Building my Mindfulness Muscle

Thursday of last week marked the end of Week 8 and I was, again, focusing on my senses. This time around, I found it was a lot easier for me to be aware of my senses throughout the day. Several of the days from the week I even took multiple pictures. I keep learning over and over again that mindfulness is like a muscle. The more you work it, the easier and more natural it gets. Here’s a bit of what my week was like:

Week 8, Day 1: Sight

Driving to work requires a bit of highway time. I mean, Wichita traffic isn’t as bad as some bigger cities, but it still isn’t necessarily my favorite part of the day. This week, however, I really started noticing how much I love to see the skyline of downtown. It reminds me how much I love where I live and something about the buildings just really makes me happy.

Week 8, Day 2: Taste, Smell, and Touch

At our house, I do pretty much all the cooking. Which works great for me because I love to cook and try new recipes and I’ve been told that I’m a bit of a kitchen nazi…probably accurate. But sometimes on Fridays I don’t feel like cooking so on my way home from work I pick up pizza. Last week I picked up Knolla’s ICT pizza then stopped and picked up one of my favorite fall beers. Tasted and smelled DELICIOUS!

I then treated myself to a long, hot bath to end off the work week. I recently discovered Dr. Teals Foaming Bath with Epsom Salt. There are a couple different scents (all of which smell great), but the Relax and Relief is my favorite. Seriously, it is magical. A perfect way to end my day.

Week 8, Day 3: Touch, Sight, Taste

My Saturday morning was full of mindfulness. I started off with an hour and a half long massage at a local Wichita place called The Pushy Goat. Wichita friends, I cannot recommend this place enough. Go try it out!

Then while driving home, I kept noticing all the fall colors that were *finally* showing on all the trees. So far this fall, I feel like I haven’t really noticed that many leaves changing colors. But Saturday morning I kept seeing tree after tree with beautiful, bright leaves.

Once I got home, Rylee, my boyfriend’s daughter, asked if we could make pancakes. As a lover of all breakfast foods, I never say no to pancakes. We also made a blueberry sauce to put over top. And they were delicious! So much so that I almost forgot to take a picture before I ate it all.

Week 8, Day 4: Hearing

My boyfriend, Aaron, just recently finished fixing up his motorcycle. His goal was to ride in the Toy Run that takes place in Wichita every November. The toy run is an event where motorcycles from the Wichita and surrounding areas meet up with a toy or toys to donate to children in need. An entire street is blocked off and the motorcycles ride through Wichita with the toys to donate and end at Hartman Arena where the toys are loaded up into big semis. I went to go watch all the motorcycles drive by and was blown away with how many people came together for such a good cause. There were close to 2,000 motorcycles in the run this year and the sound of the rumbling engines and honking horns made me so happy that there are so many giving people in the world. It filled me with hope.

Week 8, Day 5: Taste and Sight

I was so excited to have my best friend, Amanda, in town for a few days. We lived together for 4 and a half years in college and have stayed very close even after she’s moved halfway across the country to Washington D.C. (I can guarantee this isn’t the only time I’ll talk about her on the blog). But about once a year her work brings her back to Kansas. This time she had a couple extra days to hang out with me! For lunch one of the days she was here, I took her to one of my new favorite restaurants here in Wichita called Lotus Leaf Cafe. This healthy, local restaurant has AMAZING food, a lot of which is vegetarian or vegan focused. We had their Red Pepper “Quezo” which is their cashew “cheese” dip for an appetizer and it was delicious!

She also helped me decorate my house a bit. I had been wanting to put up a gallery wall in my hallway, but I always seem to struggle with the design aspect of things. Amanda is freakishly good at all things decor and so I enlisted in her help to get the frames and things hung. I was so excited with how it turned out. The more I look at it, the more I love the way it turned out.

Week 8, Day 6: Hearing

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve become a big podcast listener. I do the most listening on my commute to work or when I take the dogs for walks. Two more podcasts I’ve been listening to a lot lately are Being Boss and The Robcast. Being Boss is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs and is filled with advice and interviews with really awesome people. The Robcast is by a man named Rob Bell and he talks about God and life and what it means to be human and also interviews some amazing people with incredible life stories. Both podcasts are incredible, I highly recommend you check them out!

Week 8, Day 7: Touch

I will seriously never get sick of puppy cuddles. Ned is our 10 month old, 80-lbs. German Shepherd and he thinks he is a lap dog. His favorite place to be is wherever you are and I wouldn’t have it any other way. He makes an excellent reading buddy.

I feel like spending the two weeks really breaking down my surroundings and bringing my awareness to my every day life has really helped strengthen my mindfulness muscle. Being on Week 9 now, I’ve moved passed my senses and onto my next task (which I will talk about later this week!), but I still find myself noticing things more. I hear the song playing in the grocery store and recognize that it makes me feel upbeat and happy, I feel the warmth of a hug from a best friend, I go on and on about how delicious the food tastes. And the more I take notice of all these little joys, the more they seem to be popping up every day. If I notice five things that make me happy one day, the next day I notice seven, and after that I notice ten. I’m realizing that there isn’t a shortage of joy or happiness in the world, it’s all about knowing how to find it.

Week 7: The 5 senses

I’ve spent the last week focusing my mindfulness on my 5 senses. As an added challenge and to help keep myself in the moment, I decided to take at least 1 picture every day of something my senses were being extra mindful of. I figured it would be easy (I’m starting to sense a theme in this whole mindful thing. Note to self: stop assuming it will be easy.) because society has us so exposed to so many things throughout the day, that I thought I’d have tons of things to choose from to be mindful of. Instead I found that I’m exposed to so many things throughout the day that my senses go on overload and just try to shut it all out.

The hard part, I noticed, was stopping myself from “checking out” throughout the day. There were a couple days where I found I hit the end of the day and hadn’t taken a mindful picture yet. So I would think back to my day and I could think of a couple things that my senses picked up on – yummy food or good music. But in the moment I didn’t pay attention and it didn’t even phase me. My brain was in get-through-the-day mode and I simply bypassed an opportunity for a little joy, even just a smile, for a moment. It’s crazy to me how accustomed I have gotten to tuning out and ignoring some of the most beautiful things around me.

As the week went on though, I slowly started to feel it get easier and I started noticing a bit more of my surroundings. So here’s a bit of what my week looked, tasted, smelled, sounded and felt like.

Week 7, Day 1: Touch

Probably not the best quality picture I’ve ever taken, but this describes one of my favorite parts about my morning. After I get up, I let the dogs out of their kennels and we go snuggle on the couch while I drink my coffee. It takes a minute for us to get situated (maneuvering an 80-lbs. dog and a 30-lbs. dog on your lap while trying not to spill coffee is a bit tricky), but once we do I feel so warm and loved and happy. It makes it hard to get back up once my coffee is gone.

*Side note: Please ignore the shreds of what used to be dog toys on the floor. There is so much of that around our house that it doesn’t even phase me…until I look at a picture I’m about to publish for the world to see.

Week 7, Day 2: Hearing

I’m a *big* music fan. I always joke with people that I wish I could take music and inject it directly into my veins. (I’m dramatic, I know). Lately I’ve been on a big Imagine Dragons kick. My current jam is their song Thunder. It never fails to put me in a good mood.

Week 7, Day 3: Smell

I found this candle at Target. And it literally smells like fall in a jar. I’m obsessed.

Week 7, Day 4: Taste

Fun fact about my mom: she makes AMAZING food. I went and hung out with my family on Sunday and she made apple cinnamon waffles. They had shredded apples IN the waffle batter. It was delicious.

Week 7, Day 5: Sight

I previewed this picture in my last post. Ever since the weather finally started to cool down a bit, the sunrises have been BEAUTIFUL! So much color and depth that a picture doesn’t nearly do it justice. Fall sunrises are definitely my favorite.

Week 7, Day 6: Smell and Hearing

Having a fire in the fireplace is so cozy to me. A wood burning fireplace especially. I can smell it as soon as I get home and I love the crackling noises it makes. It definitely makes the colder weather more bearable.

 

Week 7, Day 7: Hearing and Sight

 

I’ve become a big podcast listener, especially on my commute to and from work. The Lively Show has quickly become one of my favorite podcasts. It’s all about finding ways to add extra intention and purpose into your life. Plus, it’s been around for a while so I have TONS of old episodes to listen to.

 

 

And seriously though, these fall sunrises are stellar!

Yesterday marked the beginning of week 8. Initially, I thought I might just spend one week on the senses and move on from there, but I’ve decided that week 8 is going to still be focusing on the senses. I feel like I’m just starting to get the hang of zooming in on my senses and I think having another week to focus on that is a good thing. I’ll be back with more pictures next week! Stay tuned!