Present Moment Activities

A present moment activity is simply any activity which pulls you back to the present moment. It could be as mundane as washing a cup or as pleasant as a walk on the beach on a pleasant Summer’s day. We think thousands of thoughts in an hour, each thought drawing our attention away from the now. Sometimes we are dwelling on past hurts or we are worrying about something we have to do later, maybe tomorrow or next week. Instead of being mindful we are mindless as the here and now slips further and further away from us.

When we practice mindfulness we are fully present in whatever is happening right now. Mindfulness can be fun and we can utilise all our senses in being present in the moment and appreciating the moment - the warmth of the sun on your face, the aroma of baking bread from the oven, the happiness experienced from a hug. Mindfulness is a great practice for alleviating stress, because no matter what stresses you are undergoing in your life, it brings you in touch with the wonderful things that are going on in your life.

So let’s see how washing a cup can be a mindful activity. Well the trick is to be fully engaged with that activity. You are simply washing a cup and doing nothing else. Imagine having the intention to wash the cup mindfully. You pick it up, noticing its shape and maybe it has a pattern and you feel the coolness of the china against your hand, the weight of the cup in your hand. You run the tap, feeling how the tap turns, hearing the water gush out as you adjust the tap, feeling the temperature of the water against your skin, feeling the sensation of the water splash and swirl around the cup as you twist it and turn it under the running water, doing everything you need to do to clean that cup, noticing that the cup has become a little warmer now than when you started a few moments ago. You shake the cup and some of the water droplets fall into the sink. Then you mindfully get the dishcloth, feeling its softness in the other hand and then running it around the inside and outside of the cup until it is properly dried. You put the cup down and the dishcloth down. The task is completed.

Remember all you were doing was washing a cup, yet you were doing it with your full attention, not thinking about other things you have to do later or things you should have done earlier.

This simple mindful activity engages our sense of sight, sound and touch. Add a little lemon dish cleaner to the scenario and the sense of smell is activated.

You can practice mindfulness doing a lot of different activities – making a cup of tea, eating an orange or having a shower. . Even mindful listening, whereby you listen fully to whoever is talking without judging or criticising them or pre-empting what they are going to say next, or planning what you are going to say next.

For more mindful activities I recommend that you concentrate on activities which are pleasant and pleasureable. If you would like to know how to do a mindful walking meditation please look at my website www.hypnosistralee.com for more information.

Anne Marie Courtney is a licensed homeopath and certified hypnotist and Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner.