Being Mindful: Don’t just be. Be Alive.

Are we just watching our life happen like watching a scripted TV, or are we really living the experience and taking it all with every breath?

Life and Awareness

Our life is more than an everyday routine on repeat, its really a dance of possibility, pattern, and beauty all around us, all the time. We need to pause, and consider, and take it all in when we have a chance.

We didn’t really savor the taste of the pizza, as we were watching the TV show, and guess what, we didn’t really grasp the entire TV, as we were eating the pizza. We know both were good in a way but we can’t put a finger on how it felt like. Sometimes its fun to be lost like that, but we can’t make that our way of life.

When we are being mindful and present with the activity, we access the ability or the skill of focus, and observe an extra awareness, helping us grasp more of the present. And feel more alive.

An Illustration:

Take a deep breath, and imagine you are eating a piece of Dark Chocolate.

You take a small bite. Notice the bite, its texture, its softness, the composition of the bitter parts along with the essence of the sweetness, the feeling of the taste swirling in the mouth as it slowly melts away, the fact that this very piece chocolate has come a long way, from far away places only to make us feel better and comforted.

On being mindful, a lot of our experiences can be enhanced, we start appreciating everything in life, a walk in the nature, a presence of friend, times of peace, also the times of hard work and pain. We feel more alive and tend to see more of life.

This mindfulness can be practiced and learned.

We start the practice by being aware of our breath, and resting our attention on it, and it doesn’t matter if our mind drifts away, we just bring the attention back to the sensation of the breath. We follow the breath in and the breath out. This has to be practiced quite a bit, firstly without distraction, and can be done in noisier areas later on.

On getting a grasp on the idea and the technique, it can be extended to everything in life. Eating, playing, watching a movie, having a conversation with someone, reading a book or a beautiful poetry.

Being aware also helps us see our actions, and where they lead us, and help us to see why we do what we do and where we can improve.

Feeling alive is the most important thing as a human, apart from being alive.

Find out what moves you and what you enjoy, an experience you could breathe and live, without much of any external motive.

Some people like to sing or draw or cook or fight. Most people enjoy traveling and seeking novelty as a source of feeling alive.

I personally enjoy adventure sports and traveling as something that makes me feel alive. Also, working out, reading books, and meditation gives me a great sense of being in my mind and my body.

Personal Experience

By pursuing mindfulness, I have gained a greater sense of calm and have been able to control my reactive nature to a good degree. I used to be very reactive and would argue over petty issues, only to realize the pointlessness of it. Now, I pause, and listen to the argument, and try to proceed without making the other individual threatened, also, I take care that I don’t take what they say too seriously that would hurt me.

I try to see things in the positive light, being mindful and aware of my position and their perspective. I thank for their being and understand their suggestions, especially during conversations with close friends and family.

Takeaways

We have only one chance at life, in pursuing the secondary things that our culture says are good, lets not forget the primary thing, life itself. Be aware, be mindful, be conscious.
Don’t just be. Be Alive.

Ujjawal Sureka
A Student of life.

PS: If this post resonated with you, let me know in the comments, also share if you think it will be useful to others. Thank you, and have a great day.

All the images in this post are a courtesy of Pexels.com