The world is a little crazy these days. Many of us are feeling anxious. Whether you're working from home, suddenly unemployed, unexpectedly homeschooling, or unable to see your friends and family, our world has turned upside down. It's easy to be swept up by our thoughts. It's normal.
Pause for a moment. Close your eyes and take a slow deep breath in and out.
Feel any better?
Mindfulness is the practice of focusing on the current moment. It teaches us to calmly accept our thoughts and feelings of now and not be pulled into a future full of what-ifs. Right now all of our lives are more chaotic than usual and taking a few minutes to focus on your breath can help center you and allow you to think more clearly and calmly.
Mindfulness does not mean meditation and it does not have to be connected to religion. A simple mindfulness practice could be to take a few minutes to sit quietly and focus on your breath. Focus on the air coming in and going out from your nose, or the feeling of your chest raising and falling. You might instead imagine yourself sitting behind a waterfall. Imagine the cool feeling of the stone you’re on and the sound of the water.
If you’d like to explore mindfulness a little further consider checking out one of the books on this list or one of the titles below. All are available for download from Overdrive.
For children
There are also several apps you can download for your mobile device.
Headspace has made their Weathering the Storm collection free to everyone and the full version of their app is free for healthcare workers.
10% Happier has also made their app free for healthcare workers. In addition they've released a page of free resources for everyone that includes meditations, talks and issues of their newsletter.
Calm has made part of their app free to anyone. They offer meditations, calm music, sound stories and more.
Insight Timer has thousands of free guided meditations, sleep tracks, and talks.
May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be happy. May you find your calm.
"Mindfulness" by darraghoconnor12 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0