In todays video we will talk about a very simple strategy of bringing in consciousness into your day to day activities. A simple step of being aware that you are breathing as you are executing anything during the day.
So lets take an example : In the morning, you are reading your favorite newspaper, if you can be aware of your breath as you are reading the newspaper will give you a very different kind of experience being there. Just being there reading the newspaper.
The point of this exercise is not to lose your self or your entire consciousness or awareness in to the matter that the newspaper is offering you. The point of the exercise is to remain grounded using conscious breathing as a tool to engage in activity.
What you will realize while reading the newspaper and consciously breathing is that you are at ease and you will not allow the information to create some kind of anguish within. Sometimes there is very negative information about people who we know like film stars or sports stars and maybe they are going through a rough patch or whatever and as we read that information, the same kind of emotions are created within us, because we are really attached to who they are and we lose ourself to the information.
But by practicing conscious breathing and then engaging in reading the newspaper you will be grounded and will experience a certain kind of ease, a certain kind of calm within you as you are going through the newspaper.
You can also do this while you are eating your meals, when you are engaging with people. All of have to do is be conscious about your breathing. You do not need to breathe deeply or anything like that, just the normal conscious breathing. Then you engage in your activities, say you are at your workplace working on the computer or doing any other kind of work, you are aware of your breathing.
Yes, there will be times that you will be consumed by the information you are working on and you may forget. But then you need to come back and be conscious about your breathing and than continue with your work.
Please do try this, as this is a very easy way to stay conscious during the day, to stay in touch with yourself and be grounded using breathing as a tool. You will experience calmness and peace as you practice this.
And this is a very good way of being self aware during the day. Practicing this will not allow your mind to get lost in information that is not important to you. Currently our mind is too attached to a lot of things which isn’t us. e.g as we are traveling to work and if there is a lot of traffic and somebody comes in front of us with their vehicle, we will get angry. But that is a very automated response to a situation.
But if we are concentrating on our breathing as we are driving we will be at ease and more in touch with our true self. And the same thing may happen but there will some time where you will have the opportunity to choose how you need to respond to the situation at hand.
The usual unconscious way would be yell within the car, even if that person cannot hear you, say a few bad things about that person, think about how rash people are on the road. Negative thoughts, thoughts that are not really taking you anywhere nor are these thoughts spilling the right chemicals in the body to make you feel good.
All that is happening during this unconscious automated process is you are getting angry and you are feeding that emotion with thoughts of similar nature.
So try to be conscious about your breath often during the day specially when you are doing something that is not that challenging. You will experience a lot of peace as you interact with activities. You have to practice to experience it.
Image by : Patrick Lim