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By Cynthia Clinton

I was writing another article and it occurred to me that sometimes I write an article for myself, like during a hard time, to remind myself of what I already know - to bring what I know into mindfulness.  Knowing is the easy part.  It’s the mindfulness that is the lifelong struggle for us.  With practice and diligence, we will get better at being mindful and it’ll get easier, but because of the nature of specific focus, complete mindfulness will be a challenge.

Ask anyone who’s ever read a great self-help book…

While reading a self-help book we’re excited and elated and convinced this is our magic bullet - and maybe it is.  We finish the book and think for a day or three about how we can apply what we’ve learned in our lives, but in another day or so, it’s all gone.  We didn’t get the help we needed, despite the book being a great book.  Why?

Because we learned something life-changing, but we didn’t yet have the mindfulness to make the changes.

Mindfulness is the ability to keep something at the forefront our minds during other activities and preoccupations.  We must have the mindfulness to catch ourselves doing the undesired behavior and the mindfulness to then apply the great stuff we’ve learned.

Most of us have a difficult time with mindfulness because there’s so much other stuff we’re focusing on, like the day-to-day grind, problems that arise, our work, our kids, our spouses, our in-laws, our parents, and a plethora of rotating issues.  We get so wrapped up in the day-to-day that not only is what we read in the self-help book a million miles away, but our mental habits are so rote that the things we want to change in there just blaze on by without us giving them a thought.  So we’re stuck on this hamster wheel of problems.

We read another self-help book and another and another and they are all magic bullets.  They are all stuff we already know.  They are all great books.  But we go, go, go around the hamster wheel thinking those great things we know must not really work anyway because the magic bullet part is missing.

It’s missing the part that transforms our lives.

My friends, the magic bullet part - the part that transforms our lives - is the part only we can do.  This is our work.  No book can be mindful for us.  Alas, the hardest part of making positive changes is the part that’s our job to do!  How can we learn to be mindful when the rest of life is so overwhelming?

• We can narrow our focus and instead of trying to be mindful of everything we want to change, we can focus on just one thing at a time.
• We can practice being mindful for short periods of time in the beginning.  The promise to self to stay mindful all day is quickly forgotten in the busyness of the day.  Start with 15 minutes.  Do your regular business, but for the next 15 minutes eavesdrop on yourself and try to catch yourself in the undesired behavior or thought process.  Gradually increase your time once you have some success.  Soon you will have been mindful enough times to have made your one, small change.  Now tackle another in the same way.  Just one at a time and work on it until you resolve it.
• We can leave ourselves notes to remind us to be mindful.  If you can’t do this is your situation, buy some dots.  Associate your need to be mindful of this one thing with a certain colored dot.  Stick those darned dots everywhere.  You will know what the dot means, but others will not.
• We can meditate.  Don’t meditate focused on your problem.  Meditate to open your mind to mindfulness.  Meditate to quiet the chatter so that it’s easier to be mindful.  Meditate to chop down stress reactions in your daily life.  Meditate.
• We can “prepave”.  Prepaving is where you spend a few minutes plotting out a future event the way you’d like it to happen.  Like say you have an important sales meeting tomorrow at which you must make a presentation.  Instead of entertaining worries, you would envision the day ahead of you.  See yourself getting dressed for the meeting, your hair going right, your suit looking great.  See yourself have an effortless, peaceful drive into work, even arriving a few minutes early.  See yourself giving your presentation.  See it being received warmly and positively.  See your prospects being sold.  Play it all out like a movie in your mind or like a memory of something that’s already happened.  Feel the joy at having been successful and getting a clap on the back from your boss or a promotion.  See your desired outcome - your best case scenario.  This is prepaving.  The days play out much like we expect, so learn to expect better days!

These are just a few examples of how we can train ourselves to increase our mindfulness.  Anyone can do it.  It doesn’t depend on intelligence or good looks or good luck.  It just takes practice and the desire to achieve it.  Anyone can practice and desire.  In fact, you’re practicing and desiring *something* all the time!

Now, don’t make the mistake of telling yourself, “Wow, I *suck* at mindfulness!” because statements like these are part of the problem.  If you caught yourself saying that or a similar thing, let that be your first thing to be mindful of… self deprecating self talk.  Get rid of it.  It will never do you any good ever.  How’s that for using a two absolutes in one sentence?  Regardless of the double absolute, it’s as true as “sky” or “water”.  There’s no need for proof because the truth of it is right there.

If you’re practicing mindfulness and you fall down, don’t berate yourself.  Just get up and start practicing again.  No harm, no foul.  Just get going again.  It’s not important whether we fall in our struggle for mindfulness, it’s important that we get up and try again.

What’s one thing you’d like to be more mindful of?

© 2008 Cynthia Clinton

About the author:
Cynthia Clinton is an emotional energy counselor, fitness trainer, author, mortgage consultant, artist, and jewelry designer.  She is the founder of Wholy One Wellness Center in Gilroy, CA (95020)  408-310-2126.  You can find her on the web at www.wholyone.com.  To contact Cynthia for a mortgage in California, find her at www.cynthiaclinton.com/mortgages.htm or call 408-310-0027 or toll-free in California 1-888-701-0808.