Mindfulness Taught Me These Strange Unusual Totally Unexpected Lessons

Do you feel like something in your life is off center? Like you are always just meandering through life, directionless?

Everything is ‘fine’ on the face of things, but you feel like ‘fine’ isn’t enough to satisfy you. There is something missing.

But what is it? What is that missing piece?

Often, for those of us who are very driven and goal-oriented, the thing that is missing is enjoyment of the present moment.

When I was feeling this way, like I was adrift on the sea of life, I stumbled across an uplifting Instagram account called We Wear Wellness.

On this account, there was a woman named Tanvi who talked about finding peace, contentment and purpose in life. She helps millennial women bounce back from burnout to become a badass.

In her 12 week course, I learned how to live life in a way that is underscored by mindfulness.

Mindset Coaching Helped Me Become More Mindful and Find Inner Peace. I had heard of mindfulness before, when I used to go to meditation classes at a Buddhist temple when I was in my 20’s, but it had been years since I had thought about it.

A return to my spirituality through the process of using the mindfulness principle of Beginners Mind helped me to find peace and clarity, and refocus my life in a new direction.

Here are some of the lessons that I learned from Tanvi about mindfulness.

• Mindfulness increases happiness

• Mindfulness helps us be better parents

• Mindfulness helps with Anxiety and Depression

• Mindfulness helps us to fully experience life

• Mindfulness makes us more productive

Now that I have learned how mindfulness has improved my life, I want to share this age-old wisdom with all of you here.

Practicing Mindfulness Can Help Ease Stress Mindfulness increases happiness

When we practice mindfulness, we learn to be present in the moment without judgement.

The non-judgement aspect of mindfulness really helped me learn how to be happier. I have a really harsh inner critic, and by suspending judgement, I no longer had to buy into those self-critical thoughts.

As I was practicing mindfulness, I learned how to let my thoughts just flow past like clouds, without attaching to them.

The more we learn to be in the moment, it gets us our of our heads. We stop constantly analyzing every moment, and start living each moment instead.

Mindfulness helps us to fully experience life

Every day, I start the morning with being mindfully present, through yoga, and sitting on the patio with my coffee. I find that it helps to be outside to begin my mindfulness practice.

Then, just notice everything that is around you. The sights, sounds and smells. The feel of the air on your face. The taste of the coffee. The more you are in the moment, the more able you are to truly see things. The more you begin to really see things around you, the more you can enjoy them.

In order to tap into the present moment, we need to feel it, rather than think about it. — Tanvi Chadha

It is through this mindful presence in all the moments of our lives that we learn to be happier and more whole people.

Mindfulness helps with Anxiety and Depression

Since mindfulness helps us to be more present in our day to day experience, to be happier and less judgmental of ourselves, this means it also helps with Anxiety, Depression and other mental health conditions.

Since I was in therapy at the same time I was going through the Burnout to Badass coaching program, I asked my therapist to use the same Buddhist principles in our therapy. I was lucky and blessed to have a therapist who had studied for his Masters in counseling at a Buddhist university. So, that mad him a great fit for me.

In our sessions, he helped me use mindfulness, and the loving-kindness meditation to help with my anxiety and depression.

Having allies on your team when you are trying to grow as a person is so valuable. Not only does it help with your mental health, when multiple professionals explain the same concepts to you in different ways, it helps you understand what to do from different angles.

As I began to practice mindfulness more and more, I learned to cope with not only thoughts that bothered me, but with anxious feelings in my body as well. I could look at my symptoms more objectively, and then I could use coping skills more effectively as well.

Mindfulness helps us be better parents

The more mindfully present we are with our children, the better parents that we become. We really listen to our kids, we engage with them and play with them, instead of being behind our phone screens all the time.

As we become happier, it makes our kids happier too. This is because kids feel and attach to our moods.

Since kids don’t understand why people are happy or unhappy, often they will blame themselves when mom or dad isn’t happy.

Therefore, through being more mindful, we can connect better with our kids, and help them to have better emotional regulation as well.

Mindfulness makes us more productive

It may sound counterintuitive since Mindfulness is about slowing down and being present that mindfulness would also help with productivity, but it does.

People are terrible at multi-tasking.

The more distracted we are, the longer it takes us to complete any task that we are undertaking. When we are at work, there are often frequent distractions in the forms of emails, IM’s, calls and texts.

As we become more mindful, we realize that it is OK to turn these distractions off at times, so that we can more easily focus on the tasks at hand.

If you work for a company, you can calendar your work time for important tasks the same way you would for a meeting. Then, turn off all your notifications for an hour and see just how much you get done.

Being fully present in the moment helps you with work tasks just as much as it can help you in your personal life.

It can also help you to be more present and engaged, even during boring meetings. The more mindful you are, the more you listen when other people are speaking, instead of zoning out or doodling in your notebook.

When you become more present, and listen fully and attentively, people notice. Then, your relationships with your colleagues will improve as well.

Mindfulness improves our relationships

I have already discussed how mindfulness can improve your relationships with your children and your colleagues, it can improve the quality of your romantic relationships as well.

When we take time to be mindful, to fully listen to our partners and be in the moment with them, it helps to deepen our relationships.

Think how often you talk to your partner while watching TV, or while one or both of you is on the phone.

As you become more mindful, you learn to put those distractions away. You focus fully on your partner and on the conversation that you are having with them.

This is a way of showing love and respect for our partners, and will help to deepen our relationships with them as well.

We get so much of our satisfaction in life from the other people that we spend our lives with, it is important that we be fully present with them so that we can enjoy the best relationships possible.

This goes for friends, family, work colleagues, kids and our partners. The more mindful we become, the happier we are. This happiness radiates outwards to the people in our lives too.

All these lessons about mindfulness have shown me how bringing this practice into daily life can cause blessings to multiply in so many aspects of your life. I highly recommend practicing mindfulness to anyone who hasn’t already tried to use these techniques before!

To learn more about mindfulness, meditation and yoga, and how they can help you in your daily life, check out my ebook: Practicing Buddhism in Everyday Life