Every time I talk about mindfulness, I hear a few common responses:
“My brain is way too busy to be mindful.”
“My ADD is so bad; I just can’t focus.”
“The last thing I need is something else on my to-do list. I already feel guilty for everything I don’t get done.”
I understand. I really do. I forget to be mindful all the time. My mind wanders constantly. I get to the end of a shower and my hair is wet but I’ve been so busy planning my day that I have no idea if I’ve washed it or not. I spill blueberries all over the kitchen floor and forget to answer emails and lose my keys and pinch my little girl’s chin into the buckle of her car seat because I’m just not paying attention.
And yet I still maintain that I practice mindfulness on a daily basis.
Mindfulness is about choosing to pay attention to the present moment with kindness and curiosity.
The difference between me and my friends who insist they can’t? It’s certainly not that I’m some sort of blissed-out Dalai Mama. It’s that I understand what mindfulness is, what it’s not, and what it means to practice it.
Here are a few reasons you might be having a hard time getting started, and what you can do about:
You can read the rest of this post over at WBUR’s Cognoscenti Blog.
