Mindfulness is not an Island in our Lives – it is the Ocean itself Dr Itai Ivtzan
Meditation slowly permeates your everyday life. Dealing with mind wandering, We frequently think of meditation as a practice that lasts for a determined length of time, and is confined to the specific time of the meditative practice – mornings and evenings, for example. But meditation is not an isolated island in your life, it is the ocean itself.
The last time I have visited the gym was 20 years ago. That was my pre-yoga/meditation era and I remember how hard I was working at the gym, huffing and puffing while trying to lift/push/run as much and as far as my body was willing. I look back at it with a smile, the same attitude you might have towards your younger self who used to do some silly things but you realise it was a natural part of your growth journey. Quickly after these gym sessions I found meditation and yoga and never looked back – physical practice without deep awareness and presence became an irrelevant option for me.
A couple of weeks ago I got back to the gym. As I got back to the gym, I was using the same gym equipment as I used 20 years ago, but the experience, oh the experience, was so totally, completely, wholly different.
This time around every push was accompanied with a deep exhale and full awareness and the release of the push was coupled with an inhale and softening. I even tested listening to trance music and found that I could bring together the music beats, movement of the body, and my breath, into an exquisite meditative experience.
This gym adventure emphasised an important insight I am learning as my practice of meditation deepens: the insight is that the practice of mindfulness takes absolutely no time. Seriously. One of the greatest challenges people share with me in relation to their practice of meditation is that they have no time for it.
They say it because they think of mindfulness as a practice separate to life – something for which you need to stop whatever you do and meditate. But what if you could meditate while continuing to do whatever you were doing? What if you could meditate while washing the dishes, walking, exercising in the gym, and talking to your friend? For example, imagine the following washing-the-dishes study: you randomly allocate a group of participants into a “mindful” vs. “distracted” groups.
Both groups are washing the same dishes for the same period of time but the mindful group are fully present with the experience (paying attention to the temperature of the water, the texture of the plates and the feeling of the washing liquid) while the distracted group are simply thinking about other things to do with their daily life. And the results? The mindful group increased their positive emotions and decreased their negative emotions compared with the distracted group. The daily activity of washing the dishes while being mindful was beneficial.
We even have new studies where we examine the impact of presence and mindfulness as part of mobile phone texting! It is true that some foundational practice of sitting-breathing or some other meditation technique would make it easier to apply the meditative state in your daily activities – and yet, if you pay attention, you will hear the whisper of presence in any activity of the moment.
Dr. Itai Ivtzan is a psychologist, you can read more about his meditation certification training and by checking out Dr Ivtzan’s mindfulness teacher training. The mindfulness teacher training formally qualifies you to become a mindfulness coach and it is the ocean itself.
