Your state of mind is reflected in the environment and the environment is reflected in
your mind!”
This 'Quarantine/Lockdown' time is an excellent opportunity for diving deeply into the Secrets of Mindfulness while working from home. Please change the language you use for referring to this period of pandemic recovery to something more creative, e.g. WFH, working for myself, etc.
Mindfulness: the whitewash
When I read articles about 'mindfulness, I'm shocked at how glib authors and organizations are. They gloss it like a fashion accessory like 'Apple watch' or 'networking.' I see it on tee-shirts, baseball caps and mugs. Even academic researchers make glib definitions like:
"mindfulness is generally described as being aware and paying attention to what is occurring in the present moment, e.g. thoughts, body sensations, surroundings, without
judgement"
The idea is so abstract because most people have no idea how not to judge. We are born prejudiced, and all do it unconsciously, and it's a part of the human condition.
Are these messages on consumer items meant to tell others that the wearers are practising mindfulness or wish-fulfilling prophesies? According to my research, companies offer mindfulness training but help with stress relief using broad psychological brush strokes. I want to detail this term and let you into the true secrets of being mindful learned over many lifetimes.
Mindfulness is full
awareness.
From my perspective—someone who has been meditating for many years teaches others to meditate and guides people to look inside their bodies to visualize what is happening so that they can observe without prejudice (Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais body-reeducation), it means being in full mind. But what does that mean exactly? Awareness is the key to being mindful. It doesn't have much to do with the intellectual mind we use in everyday life but instead with consciousness.
If you watch a fully aware animal preparing to hunt, you will see that every muscle, ligament and hair is alert and alive. It is not thinking (thoughts die immediately they are born) or using any intellectual process. It gives over its body to instincts and impulses—primarily the urge to survive by feeding itself.
Survival Instincts and
Most humans do not need to hunt for food to survive, so these instincts are dormant if we live in cities or suburbs. Imagining that we are about to hunt just like an animal may help us to be mindful. Empathize, putting all your energy into your desperate state of hunger and the need to satisfy it.
The Breath
Breathing is the best-kept secret of mindfulness, especially when you're working from home and you can be yourself.
Your breathing muscles—the lungs—are housed inside the protective bony cage called the rib cage. The rib cage shape gives form to your chest, and this is the centre of your breathing function. And breathe you do again and again. But we do take this ability for granted, except when it fails us, or it is likely we can't take the next breath.
The image of lungs frantically processing gases with millions of tiny explosions of air sacks (see opening) has always inspired me. I bring it to my focused breathing every day. Our two lungs process oxygen that we take from the atmosphere so that the poisonous gases, nitrogen, dispel when we breathe out. The nourishing pure oxygen is retained and relayed throughout the body. We do not need to consciously breathe each breath because the Earth and our miraculous bodies take care of it in the background of our lives.
I imagine this incredibly delicate and brilliant exchange process that enables us to survive each breath when I'm mindful. Then, following the remarkable example of Australian aboriginals, I say thank you to Planet Earth for providing oxygen-rich air that I can borrow for each breath. Yes, we borrow the air from our remarkable planet, and this reality makes me able to be mindful so easily.
Indigenous people have a rare relationship with the natural environment. They believe all the natural elements are family, and therefore they live in an inter-dependent or integrated way quite different from many of us.
First Nation's 'Breath of Life' Theory connects all existence to breathing and the protection that human beings, especially children, can gain from their spiritual gratitude for every breath they take.
We have forgotten the
secrets of mindfulness.
Human beings are currently 100% evolved physically, and what a miraculous body we are each have. But it is also estimated that many of us are only 10% spiritually evolved, which is one of the reasons we have forgotten the secrets of mindfulness. But this article will hopefully set you on a new pathway of awareness.
Practical techniques to be
mindful while working from home
Before your working session, it's good to have a few moments to prepare your mindset. Make sure the window is open, or the air in your workspace is circulating. Let's start with a body check.
· Eyes
Lightly closing the eyes helps but don't close them entirely. Look down the length of your nose under your eyelids so that you don't get sleepy.
· Posture
Stand, rather than sit, in front of your desk/worktable. Your feet need to be hip-width apart and positioned in a straight line from heel to toe. Visualize your heels going down into the Earth—don't push or do anything, visualize—your arms hanging from the shoulder, your middle finger finding the side seam in your pants if you have one, but entirely vertically if you don't. Imagine your crown going up into blue sky and the 33 spinal bones hanging loosely from the top of your spine (the Atlas) somewhere between your ears. Imagine a shock-absorber between each of the bones.
· Breathing
Once you are balanced, standing tall without any stretching, start to become aware of your breathing, and deepen it, breathing in through your nose and letting the spent breath out through your mouth. Visualize your lungs purifying the breath you inhale and expelling the harmful gases as you breathe out.
Let your used breath out slowly and take a new breath in slowly. Be mindful of your breath for this time, reminding yourself how fortunate you are to be able to take each breath with the borrowed oxygen the Earth provides.
Questions to reflect gently on to be more mindfulness
As you breathe and start to feel the release and the strength when you give your full attention to your breath, let these three questions float into your mind:
How do I survive every moment as a human being?What does the Earth endow me with at birth?How am I developing my potential?
'Reflection' means just allowing your mind to play with these questions and their answers. Let them be mirrors that reflect something. Don't give too much importance to the words—but please know I have chosen them carefully.
Reframing working
mindfully
We can avoid letting what we do to earn our livelihood becoming our whole purpose in life. When you stood in preparation to breathe more deeply, you started to feel balanced, and this solid but supple stance is the one you need to adopt about the way you think about your work.
Another three questions are essential to reflect on:
Why am I doing this job?What is the most critical thing in my life?What makes me happiest?
Widening your perspective on your own life will bring new qualities to your performance at work. And if you can widen just as you have lengthened your spine with a simple thought, then everyone will benefit from it. Please be assured that you have incredible power, which uniquely does touch and influence others.
There are many secrets of
mindfulness when working from home
I will continue to let you in on them in future articles.
How about imagining being 100% evolved spiritually and emotionally, too? Can you feel how the world around you would change if you could be?
The Secrets of Mindfulness
and writing
Perhaps as part of your work detail, you need to write reports, emails, recommendations, reviews, etc. Being mindful when words are concerned is tricky, but I've found a way. My three bywords are:
TransparencyEmpathyAnticipation- (can't turn off bullets)
- I am a UX Copywriter helping companies to improve the writing they use to attract customers. We are sincerely concerned with their client's needs, and we strive to be entirely honest and open. We train intensely to imagine the client's 'moments' as they start their buyer's journey by empathizing. We become skilled at anticipating everything they will need to meet their goal.
I think these three words will stand you in good stead as you deal with customers, managers and colleagues while working from home. If you are fully aware and balanced, you will express all three of these positive traits in your dealings with your business community. And this is how the internet should be going forward-a virtual palace where we enjoy being and purchasing and can rely on being respected as human beings!
Final Thoughts
If all humans become properly mindful, then this is a distinct possibility soon.
Your mindfulness will contribute to this internet revolution that we are participating in right now.
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