Mindfulness – A full word to lighten the load

Are you having an overwhelming bad day? You seemed to have 1001 things on your mind, and you felt like the weight of the world rest on your shoulders. You seem to wonder, when will this ever end, and the world just seemed to be so dark and lifeless?

Welcome to being overwhelmed by work and life commitments. I wanted to write about mental health issues that employees around the world faced. Sometimes, the events in life just seemed to be biting away at one’s sanity. Everyone out there, every individual, we have our own commitments, be it small or big. I remembered when my mum needed my help, my friends are looking for me, to further add on, I have a crying baby at home and my work required me to be in office for more than 80hrs a week. I was exhausted, defeated and I simply wanted the world to crash, literally. Things were made worst too when the some of the hours are due to sudden recalls to office in the middle of the night and heck, I do not get paid handsomely like some bankers do.

Despite the long hours in office, I managed to take some time off while in office to do some breathing techniques and tried to calm myself down through some reading and of course, in today’s office context, a common word that is quite frequently used is the word mindfulness. We know we must be mindful of what we say, what we do, what we eat and more and what exactly is mindfulness?

What is mindfulness?

According to Mindful.org, Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we are doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is going on around us.

This simply means for you to embrace all the ‘shit’ that is happening and do not overreact to the situation that you are undergoing. Far often than not, when a person is experiencing a very tough time, his reactions go through the roof, and often bring along consequences that are unpleasant. I used to have this one boss who tend to shoot his mouth without thinking when he is overwhelmed. You can that he is not the trustiest boss to depend on and yes, he is definitely an ego/heartbreaker when he speak without using his heart.

There are many ways to achieve mindfulness and in my own terms, the best way to achieve mindfulness is to achieve a state of Zen (state of nothingness), you must embrace the issues and recognize that no matter how bad things are, it is just a minor spark in the universe. In fact, as a human being, we often placed too much emphasis on ourselves when our life is already so fragile. Just look at the death toll of COVID-19, and how many people die in an accident every single day.

Practicing Mindfulness

To empty your mind and to practice mindfulness can takes some practice. And here are the little things that I do to try to enter a state of mindfulness in this crazy little world of us

1) Breath in long and hard

2) Stand up and stretch

3) Bend forward and loosen your body

4) Count 1 to 10 to slow down the pace of the crazy world happening around you

5) Talk to your trusted person

And according to Mindful.org mindfulness is not all in your head and it involves in taking time to pay attention to your body, which cannot be truer. When you are overly stressed and exhausted, your body will serve as the receptor of pain and will give you signs that things are going wrong. I have always experienced lower back aches and my hand goes numb during ‘apocalyptic’ situations. My body had always been ever honest with me, and I must confess, I have not really been treating my body very well in the past years when I am so overwhelmed on so many occasions. Take time to love your body, go for a massage, go for spa, go for a good meal. End of the day, in life, it is always about choices, you can always choose to manage your overwhelmed situation, or you can simply let it defeat you. Mindfulness is just a weapon in your arsenal to make a concise decision in such bad days.

Have you practice mindfulness today? Or is there any other coping mechanism that you adopt to try to keep yourself sane in this cray cray little world? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Be Better Everyday

Leo