

Ordinary moments - extraordinary memories

Life can certainly be extraordinarily unextraordinary. Just another day or the same old stuff, different day mentality. Alarm clock, shower, breakfast, errands, diapers, drop off, pick up, dinner, homework, chores.... over and over, again and again. Turning us into autopilot beings.. feeling meh in most moments and unfulfilled as we lay our heads to our pillow at night. 

What is life but a sum of small moments? Seemingly mundane moments - moments that make up an ordinary day and an ordinary life.

It's these ordinary moments that change the course of our day and our life.

I can set an intention to stop in my day. 

To pause, breath and observe beauty around me.

To see the good. 

I can see beauty.  

Insert Mindful Observation

Simple but incredibly powerful exercise to help you notice and appreciate seemingly simple elements of your environment in a more profound way.

Connecting us with the beauty of the natural environment, something I know I easily miss when rushing around in the school drop off, errands, grocery store line or making dinner. 

1. Choose a natural object from within your immediate environment and focus on watching it for a minute or two. This could be a flower or an insect, or even the clouds or the moon.
2. Don’t do anything except notice the thing you are looking at. Simply relax into watching for as long as your concentration allows.
3. Look at this object as if you are seeing it for the first time.
4. Visually explore every aspect of its formation, and allow yourself to be consumed by its presence.
5. Allow yourself to connect with its energy and its purpose within the natural world.

Soon after making an effort to practice this exercise I began to walk with purpose. To feel alive in my world and apart of the beauty God created. I began to feel aware of the world around me and a deep sense of connection to the things that can easily go unnoticed.

My ordinary moments, with time became my extraordinary life.

XOXO
Ashley