Stress Less, Accomplish More by Emily Fletcher

Author:Emily Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

The First M: Mindfulness—Come to Your Senses

Begin with your eyes closed, your back supported, and your head free.

Take a moment to enjoy the easy flow of your breath in and out of your lungs, then gradually shift your attention to all the sounds happening around you. Hear what you’re hearing. Listen for the most prominent sound in the room—maybe it’s your coworker on the phone or the air-conditioning clicking on. Then, after a few breaths, gently shift your awareness to the subtlest sound you can detect—the sound of your own breathing or ambient noise from the hallway. Your “goal” is to attune yourself to the subtle sonic differences that surround you, gently bringing your awareness to every sound happening in the space right now.

Enjoy this for a few more breaths and then, on your next inhale, gently bring your awareness to the most prominent tactile sensation in your body right now—perhaps it’s the feeling of your bum in the chair or a sore knee. Recognize it and then shift your attention to the subtlest tactile sensation, whether it’s your hair lightly brushing your neck or the feeling of the air entering and exiting your lungs. Take care that you’re not judging the sensations as “good” or “bad”—simply notice what is the most prevalent and most subtle.

After a few moments, shift your awareness to your sense of sight. Yes, your eyes will be closed, but what can you see? Blackness? A sliver of light coming through the space where your eyelids meet? Perhaps you even see colors in your mind’s eye.

Gradually shift your attention to your sense of taste. Even though you aren’t currently eating something (right?), your mouth will always have some kind of taste to it, whether it’s toothpaste or coffee or peanut butter. After a few breaths, start to notice the subtlest taste—maybe you can taste the salad dressing from your lunch or the minty flavor of the gum you enjoyed afterward, or maybe it’s nothing more than a sense of your mouth being acidic or dry.

Finally, let yourself smell what you’re smelling. As you continue to breathe easily, notice the most prominent smell you can detect. Is it your own hairspray or cologne, or the candle you’re burning? What is the subtlest smell in the room—flowers, or simply the smell of dust heating in the radiator? Perhaps you notice the absence of smell entirely.

Now I invite you to pull the lens of your awareness back and simultaneously bring all five senses into your awareness at once: Notice the loudest and softest sounds, the most prominent and gentlest touches, the light and the darkness, the taste and the hint of a taste, the strongest smell and the weakest. As you bring these all together concurrently, you are awakening your simultaneity of consciousness—your complete awareness of surroundings and self.

Let your breath be easy and natural as you start to allow yourself to include everything happening around you into this mindfulness experience. Giving yourself permission to be in the moment, the right now.

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