Your senses are your window to the world; you experience life through your senses. Yet, in your everyday routine, you remain busy in trying to make meaning of whatever you see, hear, smell, taste and touch. This is necessary and an essential part of survival! However, if you think about it, every sensory experience is so rich on its own.
Keeping this in mind, this blog describes a mindfulness exercise that involves paying attention to one sense at a time.
When you are upset, tired or stressed, it becomes difficult to focus at work. You are more vulnerable to distractions and everything takes twice as long to do.
“I have been going through a difficult time since the past couple of days. I am shifting to a new house and there are soooo many things to take care of. It is very stressful and it is creating a tense family atmosphere as well. There are projects to finish at work but I find my mind drifting to these problems. It is becoming really difficult to concentrate at my job. My personal problems are starting to get the better of me. It’s affecting my work now! I don’t know what to do about it…”
– Mr.K.L, Senior Manager.
“It’s affecting my work.” Most of us have used this line at some time; generally, when something is going wrong in our personal life and it is starting to affect our productivity at work. It could be a fight with a friend. A neighbour who is causing you unnecessary trouble. Or like Mr. K.L, a tense family environment.
We feel stressed and our mind seems in disarray. It becomes difficult to focus on the task at hand. You don’t feel like working and you struggle to make it through the day.
In the previous section of this blog post, we described how you can identify if you are stressed because you are focusing too much on progress. In this section, we first dwell on why we sub-consciously develop this mindset. Then, we move on to describe what we can do to avoid over-focusing on progress.
We specialize in combining psychotherapy with deep wellness practices like mindfulness and meditation and creating a customized mental health plan for individuals and organisations.
We specialize in combining psychotherapy with deep wellness practices like mindfulness and meditation and creating a customized mental health plan for individuals and organisations.
A young woman from another country moved with her family to live for one year in a town near the monastery. When, in the course of the year she discovered the monastery, she would periodically visit to have discussions with the Abbess. The Abbess introduced her to meditation, which became very meaningful for the young woman.
When the family’s year-long stay was drawing to an end, the young woman asked the Abbess, “In my country there is no Buddhism and no one has even heard about meditation. How can I continue to learn and deepen the practice you have started me on?”
The Abbess said, “When you return home ask far and wide for who, among the wise people, is recognized as having the greatest ability to listen. Ask that person to instruct you in the art of listening. What you learn about listening from such a person will teach you how to further your meditation practice.
― Gil Fronsdal, A Monastery Within: Tales from the Buddhist Path
