Do you believe that you can be good at mindfulness? I do.

This ability to be aware of our surroundings, our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions reside in all of us.

I hear it often: “I want to be aware of my anger, so that I can catch it”, “I want to be aware of my own breathing”, “I want to be conscious of what I am thinking”, “I want to be actively present when I am having conversations”.

Even though we have never consciously looked for awareness before, we can start doing so any time.

Mindfulness is a skill. That is both good news and bad news.

The good news is we can excel at it since it is a skill we can develop. The bad news is it needs constant practice (hard work).

If you put your mind to it, you can achieve many things through mindfulness.

We are always desperately looking for ways to minimize stress, to manage our anger, to have effective communications, to control our flow of thoughts, to be aware of our emotions.

What do you want to achieve through Mindfulness?

Are you always reactive to difficult situations?

Trying to react instead of being calm and in control?

Are you easily provoked by someone’s negative behavior?

Are you always stressed?

Are you having a hard time controlling your thoughts?

Are you more of a talker and less of a listener?

If ‘YES’ is your answer to the above questions, then this statement describes you.

You’re just living reactively. You are not consciously living. You want to live a happy and successful life but you do not take the steps necessary to become aware of yourself and your environment.

Without your conscious effort, you cannot become aware of. You cannot learn to be really conscious of what you are thinking and feeling.

Taking daily conscious actions equals Awareness.

Let me give you my example. Many years ago, I’ve been a person who was easily angered. I’ve been known to be a person who was easily provoked into full-blown anger. I have repeatedly asked myself: ‘How did I get here?’ in the past, because I would become so negative at the end of many days.

That changed a few years ago when I decided to only focus on myself. And that strategy has worked well for me. I said no to reactive living. I decided to no longer allow other’s thoughts to alter my thoughts and feelings. I learned to focus on the present moment rather than the time that has already passed or a future scenario.

I learned to be conscious of my own breathing.

In one meditation class, when the Instructor told us to close our eyes and count our breathing, I realized something —–

“While I was counting 1,2,3,4, —– I cannot think of any other thought in my mind at the same time.”

‘Cannot’ is the keyword here.

Mindfulness works in a similar fashion.

· When you are having conversations with someone, shut out everything except the person who is talking to you.

· Practice taking many breaks throughout the day so that you can consciously take deep breaths and start counting your breaths.

·Learn to raise your awareness throughout the day.

· Learn to be conscious of your emotions. Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you angry? Are you getting angrier? Choose to look into your many emotions deliberately. That way, you will realize when they get out of control. That way, you will catch them before they destroy you (here, I am talking about negative emotions).

Look, life is full of difficulties. You just have to figure out how you live it.

Reactively or mindfully.

Choose the latter.

Stop chasing everything. Stop being provoked into something you are not. Stop being out of control all the time. Stop giving into anger.

Stop abandoning your own thoughts as if they are not your own.

Stop going with the flow.

Stop following the energy of the group.

Let go of all your thoughts about yesterday and tomorrow. No matter how much you want to achieve in the future, and no matter how much you’ve suffered in the past –appreciate that you are alive: NOW.

Decide today to live mindfully. To be consciously aware of yourself and your surroundings.

Be aware.

Be aware.

Be aware.

To Your Inspirations,

Banchi