A New Year’s Mindfulness Experiment – Exploring One Concept a Week

A Mindful Experiment

My intention for the new year is to take one concept each week – just ONE – and dive into it in a focused and mindful way and see what happens – a mindfulness experiment of sorts.  My hope is that I’ll be able to reach a deeper understanding and integrate it into my life in a more practiced way.  I want to move beyond knowing about something intellectually and have it really reside in my being.

I don’t know about anyone else, but the ever changing flood of things I am supposed to focus on is a challenge. How can we   simultaneously focus on breath, kindness, creating community, listening, right speech, justice, eating consciously, being organized, chi, flow, peace, and love?  But, since everything is connected, I could conceivably start anywhere and pull that thread to reach them all.  I think the trick is to go deeper with any one of them. And not get stuck in some surface understanding of any concept.  So that’s my plan.

Throughout the week, I will look for ways to embrace the word or concept which will include: meditation, journaling, maybe drawing (not my strong point), and posting the word or concept at home and at work (I love sticky notes.)  Working with some questions, especially for meditation and journaling will also be part of the plan.

Week One 

My word for week one is NEW, which seems appropriate given the new year.  And by NEW I really mean recognizing the newness and uniqueness of each moment.

“No person steps into the same river twice.”  Heraclitus

The river and the person are different in each moment.  I get that intellectually but it is hard to keep that awareness alive moment by moment.

In meditation and qi gong practice, I can slide into feeling bored and find it hard to focus on the uniqueness of this particular now.   Why is it sometimes  hard to focus on what is happening in this moment?  What is it like to be aware of each nuance of a movement or a breath?   What gets in my way?

In interactions with friends, family, and co-workers, I constantly make assumptions about their behavior based on the past.  What would it be like to meet each person fresh in each moment?  And how can I put that into practice?

Those are just some beginning questions for contemplation. I do find that writing helps me frame other questions and possible answers so I will be using that tool a lot.

This is my personal mindfulness experiment to find out what difference this could make in my life. An it is also a personal challenge to see if I can make it through the entire 52 weeks.  If you’d like to join me, please sign up to follow my blog or check in on Sunday afternoons to see the word for the week.  I would love to know your experience with each word.     Happy New Year!