Being present... for the fun of it

We often forget to use our minds as allies. I find this odd considering just how thrilling it can be to harness our minds through mindfulness, meditation, and affirmations/positive thoughts. Whatever the reason, it has been surprising for me to see that mindfulness actually helps me enjoy life more, and create more positivity out of everyday life.

As a counselor in a community mental health setting, I noticed that most of my clients approached meditation as a serious task, almost as if it were a school assignment that they could pass or fail. I'd be willing to venture that many of us find it difficult to grasp the concept of meditation, feeling stuck inside this "pass" and "fail" mentality which is, after all, our most familiar M.O.. But the concept of meditation is that you neither pass nor fail; it's a practice of letting go of the whole construct of evaluating ourselves and others. For some, it's stepping into mental territory that they've never visited.

However, many of my clients were familiar with something I'd call accidental mindfulness - the kind of non-judgmental trance you get into when you're zoning out to the TV (or X-box), or cruising around a back country road with the windows down. Without any special training, they often created experiences that brought them into a state of non-judgmental relaxation, refreshing their minds and souls. Of course, there are also self-destructive ways of relaxing, like substance abuse, which more fully check you out of yourself. But many of us do have one or two activities we can use as a refuge, allowing us to relax the mind and integrate/process the things that are troubling us.

The cool part about mindfulness, in this respect, is that it broadens your ability to drop into accidental mindfulness in more situations. You may start out only being able to relax in front of a certain Rom-Com you enjoy, or playing a video game, and soon find yourself taking refuge in the painting on your doctor's waiting room wall, the sunset in rush-hour traffic, or your own breath as you deal with stress at work. (You may even find yourself being able to focus on the positive in others, instead of the things that trigger you!) You may find yourself enjoying a much broader range of things, since pleasure is one of the many feelings that mindfulness practice allows you to embrace.