1) I practise flexibly
I practise mindfulness using a range of exercises. Each exercise varies in focus, difficulty, effort, and impact. These exercises are:
Focus on bodily sensations: Mindful breathing, mindful body scans, gentle physical activities (e.g. walking, hiking, yoga). These are great for beginners.
Focus on thoughts & emotions: Gratitude journaling, affirmations. I've tried other types, including reflective journaling, stream of consciousness, unsent letter.
Open focus: I sit with eyes closed, ideally somewhere quiet and safe, and let things come to me (often called open awareness).
Note that:
There are many more exercises. Some are not even strictly considered mindfulness exercises. Some are called the same name but are not done the same way.
You can experiment with creating your own exercises as you gain more experience. Exercises work as long as they can help you introspect and become more aware of your internal world.
There are many more ways of categorising exercises. You can create your own system of exercises as you gain experience.
Moreover, I practise mindfulness according to my current emotional needs and development goals. This means practices are fluid and vary from session to session. I also often look for ways to improve my exercises or try new exercises altogether.
Finally, I practise mindfulness knowing that each minute can count. For years, I only knew and practised 2 exercises - mindful breathing and body scans. Sometimes, I only did them once every few weeks. Sometimes, I didn't know what I was doing. Sometimes, I didn’t even finish the exercises. And I used to be hard on myself because I knew I could had done more and better. But now I understand that each minute of mindfulness can help me learn, adapt and slowly grow my mindful capacity.
2) I experience my emotions
My mindfulness journey is filled with small, positive changes. But the single largest change happened when I realise that in order to process an emotion, I need to experience it.
That may sound very obvious, but I simply hadn't understood it previously. I didn’t know how to process emotions. I didn’t know how to experience them. And so I had spent so much time and effort in life trying to avoid ‘negative’ emotions and letting them control me.
So it was a monumental lesson for me. I learned that emotions come and go in waves. I learned that to process an emotion, I first need to acknowledge and identify it. Then I need to let their waves wash over me, feel them, and stay with them until they dissipate and can no longer influence me.
As I gained more experience with that, I realised that each wave, no matter how small or big, how comfortable or uneasy, is actually trying to say something to help me. So I started looking at emotions with much more gentle and non-judgemental attitude, which in turn made it much easier for me to process them.
Moreover, experiencing strong emotions may feel very unsettling, difficult and uncomfortable. But there you can help yourself by speaking to a close friend, families or a therapist, journaling, and physical activities.
I think of being mindful as being more aware of my own sensations, thoughts and emotions, while having a gentle and open-minded attitude. Years of practising mindfulness have gradually transformed all aspects of my life for the better.
While I am not perfect and I still often look to improve how I practise it, I've learned 4 things that have and continue to make mindfulness a life-changing skill for me.
3) I reframe my thoughts
If learning to feel my emotions is the single largest change in my mindfulness journey, the second largest change happened when I learned that my thoughts can control my emotions. And because I can control what I think, I now have a way of controlling my emotions.
And yes, there are other things that can influence emotions, and emotions can also in turn influence thoughts. However, I can’t control those things. So I’m going to focus on the thing that I can control.
Again, that may sound very obvious, but I simply didn’t understand. So it was another significant discovery, because now I can learn to control how I feel, on the spot!
Finally, I learned that emotions can arise very quickly. I often feel them before I realise what thoughts are triggering them, especially during busy days. So I had to learn to slow things down to figure out what thoughts are driving my emotions and reframe them if necessary.
4) I use help
I’ve learned and developed a lot in my mindfulness journey. But I definitely didn't do it on my own. Many of my most significant moments happened because I had help:
My first psychologist suggested I tried journaling.
My mentor showed me how to experience my emotions and inspired me to research EQ, leading me to discover how thoughts can drive emotions.
My second and current psychologist helped me process my childhood trauma and taught me how to think about life with balance and nuance.
Mindfulness classes taught me many great mindfulness exercises.
While some of these professional services are not cheap, I took ownership of my development and gained a lot out of every session by taking notes, asking for extra homework, and preparing for every session... It was definitely work. But it is by far, the most rewarding and impactful work I’ve ever undertaken.
That's it from me. While what works for me may not work for you, I still hope you have learned something useful from my experience. And if you want to give yourself a boost on your own journey, get in touch!