Stefanie Dorman, MHP:
“Mindfullness is a wonderful, wonderful skill. A lot of people think mindfullness and meditation are the same and they definitely are not. Mindfullness is just being one with yourself and accepting the things that you cannot change and the things that you can change. We all have emotions, right? We all have these angry/sad emotions and with mindfullness you are saying, ‘I am angry right now. I feel this emotion inside of me. I’m angry, and that’s ok.’ And you let that emotion go.
I think the best way that I can think about it if you are laying in the grass and you are looking at the clouds and you are angry. You feel it, you feel it in your body, and you let it go up to the clouds and it flies away with the clouds. And you are just trying to be at peace in your brain and in your mind.
You are going to have thoughts come to you constantly and that’s ok. We are all going to try and have silence in our brain and those thoughts are going to come to us and we are going to accept those thoughts, accept that we are having those thoughts, forgive ourselves, and let them go. The whole point of mindfullness is to quite your mind and to be just in the moment. Everytime a thought comes to your mind when you are trying to be mindful – let it go.
Another way we can start being mindful is by practicing while brushing our teeth. So many of us are just about, ‘Go, go, go, go, go.’ If you are brushing your teeth, a great way to start, is just, ‘I’m just going to brush my teeth. I’m not going to brush my teeth while on the phone. I’m not going to brush my teeth while walking around the house.’ Or whatever it is you do. You are just brushing your teeth. Or when you are washing your hair in the shower, try not to think about anything else, but washing your hair. Think about the fingers on your head, the shampoo, the warm water on your skin, think about that.
It’s just all about being in the present moment. When you do that again, again, and again, it becomes easier, easier, and easier.”