Mindfulness is a choice

Distractions are everywhere lately.  I can’t seem to avoid them and they are interrupting my routine.  Well, isn’t that what distractions do though? I remember reading a meditation book not long ago by Thich Nhat Hanh.  It was about mindful living and how we should focus on the tasks at hand by breathing.  Even a mundane task like doing dishes should be performed in a mindful way.  He said something to the effect that we should say (to ourselves) this mantra when performing the task:  “Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.” 

And that’s really well and good to think about doing but I rarely think about doing breathing meditations until I am pretty much choking to death.  Then the decision to breathe mindfully kicks in.   Relaxing techniques like these should be performed throughout life and I feel pretty certain that the point of doing them is to avoid stressful situations from occurring.

But sometimes it’s impossible for me to be mindful. My mind just goes a million miles a minute. If I’m not thinking about my to-do list at work, I’m thinking about the kids' schedules or which freelance article is due next or when is the contractor scheduled to come or did I pay the mortgage this month.  Juggling two kids, a full-time job, a home and all that goes with it, two dogs and writing freelance gets a little dicey.   Every single one of these things (kids, job, dogs, etc.) is wonderful and I love them equally but they all require tremendous amounts of attention and sometimes I forget about myself as a result.

I got distracted yesterday doing some freelance work and the dog let me know that I forgot all about him. I won’t bore you with the details of how he did this.  Suffice it to say, I won’t be forgetting about him any time soon.

I got distracted putting eye makeup on this morning and nearly poked my eye out with an eye shadow brush.  It hurt all morning which got me to thinking of ways to try to keep all these distractions from surfacing. 

I intentionally distract myself too - from life.  I sometimes find myself playing computer games for a lot longer than I should.  I guess I feel like I am doing something - but I’m really wasting time.  I messaged my friend Kevin and said I wasn’t going to play at all today.   I’ve stuck to that - and viola - I wrote a blog.  First time in 3 weeks.  Imagine that!

 I don’t know if I’m going to stop playing computer games forever or if I am going to sit mindfully outside and look at the giant trees in my front yard (like I also did this evening) every single day.  I seriously doubt that distractions  will stop surfacing entirely.  But I do know that I have a choice.  I know that if I want serenity, I can practice mindfulness a little bit. I can breathe in and be calm.  I can breathe out and smile.  Or I can waste time distracting myself from getting where I want to be.