This is admittedly a bit of a click-bait-and-switch post, because some people only enter here with the titillating possibility of gratuitous nudity. There is never judgment about such intentions – a click is a click is a click – and clicks actually don’t mean anything on this profit-free non-monetized website. Yet as I approach the latter half of my forties (well, not so much approach as exist within it) I find the desire to share some practices that make life better the older I get, and one of the main ones is deliberately making the effort to maintain a degree of mindfulness at all times.
We rush and we work and we go through the motions of any given weekday with the express intent of simply getting through it, getting on with it, getting it out of the way so we can enjoy the weekend – and then we never quite make of it what we wanted to make of it. Even those weekends that do turn into something magical and memorable, are quickly forgotten within the first few moments of Monday morning mayhem, erased instantly as if they never even happened at all. How do we capture that and make Monday more like Sunday, and Tuesday more like Saturday? For me it’s in finding the little joys of mindfulness, and taking breaks and pauses to reconnect to the peace and silence that meditation can conjure.
Does that mean stopping your work day and heading to the nearest spa for an extended massage on your lunch hour? No – though I wish. That’s not really practical or possible for most of us. But can we pause in our day to do some deep breathing, to get away from the desk and take a walk, to simply stand up and step outside for a moment to find whatever joy is at hand and in the air? Absolutely. It’s about being mindful and slowing down the racing thoughts that too often occupy our mind when we could and should be focused on being as present as possible.
It begins with the very start of the day, in the otherwise-mundane motions of a shower. After 46 years, I’ve pretty much mastered the seven-minute shower, and for most of those years it always felt like a race – against the clock and against the cacophony of thoughts running through my head as the day began. In what should have been a peaceful and calm entry into the day was usually a rushed and jumbled mental marathon that left me spent by the time I turned the water off and started toweling off. The shower was efficient and effective in getting me cleaned and waking me up, yet it did little to set my mind at ease.
When I started reading up on mindfulness, the morning shower seemed the most basic place to begin. I slowed down my thoughts by focusing only on the present moment – the water, the heat, the soap, the scent – and all of the sensual aspects of a shower were enough to quell the bustling freight train of worries that would usually be barreling through my head. If done with enough concentration, it worked quite well, and eventually the concentration required became more habit than concerted effort, which is when mindfulness really takes off and starts bleeding helpfully into other areas of life.
It doesn’t happen with every shower. Some days you just have to get in and out to make it into the office on time, and you have to tick through the duties of the day just so you won’t forget something. But for the most part, my mornings are more peaceful, and the rest of the day more energized, when I practice such mindfulness.
