I Find Peace Like This
It may seem difficult to keep up with your meditation and mindfulness practice while traveling, but actually, it is a great opportunity to challenge yourself while you are out of your daily routines and comfort zone.
Recently I was a guest speaker in one high-school on which I was supposed to introduce teaching Mindfulness. Since I usually teach about Mindfulness to youth who are familiar and motivated to learn about it and most of the time in small groups, I didn’t prepare anything special. I just do my usual talk and few simple exercises. After a few minutes, I’ve noticed that most of the class in which there were more than 30 pupils aged around 17, were completely unaware of my existence.
It is far more easier to present Mindfulness to children than to adults. Do you know why? Because children live in the present moment and every day they teach us to be aware, present and focused on here and now. They remind us that our lives are happening right now and not in the past or the future.
Although Mindfulness has become really popular in the last years, the word may still seem a bit abstract and confusing for some people. Often it sounds like it is some kind of challenging practice just for the chosen ones.
In the past years all around the world Mindfulness and meditation have become very popular and implemented in different school settings.
For some period of my life I have believed that one of my best qualities is being able to always give advice to people. I considered that my judgement and empathy were remarkable, and therefore, my advice was so valuable and helpful to everyone.
People who are involved in solving different social issues in their communities, who are being engaged in helping professions rely on their compassion, empathy and ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. This is a remarkable personality trait, but often we forget to be self-aware when being emphatic.
There is one simple exercise which I like to do on workshops: I ask participants to write kind wishes for themselves and others from the group. In most of the cases what usually happens is that people forget to write wishes for themselves, or they “leave them behind”, until the end of exercise and then write something quickly as possible without much thinking.
To have a mindful mind means to practice paying attention, being aware of your surroundings, feelings, moods, your body, different sensations you experience in the present moment without judging or analyzing it, just simply being aware of it here and now.
A few years ago when I got familiar with meditation I didn’t know where it would take me. I had no expectations and no set goals with it. Meditation took me to a journey on which I have discovered how powerful my mind was and how I let it control me not in a nice way for quite some time. Now, finally, I’m working towards being more friendly with my thoughts, emotions and most of all my inner self.
