Week 22 Challenge - Mindfulness

This year I decided to challenge myself to reflect on various Yoga and Buddhist aspects throughout the year. The challenges come from a variety of places including readings in Deborah Adele's Yamas and Niyamas and Thich Nhat Hanh's Heart of the Buddha's Teaching and Happiness.

This week's challenge was to practice mindfulness meditation in a new way. I decided to spread my mindfulness practice throughout the day. Instead of sitting down once or twice, I created mindfulness breaks.

I started my day with 5 Tibetan Rites and ended it with journaling. Then I added 6 breaks in between (every 2 hrs). When that time came I would spend 10 minutes doing Yin or Restorative Yoga and mindfulness meditation.
Was it challenging? Yes. 2 hours goes by very fast and sometimes (especially at the office) it was hard to make the time to fit them in. And sometimes I needed to shuffle times around to make it work because of commitments. But in some ways it was easier because I only needed to fit in 10 minutes.

What did I think? I loved it! It brought a peace and focus to my day. At the office it helped me get off the hamster wheel in my mind for a short bit and I found work much easier after my breaks. At home it helped to give me focus towards my intention, my priorities.

I think I'll keep the mindfulness moments going. In addition to helping my mind, the consistent Yin and Restorative practice is leaving my body feeling much happier as well.