PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN. YOUR LIFE IS HAPPENING RIGHT HERE.
Mindfulness may sound like a mental exercise — and perhaps that is why so many people avoid it. Who needs another task to add to an already too-long to-do list?
But mindfulness is not just about sitting still on a cushion, learning to breathe deeply, or clearing the thoughts in your head. It is about learning a different way of being in the world.
What I love about this practice is that, ultimately, the real practice is found in how we walk down the street, listen to a friend, taste our coffee, or watch the sun slowly setting on the horizon.
Mindfulness is learning to slow down. It is putting down our phones — not as an act of discipline or deprivation, but as an invitation to stop escaping the present moment and begin diving more deeply into it. It is remembering that this moment is worthy of our care and attention. It is knowing that this moment is all we ever truly have — and so we learn to be present for it.
When we slow down and pay attention to more moments of our lives, we begin to see that the practice of presence is really the practice of learning how to love life, and all that is in it. It is letting go of trying so hard to get somewhere else and instead appreciating being exactly where we are. It is letting go of worrying so much about the results of our actions and instead paying attention to the quality of care with which we engage in them.
As Buddhist teacher Martin Aylward describes, presence is not merely a technique, but a quality of love brought to every act — from breathing, to making tea, to painting windows. He says, “The practice of attention is learning how to love.”
What a beautiful way to understand mindfulness: not as another self-improvement project, but as a way of bringing love, care, and attention to the life we are already living.
As the longer, sunnier days of summer approach, now is the perfect time to slow down, put your phone away, and dive into your life as it is happening.
Begin to notice the magic in more ordinary moments: the warmth of the sun on your skin, the sound of birds in the early morning, the color of the sky at dusk, the feeling of your feet on the earth, the face of someone you love when you are really, truly listening.
Resist the temptation to escape into a world somewhere else — a world on a screen, a world of comparison, distraction, or endless doing. Instead, gently bring your attention back to where you are and remember that this moment, and all that is in it, is worthy and deserving of your full attention.
Pause Practice:
Sometime today, put your phone down and choose one ordinary moment to fully enter. Drink your tea. Walk outside. Look at the sky. Listen to someone you love. Feel your breath. Let your attention soften and deepen. Notice what changes when you meet the moment — not as something to get through, but as something to love.
– Cheryl Vigder Brause