Try This Exercise To Strengthen Your Mindfulness

A safe haven where you are free to be
mindless-mindful-mindling…

In the end, what should each of us strive to do besides reducing the continuous buzzing of noise inside our thinking minds, which, if you think about it, sounds like “hip hop” music: instead of hip hopping to music, we are “hip hopping” to our mind’s thoughts….

I mean, seriously, have you ever had the chance to look at yourself in the mirror when you are thinking about some things—as it’s always plural.

Now, please take a minute, as an exercise…Either take a video of yourself or let someone take a video of you while you are thinking of something, anything, or even nothing.

Thinking Mind Moods

Notice the entertaining expressions on your face, such as:

• Frowning with the eyebrows either raised or sewn together into a straight line, with lips pursed together.
• Angry with the jaw clenched and your face red or flushed, with eyes bulged as if you were ready to pounce on someone.
• Happy with everything relaxed and that soft smile on your face; suddenly your face is like an advert for Baby Johnson.
• Upset with the eyes droopy and tearful and shoulders slumped down, with your whole posture seeming like you are falling.
• In Love with eyes sparkling, and your smile reaches each end of your face; it suddenly looks like your face can produce Botox, and you look ten years younger.
• Dazed, now that’s a tricky one, because it means you are in Lala land, unaware of your surroundings and unable to focus; similarly, your eyes seem lost in between alpha and beta stages.

Try this amusing exercise, and then try to think about that same thing that caused you all these emotions but with a different expression. So, try to think of something that makes you angry but with a dazed expression, or think of something that makes you frown but with a happy expression. I know it’s difficult, but just try. We have nothing to lose…just some “mindling” activity.

Suggested reading: http://swamij.com/swami-rama-emptions-mind.htm