Second meditation

I am writing this post to show you that mindfulness takes many forms. When I awoke after my first meditation, I wanted to keep that feeling going, so I tried to be more mindful during my preparations for school. Now, this is not traditional meditation, but it is practiced mindfulness.

 I normally turn on the radio in the morning, thinking that I want to hear whether anything important happened since the day before. The station I normally listen to usually has many interesting talk topics throughout the day, but the morning host I find to be intensely annoying, which is unusual for me since I generally do not let people annoy me. At any rate, I guess I turn the radio on sometimes even though I know that this guy is going to get my goat. This particular morning, though, I decided not to turn the radio on. I decided to prepare for work in silence.

As I stated earlier, I was still feeling the calming effects of my previous meditation, so I started in a good place. What I did was pay careful attention to everything I was doing. As I walked, felt the carpet against my feet. As I reached for the light switch, I did so consciously, not as I normally did, which was automatically. Most mornings as I prepare for the day, I go through the motions of getting ready, and many of my behaviors are now automatic and thoughtless. What does my mind do during this time? It worries, it plans, it frets, it evaluates. That is why I decided to continue my morning preparations while being mindful.

Generally, I try to get ready quickly so I can get to Kerby's and start my plans for the day. I wanted to do that this morning as well, but I found that hurrying takes away from mindfulness. So, I tried to find a balance. What I found was that being mindful of what I was doing caused me to slow down a bit, but it also made me more efficient and less stressed.  My mind was not multi-tasking, so it was organized and calm.  I decided to continue this experience while driving in to work. The radio was off and I just attended to the road. A couple of times, I got behind slow drivers, and I felt a little tension come up, as it always does when I get stuck behind people who drive too slowly (to me, obviously not to them). Instead of getting upset or even a little anxious, I just attended to the feeling in my gut and let it pass without notice.

The practical benefits of all of this were that I was more efficient, more relaxed, and I enjoyed my work more.