As soon as talk of inquiry projects came up, my thoughts immediately went to mindfulness. It’s something I’ve been curious about for a while now but have never actually put the time in to learn more about it, let alone practice any aspect of it for myself. Being assigned an inquiry project, I figured this was the perfect time to not only start doing research into what mindfulness is, what it looks like for me, and to challenge myself to complete one act of self-care every week (preferably every day, but I wanted to set realistic goals for myself with the busy semester). Sound easy, right – who doesn’t love self-care. I was asked just the other day to list specifically what things and decisions I was making explicitly for me… without factoring in anyone or anything else. I honestly struggled to come up with one. So here’s my journey on learning to be more present (mindful), staying focused on what I’m doing, and taking some intentional and purposeful time for me.
So what is mindfulness?
I wanted to put a definition here mostly to help me understand what mindfulness is, and from all the definitions I’ve read, being mindful means to focus on being present. To be aware of your feelings, thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations in that specific moment in time, and to acknowledge them without judgement. A big part of mindfulness is acceptance; it is okay to be feeling that way, it is okay to be thinking that. Be kind to yourself. So many things are so simple yet many of us forget to slow down and think or do them.
