Focus… are you here? (You can be!)
What was the last thing you were thinking of before sleep came last night? Worries about what has passed, thoughts busying themselves about what has been, or ruminations about the future, tomorrow, next week, or, or…?
Did the alarm, or anxiety wake you this morning? I’d guess amongst the first things you thought were:
- I must remember to…
- I’ve got to…
- Hope I can do…
- How will I…?
If not then, was it when brushing your teeth, washing or getting dressed? Did those ‘every morning’ thoughts simply plop unannounced and uninvited into your head? Of course they did!
Monkey-mind, or mind-chatter, describes aptly these intrusive thoughts we believe we are powerless to stop.
Is this helpful, useful, or nurturing? What about if you were able to consider, quite deliberately, what you are experiencing?
Using your senses more fully to see, hear, taste, feel, and smell what is going on ‘in this present moment – the only place we can really, really be, the here and now – rather than continue allowing your mind to reproduce the daily worry and nonsense that sets you up for just another day crashing from situation to situation, reacting and over reacting because you are not there!
Would it be helpful if you created space between thoughts to ‘respond’, rather than re-act?
To really be here… you need focus.
How often have you been in a meeting or discussion and your mind has wandered to the past and future, in fact anywhere but where you should be, paying attention to what you are supposed to be doing?
How many times have you watched the eyes glaze over of the person you are supposed to be having a discussion with? Then again, how often do you do that? Fair enough, there are conversations that bore you, or are badly timed, but for the rest, you owe it to both yourself and the other person to pay attention and focus.
Be here, now, present, centred, and grounded. To be Mindful is to see, hear, taste, smell, and touch what your reality is, wide-awake, here, now.
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Bob Brotchie is a counsellor, mindset consultant and creator of "Conscious Living by Design"™. He writes for Anglia Counselling, is featured on various other websites and introduces us to many guest writers all covering topics related to mental health and wellbeing.
Bob provides bespoke counselling services to individuals and couples in the privacy and comfort of a truly welcoming environment at his Anglia Counselling company office, located near Newmarket in Suffolk, England. Bob also provides professional online counselling, for local, national, and international clients. The therapeutic models offered are bespoke to the client’s needs, especially those in receipt of 'childhood emotional neglect' (CEN), whilst integrating a mindful approach to psychotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) principles. For clients experiencing trauma and/or phobia, Bob offers EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).