from yoga to club

how mindfulness can accompany our daily life without completely changing it.

organic hippie versus clubbing

It’s part of the title of every second health care magazine. You read, whenever you pass by any random yoga studio and it might follow you in daily conversations with friends.

Mindfulness – a word everyone is using, but nobody can define. What remains are fuzzy associations of violet colored yoga lofts, old moaning women eating vegan food and wandering around in Birkenstock shoes (hopefully someone outside Germany knows what that is). When we are using the term, many of us think of modern hippies, hiding on their meditation pillow filling the space with super wise calendar quotes.

Usually when I mention the word ‘mindfulness’ to others, I receive one of the following three reactions:

1.      “Mindfulness! I have no idea what that is.”

2.      “I hate meditation.”

3.      “Oh no, all these super organic ecofriendly people.”

      Honestly speaking, when the idea of being mindful entered my life, I had to deal with the same sort of categorizations and prejudices our society dictates.

And if I come to believe them, I’m anything but  a mindful person: I love eating steaks and spare ribs, getting wasted on my Saturday nights, wearing colored clothes and I'm loud and spontaneous.

Nevertheless, the idea behind mindfulness attracted and touched me every time I faced it. I once read about the Buddhism monk Matthieu Ricard. His brain might be one of the most researched ones in the history of neuroscience. I learned about meditation and its impact on stress reduction and health. But when I sat down on a comfortable pillow, trying to meditate, my mind would just get lost in random thoughts. I wondered if I possibly would not be suited enough for mindfulness.

Then, another question bothered me: is meditation the only guideline towards mindfulness? Or could it be that mindfulness contains more possibilities, even including short-cuts? Can mindfulness be cheerful or sexy? Can you mindfully use a smartphone or go to a bar and have a beer?

definition of a mindful person

When I lived in China, I was lucky enough to spend some days in a Buddhist monastery. My stay there was not scheduled; I ended up there after losing my way on a hiking tour. The monks offered me to stay at their place. The night I spend on a cold floor in the middle of 30 sleeping monks is one of my beautiful memories. I remember feeling absolutely supported and protected by an ultimate feeling of awareness and empathy for my situation. I slept ten hours in a condition in which I would usually not even fall asleep.

The next day I had the occasion to observe the monks in their daily activities. Novices played in the garden, while older monks prepared food or cleaned the space. There were meditations and singing circles, but I had no impression that anyone was forced to join or felt judged in his actions. In order to describe my observations, I would use the words: friendliness, respect, patience, empathy, acceptance and integration. All this did not happen, because the monks attended special courses on mindfulness as we do. Their concept worked out, because they absolutely wanted it and would trust in this ideal.   

For me, this is mindfulness: to live the idea of values we want to see and share to this world.

In our western society we seem to hide behind yoga classes and meditation courses. I know so many people jumping from one yoga retreat to the next one, talking about inner balance and harmony. But when it comes up to support a sick friend, they fail to help. I know people who spend so much time in promoting the idea of anti-capitalism, but at the same time consume people on dating apps. Mindfulness should not mean copying and pasting a stereotype of behaviors and patterns into your life.

Mindfulness is not something you can learn, but it is something you decide to do.

The ultimate definition of mindfulness could be that even if your house burns down while your boyfriend breaks up with you after you’ve lost your job - and you still handle life in a self-compassionate and accepting way. Then you might reach a high level of mindfulness. 

Last time I visited my family in Romania, I experienced another situation I would entitle with ‘mindfulness’. My aunt, 78 years old, is nearly deaf and blind. She might recognize shadings and the direction, where a sound originates from. In a small town near Bucarest, she lives with her husband, ten years older, in a flat with two rooms. When I entered the flat, I realized how clean it was. My uncle told me that they’ve spend their entire day cleaning for us. My aunt had prepared a cake – the only one, for which she know the recipe by heart. My uncle told us, that he still accompanies her to the hairdresser and the manicure shop. In all their interactions, I felt respect and valuation for the other person, but also acceptance for the situation and patience. These people don’t know the word ‘mindfulness’. But they are the best example for its execution.

how to become a mindful person

All these examples invited to me overthink my concepts of mindfulness. I experienced interaction with mindful people – and still I had no idea how to become one. I searched for a clear definition on mindfulness and a pathway towards it.

Once I read a book by Kristin Neff, one of the pioneers in research in self-compassion. She introduced her definition of mindfulness as following: the awareness of being aware. As an example: you can be upset in a certain situation. Mindfulness in this would mean that you are aware of the fact that you are upset in a certain situation. I understand mindfulness as an invitation to zoom out of your own perspective, and widen it. You will realize that your situation is just a feeling, a moment in life, which helps you to accept its transience.

 

Another result of this change of perspective is that other people have the possibility to enter it. Zooming out allows us to observe ourselves but also others in the same scenery. All humans are equal. We are invited to focus our perspective towards a collective awareness for space and people instead on our ego.

Meditation can work as a safe space to explore this change of perspective. But you can also use your daily life as a training platform for mindfulness.

A daily activity, such as showering or eating can be enhanced by zooming out of your own perspective, letting thoughts pass by and focusing on the present moment. You invite yourself to describe the sensations you have, e.g. water temperature, strength.

Waiting at the bus stop can transform into an exercise in which your awareness travels through different parts of your body.

Interactions with other people can be conducted by an inner voice trying to witness the situation from outside and following the interactions in an empathic way.

For me, mindfulness can happen everywhere. You can be mindfully sitting at a bar and flirting, being respectful and empathic with the other person.

You can mindfully buy yourself new clothes, asking yourself if this action supports a real pleasure or tries to cope a bad situation you’ve experienced before.

You can mindfully go clubbing enjoying the sensations on your body.

You can mindfully eat any dish you like, being aware of what you eat and how much your body deserves and needs it.

You can be mindful, if you want to be mindful. There is no guideline onwards it. There is just the present moment. And this is now.