Do Something For You Today #2
Touch A Texture
It’s a rich world we live in. Why not experience it for yourself?
I mean really experience it. Reach out to it and touch it. Feel it. Slow down long enough to attend to the textures.
Living mindfully, being ‘in the moment’ and practising mindfulness are really nice buzzwords. They also have little relevance if you don’t practise them in this moment. And this one. And this one.
There may be no better way to practise being mindful (and to gain some of its benefits — engaging the replenishing side of your nervous system, increasing attention, increasing insight about your internal self and how things are going, decreasing your response to distressing experiences) than by touching a texture.
See that tree over there? I’m curious to know what its leaves feel like. And what do they feel like compared to this tree’s leaves, the one by the red car there?
Ooh, that red car. What does the paint feel like to run your fingers along it? What do your fingers feel like for the next 30 seconds after running them along the paint?
How about those bricks? For me, bricks and concrete stimulate my nervous system. When I run my palm lightly across their rough surface, my nervous system perks up and I increase my alertness. It’s like magic.
And when I say ‘feel’ I don’t mean ‘think about’. No, you can think about it later. What I mean is, feel it. When your thoughts return to the day ahead, or to the next meeting, or shopping or the really weird thing your friend said to you last night on the phone, simply acknowledge that you’re thinking about that thing, then bring your awareness back to feeling the texture. Thirty seconds, that’s all. Thirty seconds of blissful, simple experience.
I wonder, what textures could you touch today? Because while you’re touching a texture and feeling it, really feeling it, you’re not attending to something else. You are completely immerse in this moment. In this experience. You are living life to the full.
