Being Mindful

When I was young, I used to talk over people because I was afraid that my point would never be heard. I have grown since then and yet, there are times when I find that I am doing this because childishly, I have this concern that my point will not be heard. As a matter of fact, there are people who live their entire life this way. There are people who work this way too, which is more common than we think. There are those who have a need to be heard and listened to. There are those who struggle with an insecurity; as if to assume that someone is always looking to come along and take what they have. There are people who find themselves in constant debates, and why? Plus, what purpose does this serve? Does this help them win friends or does this only help them to influence people? Besides, what does this say about them? Or better yet, if this is me and I do this; then what does this say about me? Or better yet, why do we argue anyway?

Let’s see—

It is clear that to each their own. It is clear that we all have our own agenda—even if our agenda comes with a selfless nature, still, we all plans and goals, needs and wants. To be clear, there is a natural fear of loss. There is a natural attachment to both ideas and hopes and dreams—and yet, there is commonly an unfair personalization when our ideas, hopes or dreams do not come through. Then what?

We often find ourselves in different stages of judgment, which is normal; and to be clear, judgment is not altogether bad or good—instead, judgment can be agnostic. In this case, there is neither good nor bad. But yet, when it comes to matters of the mind and of the heart, we often find ourselves hyper-invested in categories that are far beyond our control.  We find ourselves looking for accountability so we can understand why something did not go in our favor. We get mad or maybe we take this personally—and why wouldn’t we? We’ve invested so much in this, right? We worked hard for that new promotion. We tried hard for that new job. We gave it our all in some of our most valued relationships. We personalized and internalized information. In a sense, we have mapped our thought patterns and imprinted ideas into our personal think-tank.

I have seen people lose themselves while trying to control the uncontrollable. I have also watched as people hurt themselves while trying to change the unchangeable.  Talk about banging your head against the wall; there are people who do this as if it were their career. Aside from the lumps, what does this get? And me, I do confess to my inner dialogues. I confess to my internal biases and the conversations that I’ve interacted with in my head.
I can say that I have spent more than a fair share of time, dissecting, second-guessing, and over-thinking the decisions in my life.
I’ve spent time trying to relitigate the past and relived old arguments to rehearse them, in case they happen again. I admit to this.
I do this but to what avail? What has this done for me? In truth, this way of thinking does nothing else but leads to different stations of harsh judgment. This leads towards rejective ideas and rejective thinking that result in the reactions of feelings and emotions that prevent me from reaching my best possible potential.

There is a word that seemed all too difficult for me to grasp. The word itself is simple and yet, there are thoughts in my mind that will often complicate the calmness it takes to achieve this idea. The idea is mindfulness—to breathe, to find stillness without interpretation, without judgment, and to reduce stress and simply breathe—to close your eyes and allow yourself the freeness to have your thoughts travel without gripping them or interacting—instead, we let this pass through. There is more to it than this but for this text, I think this is enough to give you a good idea.

A friend of mine taught me about an interesting number. Well, actually, these are numbers. The numbers are 7-5-7 in which case, this is a breathing exercise. This means to inhale through your nose for seven second, pause for five, and then exhale for seven seconds and then repeat. We often give ourselves to distraction. Rather than lose to our distractions we can gain focus by practicing mindfulness to keep focused, reduce our stress and improve our performance.

I am and will always be imperfectly human. This means I will make mistakes. I will say something I wish I could take back. I will do something that I’ll wish I could undo. I will perform and underperform and yet, each day comes with new opportunities and if I choose to; I have the right to adapt and improve, or, I can remain as I was and be stagnant for as long as I like.
However, the difficulty to adapt and improve comes when I am overly or hypercritical of myself. Therefore, in order for me to improve then I have to allow myself to improve by allowing myself to think freely. This means I have to practice the art of “Letting Go.” Otherwise, I will find myself lost in the contemplation of my distractions. I will give in. I’ll burn out and worse, I will miss the tiny windows that open up to incredible successes.

Look for the positive, they say. And I get that.
But to be clear, I have to say this now and I have to say this clearly; there are times when life hurts. There are times when investments go wrong. There are times when people give out disappointments (like, for free!) and there are times when although we gave it our best, the outcome is not what we wanted. 
Okay then, fine.

Breathe.
Repeat.
Keep going.

Considering the alternative, these are great things to do.
Trust me.