Peacefully living, one day at a time.

The first time I heard the word ‘mindfulness’ was in 2020 when I was locked in my room because of the pandemic. Everyone had travelled, and it was just me. I was going crazy because my mind decided to play some tricks that could’ve affected my life. In search for a distraction, I stumbled on a YouTube channel about Yoga where I learnt about mindfulness.

See, I had a very long history of overthinking things, carrying grudges for as long as I could, and crying from happenings that had changed my life in some negative ways. But Sarah Beth would say, “when your mind is wandering to the past or the future, remember you’re here now, and that’s where you should be”.

At first, I didn’t think this sentence would mean anything to me until I made it a mantra in every of my daily activities. I learnt to be mindful of my thoughts, and even though it was hard at first, I’ve learnt to be in control of my emotions.

I used to be emotionally sensitive. Anger was one thing that was taking away my peace. I didn’t know how to talk about the things that annoyed me, especially to the perpetrator, so I would carry the burden of staying angry at someone that didn’t know I was angry. The result? It ate me up so badly, tampered with my head in a way beyond me and subsequently affected my relationship with not just the person that caused the anger in the first place, but also the people around me.

What happened to my mind after? Completely messed up. It got so bad that just hearing the name of that person would trigger some emotions that would ruin my day, and sometimes, it ran into days.

Ever since I’ve been practicing mindfulness, I’ve learned to be actively present irrespective of the situation. I’ve learned to shut out the thoughts that could ruin my day or my plans and focus as much as I should.

I was on a project today when I received a call that was supposed to make me angry, and get my day ruined, but I was shocked that it didn’t affect me. I was angry as I should, but that was it.

On a normal day, as much as I was angry, I would boil deep down without saying anything at all. I would physically be disorganized because my body would shake from the emotions I felt, and that would be the end of my day. The mindfulness practice that I started years ago has helped me attain a level of emotions control I never thought I would.

I live in an environment where staying focused is close to impossible. I work from home, and still learn in the process. But imagine waking up to read or work and what you hear first is the loud sound of your neighbour’s deck on close to the loudest volume?

If it was a time when I didn’t know about mindfulness practice, I really would cry because my head wouldn’t be able to process anything at the sound of the loud noise. But that’s not it now. With their loud noise, all I need to do is plug my ears, listen to no music, and somehow, my brain would understand that the attention is more needed with me and not with them.

The result of this is that I can live peacefully with my neighbour without thinking of confronting them because the other neighbours have successfully ignored them. I’ve avoided fight in a way I didn’t imagine would happen, and that was because I’ve been able to train my mind to be where I want it to be and not where it thinks it should be.

Images are mine.

This is my entry to the daily prompt on Mindful Monday.

Thanks for reading.

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