The Secret Art of Mindfulness
Hey, John. You should breathe.
How to get out of your head and start living.
How many times do you find yourself lost in thoughts, while your computer goes to sleep and your coffee cup cools down? Past decisions, missed opportunities, and love stories crowd in your mind like witnesses of a never-ending trial, and you are always on the stand. You try to leave the voices behind, but they are stronger than ever, and you struggle to focus on whatever you are doing. The coffee is always cold and the computer screen always black.
Relax, it happens to the best of us.
Modern psychology calls it anxiety, neuroscientists debate about ADD treatments (Attention Deficit Disorder), and your father will probably call it Failure. What if the truth laid behind those definitions? What if we had the power to master our mind without the help of medicine, therapy, or blown-out achievements? I invite you to take a look at a wider picture.
Our ego-focused lives are just a chapter of much longer stories, but what are the stories about? Few people know. Mainstream gurus promise everything was meant to be. Planets, Destiny, Karma. You name it.
New-age philosophers, Facebook experts, and Bali lovers have been doing more harm than justice to the ancient wisdom of mindfulness. This discipline does not necessarily announce a happy ending. Instead, it requires a lot of practice, self-control, and empathy. All it takes is a deep breath. Everything already is in the right place and you will feel it as soon as you close your eyes. The outside world disappears and a whole new ocean opens up for you. In order to navigate it, meditation will have to become second nature. Breathing exercises can also help you to improve your awareness. An inner state of peace should be your ultimate goal.
Mindfulness is the ability to focus on the present moment regardless the meaning of it. Whether you are facing a hard time, or living your best life, a concious mind should always be untouched. Nothing lasts forever and your mind needs to be equipped for both storms and rainbows.
Look at it this way: you are standing inside a station. Lots of trains come and go, and you can either jump on one of them or stay still. There is no indication of where the trains go and how long they take. How do we choose? How can we possibly make decisions without any guarantee?
The answer is simple: we don’t. You can take that burden off your chest. What looks like a crosspath to you, it’s just a river that breaks into smaller streams. The fish will eventually make it to the sea anyway.
So my dear fish friend, if you want to start putting into practice a mindful attitude in your life, this is where you start: kill the Ego. The universe is bigger than your plans and whatever you do, fail soon in order to fail better. Mistakes are the best way to learn your lessons, so stop trying to be the best version of yourself and embrace your fate.
You are the main character of your own story, and if the episode you are going through right now belongs to the drama, comedy, or horror section… well, you’ll have to play along anyway. Just remember: all streams head to the sea, in one way or another.
