“We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.”

Ram Dass

I’ll meditate on meditation more meditatively at a later date, later article. This morning, though, I’ll talk about mindfulness which, to me, I see, as meditation in motion, meditation on the move.

It all starts in the morning, or when you get up. All starts at the beginning of each day, catching the mind before it catches you. Getting on top of it before it does thee.

We wake.

Eyes open, shapes beginning to take form, sounds, scents. Senses swimming together.

“Here I am.”

And then the mind starts carrying on with itself. That noise, that chatter. “I’ve gotta, gotta, gotta.”

Got to get up; make breakfast, eat breakfast. Get the kids to school. Work. Assignments. Texts; answer them, send them. Fill the car, empty the bins. Got to look right, feel right. Got to be on form; slow down, speed up. I’m late. I’m early. Remember when? What if? I should have…I wish I could just…can’t wait until my holiday…oh…I haven’t paid the deposit yet!

It’s 8 a.m. and already your mind has done ten laps of the world and you haven’t even had coffee yet.

Thoughts make feelings and you’re all churned up. Physiology gone haywire.

The mind is a fugitive and you spend the rest of the day trying to chase it down…only it has a five-hour head-start.

So,

Eyes open, shapes beginning to form, sounds, scents. Senses swimming together.

“Here it is.”

The mind, mindfulness; being mindful of the mind. Watching thoughts as sticks thrown to a river. The current carries it off, only to be gone again. We put all our attention on the present moment. Feel of the carpet on our bare feet as we step out of bed, light on the wall, shadows passing. Dog bark. Traffic. Breeze in trees. People in our life, this moment. Their faces, voices. Song on the radio, or just the silence behind it. Feel the weight of the kettle as we fill it, rising steam. Click. The tick and the tock of the clock. After a while at this our awareness becomes so vast yet intricate that we can barely hold down a thought, and this becomes flow state. Here the world does our work for us. Like me writing these very words right now. I’m not thinking about it.

It just happens.

Of course we need to practice this, but it all starts in the morning. The morning is where it starts. To set ourselves up for the rest of the day, to set ourselves up in the right way.

Worry. Stress. Anxiety. Depression. Mental Health is on the rise.

Not the world we live in, but the ‘we’ which lives in the world.

Fix the inner and the outer will slowly manifest.

There is more on this, much more about how to do less.

Book Recommendation: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

*Article provided by Joe Archer (Health & Lifestyle Correspondent).

*Main image @ReadersDigestCA waking up in a positive frame is what they call “starting as you mean to go on”.