Seven Simple Ways to Apply Mindfulness Without Meditating or Sitting Still

Mindfulness is hard work and sometimes it seems like this unreachable lifestyle goal that is only reserved for the deeply disciplined with the perfect instagram feed. But let me tell you this: That is not true aka bollocks. The busyness of our world has called for wise techniques to travel from the Far East to the Westernised world so that we can find ways to deal with the overwhelming and sometimes anxiety-provoking reality of work, stress, lack of sleep and more. Multitasking, perfectionism and overachieving are qualities that are regarded highly in our society but they also can cause burnout, depression and anxiety. And these conditions make it even harder to sit still, practice meditation or “just” do nothing. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t for you. Practicing non-judgemental awareness is even more so for you because it teaches you to love yourself and to be compassionate toward yourself. But the way you practice it may look different from what you mostly see or hear online.

In Zen they say, “when you walk, just walk” and “when you eat, just eat”. This technique teaches the student to be fully aware and be fully in the present with their activities. But the story also goes that one morning, a Zen student sees their Great Zen teacher eating their breakfast while reading the morning paper. Shocker! The student gets very upset and asks the teacher what (on Earth) they are doing, “Master! You tell us, when you eat, just eat. When you walk, just walk. But here you are eating AND reading”. The teacher looks up, smiles, and responds, “when you eat and read the newspaper, just eat and read the newspaper.”

So, really, practicing mindfulness is about loving awareness, as Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield explains. While the idea of only doing one thing at a time is to guide the student in practicing mindfulness aka non-judgemental awareness, it also - because the way we are designed - seems to give us a whole new reason to judge ourselves when we don’t “manage” to only truly do one thing at a time. It creates a new world of perfectionism. And that is just not what all of this is about. The goal of these practices is teaching awareness, love, bliss and compassion. That is why “when you eat and read the newspaper, just eat and read the newspaper.” Do what you do with awareness, presence, and love.

You can practice this with nearly any activity. Be present with the sensations you experience. If you cannot sit in stillness, don’t sit in stillness. If you need to move to minimise the racing thoughts, move. Below, I am outlining 7 activities that you can do to practice non-judgemental awareness / loving awareness in other ways than meditation. These activities you can do for one minute, two minutes, three minutes… however long works for you.

But don’t give up when you notice your mind wandering. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that! It is natural, it is how we are wired, everyone has thoughts when they meditate or practice mindfulness in some other way. Practices like these are not about “not thinking”, they are about how we respond to the realisation that we are thinking. So, when a thought arises, simply acknowledge the presence of the thought, don’t judge the thought or yourself, wave it aside and come back to the present moment. Over and over again.

1) Whatever you are doing, verbalise the action in your mind

You may be running, walking, painting and while it is wonderful to daydream during such activities, you are not taking in the full enjoyment of the activity alone if you are elsewhere with your thoughts. So, in this activity, the idea is that you verbalise in your mind the activity you are doing. For example, if you are painting you can follow each motion with your thoughts - who knew there would be a documentary about you so soon! “I am painting. I am choosing a colour. I am dipping the brush in the azure blue. This looks good. I am applying the paint to the canvas.” For this activity you should avoid thinking as fast as your thoughts can race because that would defeat the purpose a little bit. Instead, you should think the words as slowly as you would say them out loud and then think them even a little slower. That said, why not say them out loud or whisper them? Try to sound out each word separately, one word after the other. This is also a wonderful practice to pull yourself into the present moment when you find yourself in a stressful moment and your thoughts are racing uncontrollably. But more on that another day. When you are running, the thoughts may be “I am running. Left. Right. Left. Right. Today, I feel my thighs. They are tense. But that is okay. It is what it is. I am running.” Honestly, the few times I seriously got caught up in thoughts while running, I ended up stumbling over a root and falling into the gravel. I really learnt my lesson there. You want to be present with your activity. One syllable at a time.

2) Watch someone/something you love

Since we were talking about loving awareness, this would be perhaps one of the easier and more easily enjoyable exercises. This may mean observing your pet playing or sleeping or eating. Watching your partner (to a non-intrusive extent), watching nature outside your window, or even people walking by outside. It may be watching the clouds move across the sky, or watching the rain drop against your window. It may be watching the steam rise from a cup of coffee or tea, or cookies rise in the oven. Watch it lovingly for a few moments of your day. If you have chosen a loving being, you can add to that a few loving thoughts. You can wish them happiness, love, courage. You can let them know in your thoughts that you are there for them. You can wish for them to be free of fear, nervousness or stress. This is a, let’s say, soft form of loving kindness meditation and can do wonderful things for your loving awareness. And if you are not already doing this in your daily life, it is about time introducing it. I personally love watching my bunny rabbits drink water. I love the sound of it - I can tell from a room away if one of them is drinking - and I love how a few drops of water get caught in the fur around their mouth for a few more moments before they lick or shake it off.

3) Give yourself a massage

This is a great exercise in which you combine self-care and mindfulness. Set some time aside to really spoil yourself. You can massage your hands, your feet or your whole body, starting with the neck and going all the way down to the toes. In this exercise you want to follow your hands with your mind and remain fully present. Again, verbalising what you are doing can help to stay present. “I am massaging my feet. I am kneading my thighs.” You can use a massage oil or use coconut oil, olive oil or sesame oil. These three oils are traditionally used in Ayurveda massage depending on your Ayurvedic type, but for now you can choose the oil you are most drawn to. Feel how the skin glides under your fingers and how your flesh warms up under your touch. You may come across tensions, muscle mass and fat and all of them are good and need loving attention. If you would like to go a step further after the massage, sit for a few moments and feel your body, feet or hands vibrating, tingling or whatever you feel. Feeling your body in this way is very empowering because it is nothing more and nothing less than the only truth in the present moment. Feeling your own body is experiential knowledge. If you feel really great after the massage - which is to be expected - great! If you don’t, then don’t judge the sensations or feelings you have. If they are underwhelming then send a notion of compassion to that body part, but then simply accept and move on.

4) Walk slowly and mindfully

Whenever I am stressed, worried or anxious, this feeling gets manifested in how I move. My body tenses up, my hands may form fists, my jar may harden and I walk … faster. It took me a few years to realise especially this last point. How I feel gets literally embodied in my body. When I am happy, I dance. When I am stressed, I walk fast and look downward. This, we can turn around and look at from the other perspective as well. When I tense my body on purpose and I walk faster, I begin feeling stressed, and the happiness I may have felt before glides through my fingers and evaporates. Or the other way round, if you enlighten your face with a smile even if you are not in the mood, it sends the message to your brain that you are safe and happy. This is a fascinating experiment you can do. But for now, in order to practice non-judgemental awareness and presence, make it your goal to walk slower. You don’t even have to leave your house for this. It can already happen inside your home. Walk more slowly from room to room. In fact, slow down all your motions on purpose. Also, move with more awareness of your movement. As you walk from the bathroom to the kitchen, raise your head and notice the things you pass on your way. Perhaps count the steps from one room to the next. Notice, how your perspective of your home shifts as your position changes within it. Be mindful of each.single.step.you.take. You can watch your feet as you walk and think “right foot. left foot. right foot. left foot.” Spacial awareness changes with the degree of presence that we practice in the present moment which I am sure you have first-hand experiences with. If you are anything like me, you will have run with your shoulder into a corner, hit your head against the kitchen exhaust fan or an open cabinet door, hit your toes against the legs of a chair or the bed, … And that is no fun. That hurts. It hurt so baaad (oh, Lauryn…) And it may make you sad or even angry. Let’s change that for you. Be present in the space you live in.

5) Walk through your home and observe

Mhhhhhhh, I love this exercise. It goes hand in hand with the previous point, but also with Marie Kondo, minimalism, hygge, love. Whatever you have done to your home, it is your home. Walk around. Walk around mindfully and take in the objects and things that you have filled your home with. You can take them in your hands, move them around, pick up a book from your bookshelf that catches your attention and leaf through it, look at the picture and photos you carefully chose at some point and may not have looked at properly since you put them up. Let your fingers touch the kitchen bench tops. What do the they feel like? Smooth? Rough? Cold? Warm? Let your fingers touch the bed sheets. What texture do they have? But be careful not to turn this into a find-all-the-things-I-need-to-clean-up exercise. This is not about identifying how messy the kitchen is or how much laundry there is to be done. If it helps, tidy up a little before this exercise, or focus on your favourite part of the house. Take in all the smells and colours. But don’t be tempted to clean up or pick up the towel left behind on the floor by someone. Just notice it lying there, without any judgment. This is the key to mindfulness. It is not about relaxation, even if that is part of it. The key of mindfulness is liberation of all suffering through equanimity (balance) of the mind. Then walk through your home and notice the things you love and that want your attention. You may find some treasures you haven’t noticed in a while.

6) Bathe in sunlight

Did you know that in spring in Sweden you can do urban Swede-watching? What do I mean by that? After many months of darkness (sunrise just before 9 am and sunset before 3 pm in Uppsala, for example) and cold days (-20 degree Celsius / -4 degree Fahrenheit), you can see Swedish people standing in the street, their faces lifted toward the sky, eyes closed, kissed by the sun. They know what’s good. Especially, because they haven’t seen the sun much in winter. This is something we can all learn from, also in other parts of the world. Especially, early in the morning, it can be a great practice. Now, this involves sitting or standing still but even if you find this challenging, try it out. Find yourself a sunny spot (not during mid-day), close your eyes, and feel the warmth of the sun rays in your face. How it touches your skin, warms up your nose. Notice the bright red that you can see through your closed eyelids, feel your eyes warm up. What does it smell like? It may not be the warming sun rays that smell, and yet, I have the impression that a moment spent with closed eyes with your face in the sun has a certain smell. This is what a cat’s life must be like. Take in the moment. And gift yourself a smile.

7) Take 5 minutes to drink a glass of water

This can actually be a very fun exercise even if it sounds strange! All you need is a glass of water. For a little extra entertainment, also grab a teaspoon and a tablespoon. (The spoon is a trick I learnt from a child.) And it works beautifully. The idea is that you drink the water as slowly as you can. You want to observe how it touches your lips, your tongue, how it warms up or cools down the inside of your cheeks, how it runs down your throat. You take one sip at a time. If you have a little mirror in front of you, it can be quite funny. Remember, it is not about stern unpleasantness but about loving awareness. Use your teaspoon and the tablespoon, fill them up and drink from them, mix it up. As you hear sounds around you or thoughts cross your mind, make sure not to get lost in their storyline. Come back to your glass of water. You can smell the water, make bubbles, laugh, giggle. Don’t take it too seriously. If you notice your thoughts wandering a lot, try using the first technique I mention above and verbalise in your mind something along the lines of, “I am drinking. I am drinking water. The water is cold/warm. I can feel the water on my tongue. The water doesn’t taste like much. …” Observe in a non-judgemental objective way. Whatever you experience on the way, let it be. Don’t judge.