Category: Essays

On Purposeless Walking

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

Henry David Thoreau

In the evening, when the business of the day is over, go for a walk. Walk with mindfulness and without purpose.

I remember I started walking because there was a day when I became angry and irritable. Instead of staying in the same environment that caused the anger, I went for a walk. My initial purpose was to calm down but I began doing it every night and eventually I just ended up walking for the sake of walking.

Nowadays, we don’t really go on purposeless walks any more because walking in general has become a bit of a luxury. In the UK, 25% of journeys include walking but only 17% of people landed in the ‘just to walk’ category. And that category included dog-walkers. So we can imagine that number would drop if fewer people owned dogs. Of course, some people have to or simply enjoy walking more than others but the category of just walking for the sake of it seems to be decreasing.

Most of our entertainment is in our homes, we can take transport to most places or if we do go on a walk, it tends to be in order to get somewhere else. Like school or to the shop.

I say we should go on more pointless walks.

Why?

Going for walks without purpose relieves us of the multiple distractions that plague us throughout the day. With the increasing connectedness we have with other people, walking without purpose grants us permission to spend time alone. It means we can appreciate our surroundings better because that’s all we need to focus on. No longer do we need to remain captivated by the glare of our phones.

Many famous writers like Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf walked without purpose as it helped improve their creativity. They have time for solitude and lack of distraction. They can work through ideas in their head or just find more inspiration in the simplest of things.

The Thoreau quote at the beginning speaks an important truth. If we want to create deep mental paths in our minds, we have to do a lot of thinking. Too often I find myself giving up if I cannot express myself properly or if I’m stuck on a problem. We can’t figure out everything instantly or with minimal effort. A lot of things are difficult and embracing it rather than running from it gives us a much greater chance at overcoming them. Walking gives us a better chance at doing that.

How do I start?

  1. Go outside.
  2. Walk somewhere.

More seriously, there are a few things that help.

  • If you unfortunately have reasons to think you might be unsafe, walk with someone and during the day. If not, walk alone.
  • Don’t use your phone.
  • Be mindful.
  • Find new places but don’t map your walk.
  • Walk without listening to music or audiobooks.

***

Walking is another source of peaceful solitude. I remember many times going for a walk at night and looking forward to seeing the moon in the sky. Some days it would dominate the night like a king seated in his throne. Other days, it would be quieter and hidden behind a few clouds. Walking outside without any purpose allowed me to appreciate that properly. Instead of being preoccupied with other things, I looked up and was mindful of my surroundings.

Free from distractions and consumed with peace.

And that is the purposeless walk.

 

 

Why I read

A 13 year-old student asked me how he can start reading more. He said he’s had a library book in his room for the past two years and never opened it let alone made an attempt to finish it.

The question resonated with me because I’ve been in that situation before. Over the past five years or so, I’ve slowly lost the esteemed title of ‘book worm’. Reading fell out of favour and was replaced with videos, gaming and short articles. I still read a bit so it’s not like I’ve become completely illiterate otherwise I’m just getting really lucky writing all of this.

Back to the point, I didn’t significant value in reading books.

Yes, reading improves vocabulary, improves critical thinking and all sorts of wonderful things. However, these were all just nice things. I could probably find similar things to justify my gaming habit or even just watching videos all the time.

Books didn’t become less interesting. Other things were just more appealing. The issue, then, wasn’t with time or energy since I could find a lot of time to waste but none to read. The value I found in books was decreasing.

With this in mind, I didn’t recite statistics and I recalled something I was told before I started my philosophy degree.

“You get to have a conversation with authors.”

We write about them in the present tense because, even though many of them are long gone, their ideas are still engaged with and remain influential.

This spread into all areas of writing for me. By reading we get to have conversations with other people.

When we read fiction, we’re invited into the world the other person has created. They’re telling us a story that engages our imagination and curiosity.

When we read non-fiction, we’re informed, convinced or simply presented with a view you’re left to think about. While we may not engage directly with the authors, we’re able to think about the issues presented and come to a conclusion about it.

Sometimes, the story makes us happy or the argument makes us angry but the important thing is that we’re able to experience these things. There are billions of people on the earth with a variety of experiences and many have shared them with us through writing.

The added benefit of thinking about reading like this is that it’s opened me up to more genres. I’m granted access to millions of different worlds! Some people are trying to help me with the help of their own experiences. Some want me to experience the world of a crime lord. Others just want to make me laugh.

I’ve even started to grow an appreciation of children’s books! A lot of them are actually funny and entertaining. Some have good messages I’m sure I would have missed as a child. Authors and illustrators put in a lot of effort to talk to children and engage their imagination. Reading that while I’m a bit older is just fun. Simple, calming fun. There aren’t many other places you’ll find a bear being friends with an annoying duck and think it’s perfectly normal.

Every time I open a book, I begin a new conversation with someone else. This isn’t to say that all conversations are even good or useful. Not every conversation works like that in real life but that isn’t to say we’re better off talking to no one at all.

Reading means that I’ve opened my eyes to the world in front of me and, more importantly, to the people who live in it.

The highlight reel

There have been times when I look through Facebook and see my friends having good times at parties. Or I talk to an old friend and find that they’re doing really well for themselves. Better than I am, even. Yet, instead of just being genuinely happy for them, I find myself  becoming frustrated with myself and ask all sorts of questions.

Why am I not as sociable as them?

Why aren’t I doing more?

Why can’t I just be as happy as them?

Or if I’m on the other side of the see-saw looking down I might become judgemental in an effort to validate my own position.

While these questions may not be expressed explicitly, they definitely capture the attitudes felt at the time. What’s wrong with them?

The Highlight Reel

The habit of comparing yourself to others is one of many negatives where positives can be found in other, much healthier habits.

The comparisons we make tend to be unfair. Very rarely do we compare every part of our lives with every part of the other person’s life. We simply aren’t presented with everything the other person does. A tweet can’t explain a whole 24 hours in detail. However, we have access to all the exciting and boring things we might do.

With this simple imbalance of information we end up comparing our seemingly mundane lives to the highlight reels of others.

We see the parties, smiles, peacefulness and fun that others experience and see ourselves sitting down staring at our computers looking at other people. Of course we’ll feel bad after that! Who wouldn’t?

Now, what if you compare your best moments to the best moments of others and still feel bad?

The comparison remains useless. The happy moments of others in comparison to your own needn’t matter to you as you can only experience the things you do. Spending time appreciating them instead of becoming disappointed that you haven’t done more does disservice to the good things you’ve experienced in the past. It’s like saying “I don’t deserve to be happy because other people are happier”. Do you think that’s true? I truly hope not.

What about competition?

An oft-made point about comparison is that it’s healthy because a bit of competition is healthy. And of course, you need to compare yourself to others in order to compete. Therefore, some comparison can be healthy.

With this I agree and disagree. But mostly disagree.

Competitiveness can be healthy in an environment where it’s regulated and furthers development of the people involved. Places like this include: rugby matches, board games with younger siblings and spelling bees.

Comparing yourself to others in endless (and difficult to measure metrics), does not fall into the category of healthy competitiveness. We’ll always find something else to compare ourselves to meaning we’ll always lose and feel bad. It’s a waste of time, energy and only moves us further away from feeling better about ourselves for the things we’ve done.

Instead, look to find inspiration in others. If you see someone doing well, take the time to be happy for them. Then ask how you can incorporate the good things they’ve done to better yourself. When I read my favourite writers, I find it futile to complain they’re doing better than I. Rather, I ask how I can make improvements to my own writing and value their contribution to writing. After all, I wouldn’t view them as role models otherwise.

The difference between finding inspiration and competing with others can appear slight but the difference is important. One comes comes from compassion and the other results in negativity.

How do I stop comparing myself to others?

  1.  Understand that it’s harmful. It makes us feel less satisfied, and worse about ourselves. Or it can make us far too judgemental.
  2. Focus on your own victories. The victories we focus on do not need to be huge. They can be as small as making lunch for ourselves or as large as completing a long-term project
  3. Watch the urge. The urge to compare ourselves to others sneaks up on us quietly. When you do catch it, stop and remind yourself you don’t need to compare yourself to others to find satisfaction with yourself.
  4. Focus on yourself. Comparing yourself to others takes time away from yourself. The things you want to accomplish will continue to be put on hold because you’re spending time feeling bad about not being as far ahead as another person.
  5. Breathe. Slow down and take time to appreciate yourself.

Ending the needless comparisons will help us get closer being content with ourselves. Then we can move forward with more compassion for ourselves and others. Removing comparisons and focusing on ourselves does not mean we should become self-centred and shut off everyone else.

It means we should shift our focus and find value in our own accomplishments, however big or small, and use that to grow and celebrate progress.

***

Here are some links you might find helpful/interesting:

The Heartbreaking Cruelty of comparing yourself to others.

Facebook makes us sadder and less satisfied: 1 2

As always, thanks for reading :)

Listening is an act of humility

In 1973, a man named John Francis began what would become a 17 year vow of silence.

A short while before that, in 1971, he started walking everywhere after another oil spill in San Francisco. As you can imagine, walking absolutely everywhere (with no exceptions. Even to the hospital!) would be difficult and it happened to draw a lot of attention. People would start talking to him about his efforts to walk everywhere and some would ridicule him for it.

He found that he got into a lot of arguments.

What would happen if he just listened? And so, the vow of silence began.

During a conversation, committing to silence, means you can’t talk. Now, that seems terribly obvious but it has interesting implications. Not being able to respond to the other person whenever you want means there’s no point in always thinking of a rebuttal or looking for a similar experience to add. You can turn your attention to just listening.

Viewing listening as an act of humility means one thing. We take a lower opinion of our personal view and focus more on the other person. This is different from simply hearing the other person talk.

It allows us to better understand that there are other points of view and interesting stories to be heard if we leave our own input to the back of our minds. When other people become the priority in the conversation, we get to experience what they’re saying with greater intensity. This is in direct contrast to continuously thinking about what we want to say and when to say it without sounding rude and generally paying much less attention. Therefore we become much more prone to interrupting people because we don’t want to forget what we’ve said. As you’ve probably noticed, being interrupted isn’t a pleasant feeling. Why do it to others? If it keeps on happening, conversations aren’t enjoyable because the impression given is that you don’t actually care about what they’re saying.

It’s much easier to assume the position of humility when the other person is saying something you agree with or something very interesting. As John Francis said … In those situations, you don’t need to think about what you’re going to say next because they’ve already said the things you want to say or you actively don’t want them to stop talking because you’re enjoying them so much. Just think back to a time when someone told you a good story or you watched a funny stand-up set.

We should assume this position of humility for more conversations.

It leads to a greater appreciation of others and we’ll be able to give better responses. It’ll be easier to understand if someone wants to vent or desires a solution and stories become more engaging.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. More often than not, if we feel we have something to add, we want to. If the other person has a tendency to ramble. However, good listening is seen as a skill and therefore something we can improve at. A good starting point is to be aware of every time you have the urge to interrupt with phrases like

  • “I know what you’re talking about. I did [insert semi-relevant experience]…”
  • “Why did you do that? That’s [silly/unexpected/etc]…”

Usually, you’re just making a genuine effort to show you’ve had a similar experience or want to offer help in some way. Or want to move the conversation forward. However, we can do that after they’ve finished talking. That way we won’t have to talk over one another all the time!

Seeing listening as an act of humility makes this slightly easier to do. When we listen, our own view becomes less important and we give that privilege to others. Taking a brief walk in their shoes helps us understand why it’s valuable. If you were talking, you’d appreciate the other person’s full attention too.

I’ll end with a quote from John Francis himself. On what he’s realised from his vow of silence:

“when I realized that I hadn’t been listening, it was as if I had locked away half of my life. I just hadn’t been living half of my life.”

What do you think of listening as an act of humility? Would you ever take an extended vow of silence?

***

If you want to read more, here are a few helpful links:

An interview with John Francis

What does it mean to listen?

Thanks for reading :)

Living with Chronic Pain

I’ve been trying to put into words what it’s like for me to live with chronic pain for a while now. It’s quite difficult to explain living with chronic pain beyond ‘it’s difficult’ without seeming overdramatic. However, I think it’s worth having a go. I’m going to split this into three parts.

  1. My motivation for writing about it
  2. What the problem is and how it came to be
  3. Chronic pain and me

If you want the main portion of the article, skip to the third section. The other two are brief and largely explanatory.

For those who don’t know, chronic pain is usually defined as pain that’s continued for over 3 to 6 months. Everyone experiences it with different levels of intensity and react to it in different ways. With that being said, this post will be completely personal to me. However, I hope it’s still useful if not entertaining.

My motivation for writing about it

I find writing therapeutic. Trying to write my thoughts out in a clear manner is helpful even if the result isn’t always particularly successful. I’ve made a few efforts to understand what I feel about the illness. They haven’t made it very far since my initial reaction tends to be nothing more than frustration towards it.

However, what could be more important than that is giving an insight into the issue to other people. The reason why this is important is not because I desire a flood of sympathy. It’s because a simple understanding of various illnesses, disabilities and limitations prevents prejudice and judgement formed due to ignorance. Not everyone has learned to withhold quick judgements so it’s useful to educate where I can instead of feeling victimised which will result in an even worse attitude towards the problem.

What the problem is and how it came to be

My medical problem is somewhat complex and boring to explain but I’ll try to keep it short. I won’t run through a detailed timeline of the issue.

The large majority of my pain comes from my back injury that was sustained about 5 years ago playing rugby. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. In reality, I don’t remember getting hit in a bad way or a specific moment where all the back pain came from. It just steadily got worse until I had to stop playing the sport. I have slipped discs in my upper back that rest on my spinal cord which slightly complicates the issue a bit more.

I still use a walking stick because my right leg is weak because of my back problems. More recently, I’ve also found that my hips are a bit rubbish so that’s affected my walking also.

Chronic pain and me

My relationship with my pain has changed a fair amount over the five plus years that I’ve had to experience it. It’s moved from apathy to anger to optimism which is sometimes marred by pessimism. To say it’s been a smooth ride would only be dishonest. Sometimes I wish that I could keep the bright optimism that I once had but of course, the experience has to change the longer I live with it. It’s the human thing to do.

In the first two years or so of my injury, it’d be best to describe my feelings towards the pain as positive.  Yes, I was in pain for most of the time, but that doesn’t matter too much. I’ll get better soon because it isn’t meant to be a very long term problem. The saying ‘other people have it worse so I’m fine’ often found itself in my justifications for why I was still happy. In some cases, I’d feel bad for complaining about the pain because in perspective, while my condition may have been worse than my friends and family, in the larger scheme of things, I was pretty lucky. After all, I could still see, eat good food and laugh. I couldn’t do sport or do things I enjoyed for as long as I’d like. But that was fine. I’d just adapt and slowly get better.

This reminds me of the time when I was stretching in class and my history teacher quickly remarked ‘it looks like you’re dancing!’ to which I later thought, since all good thoughts happen in the shower after the actual event, then invite me to the chronic pain disco! At the time, I laughed and continued to read whatever I was reading at the time. Such comments didn’t really make me feel isolated or worse off because of what I was experiencing. I just didn’t need to feel singled out because I was in pain all the time.

As I grew older, I began to view my pain in a different way. I went from a phase of using perspective to make myself feel better to feeling frustrated and sad.

The longer the pain lasted, the greater my feelings of frustration and hopelessness became. After two years or so, my optimism slowly began to crack and one of my most poignant fears revealed itself to me.

This pain is normal.

That might sound odd coming from a person who had already experienced it for far longer than necessary. Why had it taken so long for this to happen? If it’s normal, doesn’t this mean I can now live a more fulfilling life around the pain?

To the first, I’ll answer with a brief story. I went to my doctor for a check up on the most recent MRI scan I had taken. As is rare with pretty much every person in existence, I remember going to the hospital happy and hopeful. It was possible I’d be told there was a great improvement in my condition and I’d get some kind of timeline for when I could expect all of this to end. Almost as wonderful as being told two hour lecture would end early. I sat down and after a discussion of how useless my doctor finds my Philosophy degree dressed up in backhanded compliments, I was told that there wasn’t a difference in the scans that I had taken months ago. He’ll see me again in a year and hopefully there will be a difference then. When I got home, the frustration of being told such a disheartening thing resulted in me kicking a hole in my door. (Almost shocking from the guy who enjoys writing a lot about the value of meditation, right?)

Following from that moment, I guess it dawned on me that I could be stuck like this for a while. I could no longer fight it by comparing it to people who were worse off than me. I lost the comfort of genuinely being ok with my situation. I had to begin the arduous process of accepting my condition.

To the last question, yes and no. Realising the pain is normal has led me to improve some areas of my life. For example, I started meditation much earlier than I probably would have in an attempt to find more peace with my pain. Studying, by necessity, had to become much more efficient otherwise I would never get anything done on time. Such skills have spilled over to other areas of my life since being like this has simply motivated me to learn more about how I can improve myself and get back on a normal level playing field.

As you have hopefully guessed, the positives comes with its negatives. Realising the pain is normal has highlighted the fact that being in pain every day and tired as a consequence of that shouldn’t be normal for a 19 year old. With the pain being such a large part of my everyday life, my feelings of loss likes to tap me on the shoulder then punch me in the face. “You can’t go out with friends without being in pain!” “Can you walk around university without feeling tired and frustrated every single day? Of course not.” “Let’s be real, I took away parts of your teenage hood and I’m fine with it.”

Well, that’s what it would say if my feelings could talk like they were separate people. Instead, I’m faced with the wonderful task of reminding myself of those facts. It leads to a strange situation of trying to toe the line between self-loathing and blaming something on my pain. My situation has taken away small freedoms that I usually would take for granted and they’ve cumulated to restrict me greatly. Being able to work on something I enjoy is frequently marred by pain that hinders my concentration. Working on an essay takes far longer than I think it should because I’m too tired to work for longer than 20 minutes at a time. Even not being in pain is interrupted by the knowledge that it will come back. It leads to feeling extremely guilty for resting during those periods instead of making the most of it. Simply living my days without pain in mind was taken away.

Far too often, I fall on the side of self-loathing. I blame myself for things I know are not completely in my control. I get angry when I can’t complete something on time because of the pain. Why can’t I just work through it? Man up and get it done.

As much as I try, I cannot. I try to convince myself I can but it results in anger and disappointment. I’m unable to just brush past the pain even though it’s so familiar. Despite the pain being a regular occurrence in my life, it definitely hasn’t lost its potency. In a way, this familiar thing always feels new. It’s as powerful now as it was when we first became acquaintances.

Following closely from this is the indefinite nature of the whole thing. As I mentioned earlier in my brief story, I was told to wait by my doctor. Years later, I’m still waiting. I haven’t been told any kind of timeline for when I can expect my condition to get better nor have I been told it’s permanent. Given that information, I’ve tried a large variety of things to cope with or fix the problem but none have shown themselves as a solution to it. How many times need I answer the question of when can I expect to get better with “I have no idea”? Having to say that to other people and myself has proven to become a huge emotional burden. Maybe part of me has become tired with it all. Dealing with it day in and day out not actually knowing when it’s going to end has sometimes driven me to the point where I’d rather just disappear. Not die, but no longer exist so I finally have some rest.

If I’ve made it to this point, what could I be waiting for? It’s been years and an end doesn’t look to be approaching any time soon. I’m waiting for it to get better. I’ll eventually be free from the pain, worry about regular things and enjoy my days like I should have been for the past few years. My optimism has not failed completely. Even during the times where I’ve felt the most depressed. This problem is very difficult but I have valuable positives to take from it. I’ve become much more involved with personal development. Helping myself and (hopefully) other people become better and find peace with themselves is wonderful. I have wonderful friends and family with colourful life experiences who have and continue to bring joy to my days. I have a place to talk about this where people will listen so what I have written won’t be greeted with silence.

And finally, I’m still here.

Chronic pain for the most part is silent. One needn’t grimace all the time if she’s in pain nor does she need to cry when she gets home. She can just have the pain and live with it.

For those who have suffered in the past or currently are dealing with the problem of chronic pain, I hope that your relationship with it doesn’t become one of hate or anger. Of course, it’s terribly difficult to remain the happiest person in the world when you feel the suffering is so potent, meaningless and unfair. However, if it’s something we are to live with temporarily or permanently, that time, hopefully, won’t be of complete despair.

Unfortunately, I cannot give any professional advice on dealing with chronic pain but I do invite others to share any experiences they may have had with such issues. Perhaps we can help each other. For those who know someone else suffering from chronic pain, I can say the least one can do is to offer a warm smile and helpful hand if they need it. Depending on the length and severity of the pain, the relationship with it can change quite substantially. Chronic pain is just as emotional as is it physical.

In a way, writing this post has exposed a vulnerability I could have hidden but chose not to. Sharing my experience with it may have helped or you might simply know me slightly better now.

Whatever you may have gained from this, thanks for reading. It’s greatly appreciated.

Letting Go of Judging People

We all judge people. When we engage with people, we often cast some kind of judgement on them. Whether it’s as small as thinking their hair looks bad or as big as thinking they’re probably a boring, self-centred person with no interests other than themselves.

If everyone does it, why is it a bad thing to do?

General judgements about people can be helpful and often are. However, we also fall into the trap of making quick negative judgements about people based on ignorance or lack of understanding.

This judgement closes our minds to who they could actually be. Instead, we build a faulty image of them which only harbours anger and unnecessary negativity.

Most of the time our negative judgements of people are built on some kind of ignorance about the person, the desire to put ourselves in the limelight or simply being unthoughtful.

That’s why people are surprised when they talk to someone and realise they aren’t how they thought they would be at all. They lose the previous misconceptions they’ve had about the person and realise there was no reason to jump to conclusions.

When we say negative things about other people, we’re simply harbouring negativity in our minds instead of being happy or concerning ourselves with more important things. It’s extremely useful just let go of the unnecessary dislike we have of other people. If we can’t help the person we should move on with our lives instead of keeping negativity in our minds.

You’ll harm your relationships with others if you cast premature judgements.

You’ll become frustrated for no good reason.

That frustration is easily avoided if you refrain from petty, unnecessary judgements.

Gossip less (preferably, not at all)

Conversing about how other people are annoying or do get a lot of things wrong tends to result in two different outcomes. Either, you let yourself re-live the initial anger you had towards that person or you simply begin to take pleasure in the flaws of others. Neither are great yet it seems to happen often.

When I find myself doing it, I notice that I become a much less pleasant person to talk to and generally be around. What gives me the right to talk about someone behind their back for no reason?

I feel it comes from the mistaken idea that we should vent our frustrations instead of keeping them inside. We don’t work like pressure machines. Venting our frustrations is a much easier path to follow than calming down over a longer period of time but it isn’t effective because we become far more likely to continue venting in the future.

Withhold judgement

I’ve spoken about why you shouldn’t judge people but this doesn’t mean you need to think positively about everyone that walks down the street. Of course, that would be nice but not everyone elicits positive reactions from people.

This simply means to withhold your judgement of them. How is this done?

  1. Be aware that you’re judging them.
  2. Ask yourself why you’re doing so.

At this point, you might find that you’re judging them because of a previous event that’s put you in a bad mood or your justification for doing so is poor.

  1. Put yourself in their shoes.

Trying to gain a better understanding of who they are will make you more compassionate and less likely to jump to false conclusions. Maybe there’s something about them you didn’t know about and as a result of that, they’re cast in a negative light to you.

Let go of judging people. Hopefully, you’ll feel much calmer for it.

***

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The Struggle for Self-forgiveness

I’ve written about the importance of forgiving yourself in a previous post and I’d like to expand on it.

Forgiving and accepting the mistakes you may have made in the past is difficult. If we’re used to criticising ourselves about everything we do wrong, downplaying our achievements and complaining about the lack of perceived progress, it’s difficult to change that mind-set.

I’m still struggling with it.

A helpful question to ask when you begin criticising yourself is:

Would you talk to your friend the same way you talk to yourself?

If your friend failed to start learning a language like she said she would, would you call her worthless, lazy and stupid? If your friend didn’t make consistent progress with programming, would you say he’ll never learn in the future?

Hopefully, you wouldn’t.

There’s an important difference between being honest and harmful. If we wouldn’t pile on these criticisms to a friend, why the need to do it to ourselves?

I would never tell a friend that she’s worthless I don’t believe she is. They’re capable of doing better and if I can I will help them reach their goals. This isn’t the same as simply excusing all the bad things one might do. Sweeping it under the rug will only result in more problems in the future.

We can run into the problem of holding ourselves to an extremely high standard without making the necessary changes to reach it. We skip the fact that building habits takes time. We skip the fact that being good at most things requires a lot of practice.

Such a trait might be seen as admirable but it’s useless if it simply results in self-hatred. Eventually all the criticism we pile onto our shoulders will bring us to a halt instead of making us stronger.

We don’t deserve the relentless criticism we give ourselves.

We don’t need to hate ourselves to make a positive change.

We deserve compassion. If anyone should be kind to you, it should be you.

The first step: awareness

I would be lying if I said I had this all figured out. There are many times in the day where I still feel disappointed with myself and wish I had done better in the past. There are times when I look at the progress I’ve made and see it as useless.

However, the first step to reducing the self-criticism is awareness. Realising that what you’re doing to yourself is not beneficial but instead harmful to your progress means you have identified what you need to change.

Forgiving yourself is the first step to accepting who you are and identifying what you want to change.

Mindfulness is Beautiful

For my last post, I gave 5 reasons to start meditating and I want to focus on the last point I made about increased mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a beautiful thing.

A few days ago, I was drinking a hot chocolate after my lectures and I realised something wonderful. I was enjoying the drink.

I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to do for the rest of the day.

I wasn’t self-conscious about being alone.

I wasn’t feeling sad because of the pain I was in.

I wasn’t reading anything or looking at pictures.

I was just enjoying a hot chocolate.

I was simply immersed in what I was doing in the present moment and loved the experience. I didn’t need to do anything else . This is something I hadn’t actively done until I began meditating.

Of course, this doesn’t need to be limited to drinking hot chocolate. When I’m talking to other people, I give them more of my attention. When I’m writing, I immerse myself with the ideas I’m trying to get onto the page. When I’m walking, I take in my surroundings instead of rushing to where I’m going.

Throughout the day, I feel that we don’t allow ourselves get properly immersed in the things we’re doing because we’re scared of being bored. Even when we’re walking, the desire to look at our phone becomes overwhelming. When we’re talking to other people, our attention seems to shoot off into a different direction.

The beauty of mindfulness comes from its simplicity. Experiencing what’s happening now instead of being a slave to superficial desires and distractions, allows us to experience what we’re doing with complete immersion. You don’t need to be doing something all the time. You’re allowed to spend time with your thoughts.

The experience of just being without external distractions or harmful self-criticism is something I wish I experienced more.

Being more mindful of the simple things you do everyday definitely takes practice. You’ll need to remind yourself many times to bring your focus back to what you’re doing. Sometimes you’ll be frustrated, other times you’ll feel experience small moments of happiness. You can do this by practising mindfulness meditation or making an active effort to focus on the small things you do everyday.

With this being said, go and enjoy your hot chocolate :)

Do you have any similar experiences you want to share?

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1. The picture comes from dharmaschool.co.uk