Bridging the space between your practice and everyday life

[Enigma]

Work practice, or samu, also functions integrally in bridging the space between my practice and everyday life, making the gap incredibly narrow. Bringing mindfulness to every activity, regardless of how mundane, is a skill to be cultivated. Once this pervasive mindfulness has reached fruition, a sense of freshness, invigoration, and liveliness that was not previously there arises during even the simplest of tasks.

[Enigma]

By the way, weeding the gravel sounds like a much more pleasant form of samu than shoveling snow outside the meditation center in -20°F (-28°C) weather.

Then again, sensations of numbness in the finger tips and frozen nostrils both evoke a greater sense of bodily mindfulness, even if unpleasant.

Simply noting the desire to escape the cold is a mindfulness exercise in-and-of itself.

[Sunnyhel1]

[quote][/quote]
Thanks for this post. I am new to this forum and have found it very relevant to my daily life. I have been meditating for nearly a year and went on an 8 week Breathworks mindfulness for pain and chronic illness course which finished just before Christmas. I would highly recommend it. One of the issues we did spend significant time discussing was the importance of incorporating mindfulness into daily life while recognising the challenge this presents. Mindful eating is something I have really tried to focus on especially as I love both food and cooking so it is a way to get even more out of them. I have also found it very helpful when I am struggling with physical tasks because of health problems and am frustrated by how slowly I am having to do them; taking a step back and engaging in the overall task including the rests in a more mindful way focussing on the here and now makes the whole thing much easier to tolerate. We were also encouraged to do a three minute meditation focussing on breathing three or more times a day to remind us that mindfulness is available to us whatever we are doing. You can do that anywhere of course so it's great for queues, late running clinics etc. I am still struggling with really making mindfulness part of daily activities but making progress, some days I do better than others! It is good to read other peoples thoughts/ advice

[Gareth]

Hi Sunnyhel1,

Welcome to the forum!

If I were you I'd paste your text into a new topic in 'mindful living' or 'beginning'. I think you will get many more replies.

I use mindfulness to help me live with MS, so I'll be able to give you a couple of ideas at least.