10 mindful minutes Have you ever taken just 10 minutes each day to yourself, just to be still and not think about anything or do anything?
We live in a world where everything comes and goes fast, a chaotic world where life is a competition like a TV show where guests have to survive through various levels to receive a prize at the end (if they survive).
We have lived our lives this way until it became normal, when it is not normal at all. We neglect to take a breather, and most of our time is filled with the fuss of the future and the distractions of the past. When is there any time to be present?
“Being still and doing nothing means no texting, no internet, no TV, no talking, and no thinking about the past or thinking about the future.”
At TEDSalon London Fall 2012, Andy Puddicomb e asked attendees to think back to the last time you sat down and did nothing. Have you ever spent 10 minutes doing nothing, without distractions?
“The mind is a precious thing, but we never take the time to take care of it.”
Events that flow into our lives all affect our minds, categorizing them to store as memories or experiences as our minds desire, whether they are happiness, sadness, excitement, joy, or even emotions that arise from loving someone. We all use our minds to create those feelings. But if we really look at it, we use our minds more often than we use our cars, desks, or computers. So why do we have time to take care of those things, but we don’t have time to take care of our own minds?
“When we are stressed, our minds go through a cycle like a washing machine.”
When we are stressed, our mind is tied to that stressful thing. It will keep going back and forth in our head. It is difficult to reject stressful things because when you push them away, your mind will keep pulling them back in. We all get caught up in the stress that we are experiencing and don’t know how to deal with it.
“We don’t live long on this earth, but we spend almost half of our lives being distracted.”
According to a research from Harvard University, humans waste 47% of their time each day thinking, whether it’s thinking about the past or thinking about things that haven’t happened yet, which may or may not happen in the future. These things make us unhappy, but we still can’t stop thinking about these things and let these behaviors become normal.
Andy said that he had the opportunity to study meditation because his mother mentioned it to him, which made him interested. When he was a child, he watched Kung Fu movies and thought that if he meditated, he might be able to fly like in the movies. So he agreed to study with his mother. And it was not beyond anyone’s imagination. He lit incense, sat on the floor to meditate, drank herbal tea, and ate vegetarian food.
“When I push one out, another one appears endlessly.”
When Andy was in his 20s, a lot of things happened, and it was safe to say that none of them were good. His life took a complete turn, and he was dragged into a downward spiral, and he didn’t know how to get out. As he tried to pull himself out of one negative thought, another pulled him back down again, and this was happening all over his life during that time.
“People have different ways of dealing with stress.”
When stress arises inevitably, some people try to keep themselves busy to escape the turmoil. Some people turn to friends or family for support to get through it. Some people choose to drink alcohol or go to the doctor. But what Andy chose to do was to become a monk and start studying meditation seriously.
“Humans must understand the present moment.”
Being ordained as a monk has made him understand many things clearly. One of the things he was most happy to learn was to understand the current events, which means not thinking about the past, which we can’t do anything about, or worrying about the future that has not yet arrived. It is just thinking about the here and now, or in other words, being mindful of the present.
“Humans undervalue the present moment.”
Because thinking about the past or the future makes us lose the present moment, which is a pity. We tend to overlook the value of the present every day. But what is difficult is that it is not easy to control our minds.
When we say, don’t be interested in the past, just be interested in the present, we will order our minds to be interested in the present too much. When it’s too much, our lives will be too suffocating. We will feel that it’s hard to breathe each day. On the other hand, if we meditate too much, we may get so drowsy that we fall asleep. Therefore, we need a middle ground, a middle way, that can balance our lives to create harmony.
“Step back a bit and see everything as it is, without adding anything.”
After a difficult time, no matter how bad the day was, let’s take a step back, regroup, and look at everything in and out in the present. Don’t think about the future or dwell on its past. Don’t embellish it.
“The reason we worry is because of our own feelings of worry.”
After studying meditation, Andy discovered that the end of these distracting thoughts is a feeling of worrying about something, or maybe everything. We think that everything will be fine, without even realizing that we are worrying. This thought will go around like a washing machine until we slap ourselves in the face and then realize that we are worrying. And we worry because we don’t want to feel anxious.
The good news is that there is a solution to this problem. There are things, methods that we can do. It’s a positive immersion that actually works, it’s scientifically proven, and it’s also good for the present moment.
“Just 10 minutes a day can have a positive impact on our whole life.”
A key element in making the most of the 10 minutes is that we must familiarize ourselves with the present moment. Within those 10 minutes, we will step back to focus on the present moment, going deep into our mind at that moment as clearly as possible. We will find the patterns in our mind that have been looping along the same path all along. It may seem exhausting, restless, indifferent to the present that is going on, or completely bored with the world. But all of these are mental mechanisms that are occurring. But when we discover them, this may be the first time that our patterns in our mind have changed paths.
Conclusion
Is our mind, which we use every day, still healthy? Does it feel tired or exhausted by the things that come and go? Is it still stuck in the wrong past or the expected future?
Just take 10 minutes a day to be mindful and meditate to take care of your mind. Because 10 minutes is less time than washing your car or cleaning the junk on your computer, but the results from just 10 minutes are enormous.
When you read this far, it is up to us to decide how much we can change the patterns in our minds. What that change will give us, but one thing is for sure, we will find a way to heal our minds that does not require any drugs in the world. And finally, we will understand that…
“We cannot change everything that happens in our lives, but we can change our life experiences. Meditation can help us. Mindfulness can help us.”
All it takes is 10 mindful minutes | Andy Puddicombe
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