If you haven’t noticed the influx of Internet musings on mindfulness, then I know no other explanation except that you’ve been living in a cave meditating and being mindful. Mindfulness has become the craze these days. I’m sure it can get annoying to people. Sometimes it comes across as haughty, arrogant or spiritually snobby. Some people assume that if someone claims to practice mindfulness, that they think themselves perfect, holier-than-thou. You know, like, a mindful person never flips out, honks the horn at someone driving too slowly, and never ever yells at his or her kids. Not true. Mindfulness is really like a kind of training for the brain. It’s exercise. Just because you go jogging
(Note: In case you weren't able to notice, this post is tongue in cheek, meant to be an entertaining parody on mindful parenting) Mindfulness is so important. I tell this to my three children every morning before they go to school. I cannot emphasize it enough, how important mindfulness is to living a fulfilled, happy life, I tell them. I’m pretty much a mindfulness expert. I have a mindfulness blog, and I do academic research about mindfulness and the effects on the brain. Like, neurological effects and stuff. I also teach yoga and meditate. I teach my kids yoga and meditation too. It’s just SO important. My kids are all over the place, you know? But they get it. They have really taken to b
I mention mindfulness in all of my posts, it is part of my blog title, but I have never offered up a list of simple, real exercises to practice mindfulness. Being mindful is like exercise. It is like building muscles. If you don’t practice, you won’t have muscles. If you’ve practiced for a while and then stop, you will love it to a certain extent. You still have muscle-memory, so when you start your mindfulness practice again you will more easily get it back, but lose it you will. I’m going to jump right in with my top 10 list. I hope you’ll find some here that you feel comfortable trying! I’ll post more in later posts. There are so many to choose from! But for today, here are Thich Nhat Han
