Mindful Doodles #111:
Are you assimilating stimuli from your environment?
Many people are so busy and caught up in their lives that they function like robots. They are in their own rat race. We need to be aware of our environment. We will be aware of more stimuli, process them in our brain, and derive information from them, which will help us. You become smarter. This is also a part of clinical intuition; aka intuition that comes “gut feeling”. We know that instinct when we process data using raw input facts, experience, wisdom, imagination, and knowledge. We have intuition inbuilt into our human nature. We just have to develop our skills to be fast enough to come up with intuitions.
Mindfulness Meditation #1 – Mindful of Thoughts
Are you very busy? Are you moving from day to day like a zombie on auto pilot? Do you want to slow down and catch your breath sometimes? Try mindfulness. Sit in a comfortable posture. Breathe deeply. Whatever thought comes into your mind, let it come and leave naturally. You are not disturbed by thoughts. Breathe.
Thoughts in your mind are mental food for your brain. If you feed positive mental thoughts to your brain, it will be nourished. You feel positive and better able to manage challenges in life.
Mindful Meditation #2 – Mindful of Taste
You can use these basic principles of mindfulness to be aware of what you eat. Take each bite of your meal slowly. Pay attention to the sensation of smell, taste and temperature in your mouth. You are tasting mindfulness. You concentrated and paid attention to the taste sensations in your mouth.
If you are calm and relaxed enough, you can do more by reflecting on the sensation of taste. What does your food smell like? What does this remind you of? Do you enjoy this taste? Does it remind you of similar tastes? Is your food warm, hot or cold?
Can you stop eating the minute you feel sated? Do you have a habit of finishing everything on your plate? If you wish to reduce your food intake because of a weight issue like being overweight, then you may try to be mindful of when your stomach tells you it is sated and you don’t have to clean your plate.
Mindful Meditation #3 – Mindful of Breathing
Sit in a comfortable position. Breathe normally. Focus on breathing. If your mind has chatter, let the thoughts pass. Just think of breathing. As you inhale air, feel your lungs expand. Your diaphragm contracts. Breathe out and feel your diaphragm expand. Only think of air flow, as it moves from your nostrils, through your trachea, down into your lungs. Your mind is filled with thoughts of air flow. You don’t hold onto other thoughts so your mind continues its calm and peaceful. As nothing sticks, your mind does not retain negative thoughts. Subsequently, you are not mentally disturbed.
Mindful Meditation #4 – Mindful of body
In this method, we pay attention to each part of our body, starting from the head, right down to the toes. If you feel something, pay attention to it and make a mental notes of it. For example, if you feel your hair or head is itchy because of dry scalp, make a note of it, telling yourself you will deal wit it later. With this issue handled, you are free to move on to the next area of your body. How does that area feel? When you acknowledge your sensations, you are taking care of that region and this satisfies it. There is calm and you mind feels peace. You can move on.
Mindful Meditation # 5 – Mindful of sounds
Sit in your small sanctuary and prepare to meditate. What sounds do you hear? I hear the whir of my table top fan. I hear the chirping of birds outside. I hear the roar of airplanes flying past. I hear the sound of my Venetian blinds being blown about by the wind. I don’t think of anything else. I hear the sounds and let them go. The sounds do not disturb me. In fact, I’m grateful for hearing them. If not for these stimuli, I would be living in a desert, devoid of natural and man-made sounds.
A lap-top, drawing paper, brush, ink bottle and USB portable mini-fan.
Mindful Meditation #6 – Full Body Mindfulness
If you had plenty of experience with mindful meditations 1 to 5, then you are ready to try Full Body Mindfulness meditation. Combine everything that you have learned and practiced. Pay due respect to the stimuli that you encounter. As you meet each stimulus, you pause a little, then let it go.
Benefits of mindfulness:
1) Feel peace and calm.
2) Reduces stress and anxiety.
3) Feel positive.
4) Concentrate and focus better.
5) Manage pain and illness.
6) Appreciate one’s station in life.
7) Improved self-awareness, insight and intuition.
8) To feel increased boundary and personal space.
9) To accept one’s limits.
10) To cope with strong emotions that may destabilize one’s equilibrium.
What is Mindful Doodles?
Mindful Doodles is a series of comic/ cartoon drawn on assimilating stimuli that comes into my mind. My surrounding and environment are dynamic. As events happen, the stimuli enters my brain and I pay attention to them. I am not mentally disturbed as I pay due respect to each stimulus. I ponder upon how I would deal with the stimulus, to manage the situation. I try to discover what lesson the Universe bestows on me in this encounter. I write my discovery as my Mindful Thought of the Day.
Why be mindful? By paying time and attention to a disturbing stimulus, you deal with it. It ceases to be new and disruptive to you. You have released anxiety. You have greatly reduced your mental stress.
How to be mindful and accept things as they are?
(1) Be still and let the thought pass.
(2) Pay attention to the now.
(3) Accept your weaknesses. Its OK to be broken.
(4) Accept your problem. Continue living with it.
(5) Let go of disturbing thoughts.
