Take a moment to step out of the auto pilot “doing mode”
into simply being here and now
by bringing awareness to the sensations
of the next three breaths.
image by M. Lee Freedman
Practice mindful driving
"I live in Los Angeles, where daily life is built around the ebb and flow of rush hour traffic, so needless to say, I spend quite a bit of time in my car. This time used to make me feel annoyed and irritated, but now I use it as a chance to practice.
“Write “Drive Mindfully” on a small index card and post it on your steering wheel to remind you of your new practice. Turn off the radio and put away your cell phone. As you drive, try to pay attention to the sensations that you typically ignore.
How does your body feel in the seat? Is it hard or soft? How do you hold your hands on the wheel? What sounds do you hear coming from your car and out the window? Can you feel the vibrations of the road? Was it recently paved or are there a lot of potholes?
When I drive like this I find it to be a much more peaceful experience, even if I’m caught in traffic.”
-Elana Miller
(excerpt from post 6 Simple Tips to be More Mindful in Everyday Life
You can read the remaining 5 tips at:
Have a mindful night
Lee
M. Lee Freedman, MD,CM, FRCP(C)
Welcome to new recipients of Mindfulness Practice Daily Reminders
As many of us have experienced, mindfulness is pretty simple, but not so easy and remembering to practice mindful awareness can be quite challenging.
These daily reminders are intended to help us remember our intention to practice present moment awareness through formal and informal mindfulness practice.
Opening a reminder email represents a decision to pause, step out of automatic pilot mode and into the here and now by intentionally bringing attention to the sensations of three breaths. Then proceed with your day.
You may choose to treat this as an experiment by noticing if and how this brief pause impacts on the next moments of your day.
The second part of the reminder email consists of a quote, poem, image, link to article and/or link to short video relevant to the practice of mindfulness. The images included in the emails have all been created from my mindfulness practice with a camera.
I suggest consciously choosing whether you have the time and/or the interest in reading/watching anything further, rather than automatically clicking on the link. In this way you are practicing bringing mindful awareness practice into conscious decision making and action.
The mindfulness practice daily reminders that have been sent out since July 2014 are now archived on a blog called MPDR Archives. Here is a link to the first entry that describes the history of and intention for the reminders.http://mpdrarchives.blogspot.ca/2015/01/welcome-to-archives-of-mindfulness.html.
Please feel free to share these reminders with others who may be interested. If you know anyone who would like to be included in the list of recipients of the reminders, please ask them to email my assistant at drmlfreedman@hotmail.com.
Please let me know if you would like to remove your name from the email list at any time.
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