Mindfulness Check: Is Your Mind Elsewhere

 If the mind is elsewhere the taste of  food that is eaten is not experienced; if the mind is elsewhere we do not see what is in front of us.

Deepak Chopra on the Vasisthas (The Secrets of Healing, Spotify) 

How much of your food do you truly taste? And how much of the world in front of you do you truly see?  How mindful are you?  How  present are you in this here and now? 

Is Your Mind Else Where

If I could put you on pause right now with some special remote control and got you to observe on some multi sensory screen your experience in that moment on pause, how would you  answer these questions without thinking too much about it, I wonder :

• Where are you and what are you observing and experiencing here in this very moment?
• What are you visually noticing around you in regards to light, colour, spaciousness? Is it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral to your senses?
• What is directly in front of you? What is the colour, shape, visual texture of that "thing"? Is the experience of looking at it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral to your senses? 
• Is there anyone around you?  If so, how physically close to you are they?  Can you sense if their visual presence is neutral, pleasant or unpleasant? 
• What are you hearing?  Can you notice any noise in the background? Is it pleasant, unpleasant or unpleasant? Any sounds in your near vicinity? Pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? 
• Can you hear your own body?  The crinkle of hair over your ear? Your breath? Your heart beat? 
•  If you were just speaking before I paused you, what did your voice sound like? If there are ppl around and they are speaking , without concern for what they are saying, how does their voice sound?  Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What are you smelling?  Notice all smells around you? Nature smells? Body smells? Artificial smells and toxins? etc Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What about touch sensation?  Reach out to that thing in front of you and that person near you...remember they are on pause too so its okay lol? What does it feel like to touch it? Cool or warm? Soft or hard? Any other textures?  Now is it pleasant, neutral or unpleasant?
• Can you taste anything right now?  Have you just taken a bite of something or can you get something from the air around you ...what is that experience like for you?  Salty? Sweet? Bitter or sour? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What are you doing?
• Is this activity something that requires effort or non effort? Speed or slowness? Tension of muscles or stretching of muscles? Are you working alone on this task or with others? If others are involved how do you work together? How do you need each other to get this task done? Is it a  neutral, pleasant or unpleasant experience ? 
• What time of day is it? (Without looking at a clock...is it morning, afternoon or evening) ? 
• Let's get back to body:   How does your body feel in general? Energetic, awake, sleepy, drowsy or tired?   Any tension anywhere?  Where? Any softness anywhere?  Where? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What is your posture like?  Are you sitting, standing or lying down? Are you leaning forward, making yourself small  or are you  tall and expansive?  Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• If you were using your hands: what hand were you using or what hand was doing most of the work?  What is the other hand doing? Are your fists opened or closed? Can you feel any sensations in your palms?
• Check in with your jaw, your brows, your eyes. How does the jaw feel...is it clenched or relaxed?Are you furrowing your brow or is it relaxed?  Squinting your eyes or are they relaxed?  Is the felt experience here  pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• Are you smiling, frowning or is your mouth neutral?  Is this pleasant, unpleasant or neutral ? 
• Where are your feet? Are they making contact with the earth...if so where and how?...Check to see how that feels.  Is it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?  
• Now if you are standing or walking when I paused you, were both feet on the ground or was one in the air...feel that foot in the air and the foot on the ground.  Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• If you are sitting or lying down, what parts of your body are making contact with a surface?  How does that feel? 
• Can you feel your breath? Were you on an exhale or an inhale when I paused you?  Was your belly and chest expanded or contracted? 
• What were you thinking? What thoughts were in your head just as I paused you?  Were they present focused on what you were doing? Or were they unrelated to what was going on in this moment?  Were they future or past focused? Were they perceived as  pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?
• What other mental modifications were going on in that head of yours? Any emotions? Can you name them quickly?  Were they pleasant , unpleasant or neutral?
• Were your reacting as a consequence of these emotions and thoughts? Maybe feeling that reaction in body as a tightness in belly or a clenching of fists or a tensing up of other muscles?  Maybe feeling a need to act and you were making plans to or moving into automatic body movements in order to do so? Maybe you said something or were about to say something in response? Maybe you were using or about to use  one of the habitual defense mechanisms...pushing down and trying to quickly distract , diminishing with more thought, denying and avoiding with more  thought, or activity etc? Maybe you were thinking about how you could fix this moment and make it better or how you could get to the next moment where you convinced yourself that  things would be better?  Or maybe you were trying to figure out how you could make this one last?  Was/is  this  a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral thought experience to your psyche? 
• Lets get back to breath both to observe and anchor.  Is your in- breath shallow or deep?  Long or short? Can you feel the air coming in through your nostrils? Which nostril is dominate? Can you feel your whole chest expanding , your belly expanded?  Does it feel like the air is going in all the way or is it getting stuck somewhere?  Feel those muscles in your chest, diaphragm, shoulders and back ?  Are they moving smoothly with every in breath or does it feel awkward? Is the rest of your body tensing with the in breath or softening and relaxing? Are you forcing the in breath or letting it come naturally?  Is the in breath pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?  
•  Did you notice a pause after the in breath? How did it feel? 
• What about the out-breath?  Is it deep or shallow? Long or short?Can you feel the belly, then the chest softening and releasing on the exhale.  Can you feel the air leaving your nostrils?  Which one seems dominate? What about those accessory muscles ...are they moving smoothly or awkwardly? Is your body tensing or relaxing with the out-breath? Are you forcing in anyway or is the breath natural and effortless?  Is the out breath pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• Did you notice a pause after the out-breath? How did it feel?

Now you have completed your mindfulness check? I bet that when you were doing whatever it was you were doing you were not aware of many of these points I asked you to check, right?  You may have been aware of what you were thinking but that thinking probably seemed like your entire reality at the time and everything else about this moment I paused you in was not experienced by you ( unless it was very pleasant or unpleasant, that is).  You more than likely were not aware that you were thinking and that that thinking was taking you away from your moment experience until you paused to check. 

If that is the case, don't beat yourself up.  That is the case for most of us.  Being mindful and staying mindful is not as easy as it looks.  It requires so much practice.  If  we all had remote controls that paused us several times a day so we could ask ourselves these questions as we observed ourselves on pause,  it would be a lot easier to learn this wonderful tool for living. But atlas...there is no such thing. In the courses I am  taken there was provided for study a research article where an app was used on the phones of  15,000 participants in a study to get them to pause several times a day in order to do a much less detailed mindfulness check in order to assess the effect such mindfulness checks had on stress reduction and life satisfaction.  Well obviously the results indicated that that the apps were very good in reducing stress and improving one's satisfaction with life.  Such apps would be very beneficial but really we don't need an app.  Do we? We just need to get in the habit of ,at least once an hour, checking in with ourselves.   The more we do these mindfulness checks, the more mindful we become and the less we need to check in. 

Hmm  Something to think about.

All is well! 

(I will link the article at a later date)