I’ve been involved in a wellness challenge at work for the past almost two weeks. I’m averaging about 9 minutes per day of mindfulness and meditation. I wasn’t really to sure what I was going to find out. I’ve never really been as regimented at it as I planned to be this month.
My mind has changed. I want to think I am more intelligent. But much of what we call intelligence is actually more our ability to recognize patterns. And, that’s what this mindfulness practice daily has been doing for me, helping me be more aware of patterns. Let me explain.
Imagine you’re chilling in your favorite Starbucks doing some work. Someone walks by the table you’re working on and trips on the chair that’s across the table from where you are working. Your first impression, this dude doesn’t pay attention.
Five minutes later though, another person comes by with their favorite addiction, and the same thing happens almost spilling their drink all over the floor as they trip on the chair across from you. Then 10 minutes later, the scene unfolds again. Except this time your not thinking this person is a klutz like all the others, but the chair and table might be in the wrong position on the floor. You just recognized a pattern.
We find patterns all around us. However, at some point we started moving through our spaces so quickly thanks to multitasking and technology pushing us faster forward, we don’t pick up the patterns around us. Not until we learn to stop, listen and feel around us, and see there are better choices.
When we can do this and do it out of habit we will:
- See similarities in stellar galaxies and the way water emptying out of a bathtub has the same spiral.
- We learn to calculate probabilities.
- We begin to observe our own tendencies in executing things and of those around us.
- We make connections between neighboring stars in the night skies and make creatures out of them called constellations.
- We see relationships. Ones we’ve taken for granted and ones we need to invest in more.
- We discern behaviors around us clearer and use that to bring vision as well as purpose to life.
- We discover our own inclinations. Like when I don’t get a cup of fresh ground coffee in the morning first thing with my day, I get anxiety.
This wellness focus of mediation and mindfulness has taught me in the first two weeks that if I focus my thinking more things come to me that never did. This practice is making my life easier. And, all it cost me is just 9 minutes a day so far.
This life around us speaks to us in patterns and it’s my and your job to listen to it.
✌🏻 Shawn
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