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Beginning a life of practicing Mindfulness requires taking the first step. It’s easy to say to yourself “I’ll start tomorrow when I feel better or this weekend when I have more time.” Why not start today? Start when you are at the market later buying some groceries. Remember that Mindfulness is just one breath away.
Focus on the Cart
When you are at the market, focus your entire attention on pushing your grocery cart. Listen carefully to the one squeaking wheel as you push. It has a rhythm to it, even a little wiggle as you travel down the aisles.
Take it All In
Now choose your grocery items in the same way. First notice how they are arranged, the symmetry of the displays, the way each product is packaged. Select each item. Feel its weight as you hold it in your hand. Look for blemishes. Select another. Continue shopping in this manner. Listen to your foot steps. Now, standing in line at the checkout counter, listen to yourself breathing. Listen to the sounds all around you. Now you are watching your items being bagged, paying for them, smiling at the clerk, seeing her smile back. Notice the other people standing in check-out lines.
Maximizing Your Senses
Preparing your meal or cooking for your family is another great opportunity to practice Mindfulness. By now you are probably beginning to realize that all we are doing is becoming more aware of our life through the use of our senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. If you are cutting vegetables, feel the knife handle in your hand. Notice how the sharp blade slices through cleanly. Inhale the sudden release of scents from each vegetable as you chop and dice. Notice the liquids that bleed from them.
Use All Your Senses to Eat
When you are eating your meal, whether with your family or alone, try to reserve a few seconds of silence for observing the shapes and colors of the food on your plate. Try remembering when you selected them at the market. Concentrate on the food in your mouth, the texture, and the explosion of flavors as you chew each piece in an unhurried, relaxed pace. Try to eat all of your meals in the same mindful manner using all five senses.
Focus on the Present
Cleaning up and washing dishes gives another great opportunity to use all of your senses, keeping you focused in the present. Watch the detergent slide off the dishes as you rinse them. Notice how clean they become. Inhale the fresh, clean smell in the air.
Only a Breath Away
Spend the remaining hours of the day taking in your surroundings, listening to the sounds. Feel your heart beating, notice the barking dog outside in the neighbor’s yard. If you are interrupted by conversations or family matters remember, you are only a breath away from Mindfulness and today was merely the first step of practicing Mindfulness.
Relax and See Things As They Are
Tomorrow when you awake, you will start to see the world as it is, not as we expect it to be or what we fear it might become. Try to spend as much time as possible experiencing your surroundings, your breathing, your foot steps on the pavement, spending as much time being aware as possible. The object is to be using all five of your senses, in an unhurried and relaxed manner.
This report is not a diagnosis. We hope this information can guide you toward improving your life.
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