Many of you, I am sure, have discovered mindfulness. It is a way to obtain serenity in your life. A way to become peaceful in your surroundings. It is a beautiful thing. But what is it, exactly? I used to think it was mindfulness meditation. Well, meditating is one way of becoming mindful, but to practice mindfulness you just need to engage fully in an activity, become aware of your thoughts, feelings, as well as your environment and bodily sensations.
The list of benefits that mindfulness brings us is immense and includes better memory, increased physical health, and a reduction in stress, just to name a few. I would like to share with you a way that I used mindfulness in an activity just recently that came quite naturally.
You may remember a short post that I did about looking up at birds. If you don’t, here is the link. I have always been interested in birds. I like to be aware of the birds that live around me. I want to be able to identify them by their call, their appearance and their flight.
I recently also found a great website that lists many different calls of birds from around the world. You can also upload a bird call that you don’t know and other bird lovers will attempt to identify the call for you.
So, what I did on a nice peaceful morning was I walked around the neighborhood listening to all of the birds that surrounded me, with binoculars in one hand and my phone, ready to record the voices of the birds in the other. I hit record whenever I heard a sound and then searched for the birds with my binoculars. I found myself immersed in my environment, listening to the symphony of birds, amazed with all of the different bird calls I could hear. I was only concentrated on that one thing, trying to identify birds, and I realized I was practicing mindfulness.
I recommend that you practice mindfulness in any way that you can regularly for your mental health. Feel free to tell me about any minduflness activities that you enjoy.
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What is mindfulness?
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/mindfulness/definition
Benefits of mindfulness
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-benefits-of-mindfulness-5205137
Sharing bird sounds from around the world
https://xeno-canto.org/
