Mindful Living

Live the best Life you can live.

As the saying goes – This Life is not a Rehearsal. So why do we stumble through our everyday existence as if it were? At best, life can be a scramble to fit all commitments into the day, or else we are sleepwalking on the treadmill of habit to one extent or another. Sometimes it can seem as if we are just tolerating the job, the partner, the aches and pains that may form part or all of our daily lives; at worst living a life we never envisaged living. Mindful living could change the way you live your life.

Due to the magnificent ability of our minds, our lives today are almost literally a roller coaster of events, and information overload via the vast array of social media at our disposal. Choosing how to respond to the myriad of choices open to you moment to moment can be overwhelming. So what do we do? Our brains are in fact much older than the new technology we battle to control. In evolutionary terms our brains are ancient and it therefore natural that we resort to habit. This is a natural and indeed an evolutionary successful ploy – the key to our success as a species. One of the reptilian functions of the brain, which makes us able to perform so many different tasks automatically whilst focusing on those requiring conscious attention. This functional ability has made us a success as a species but in our “enlightened” world it can have its downsides.

Much of life is lived on automatic pilot, a function of doing the same thing, and going to the same place day after day.

You only have to reflect on driving your car on the same route to work, and on some days wondering how you got there, with no recollection of the journey itself to understand how this works. Our brains are magical computers designed to take over habitual repetitive tasks, to free the conscious decision making part of the brain for unusual or more crucial decisions.

[pullquote style=”left” quote=”dark”]Mindfulness courses offer you the opportunity to ‘fall awake’ into your best Life.[/pullquote]The downside to this brilliant ability is that it is quite possible to sleep walk your way through most of your life, feeling at times the sense that everything is ok really, but not as great, not as fulfilling as you imagined it could have been. Indeed sometimes a crisis of health or the loss of a job, financial status, a spouse, a beloved friend/family member can wake you up with a jolt. It is only when this crisis jolts you out of your reverie that you realize you have let life slip by. This is what is often meant by the mid-life crisis. However, it can occur at any time, and mid-life is always questionable since we never know where the mid point is!

If you want to feel more fulfilled deep within your being; to be alive to the possibilities and thrills that this life has to offer then it is up to you to make the changes. From within. In this cheap quick fix world, the only worthwhile work is the work you undertake with and for yourself. You may think that undertaking internal work for yourself is selfish. There is a cliché about glasses being half full or half empty – whatever your belief, if your glass if completely empty you cannot give of yourself to others in any case. This is what happens to many of us when we do not tune in to our body’s signals. Mindfulness practice allows you to tune in and tune up the greatest gift you have – that of your being.