Mindfulness Exercises: See the Color Blue

Let me first start by saying, I have been remiss in my posting and for that I’m sorry.  With studying for the bar exam, traveling and then studying for the MPRE, I wasn’t doing as much writing as I would have liked.  But I’m back!

The last exercise I left you with was to see the color blue.  Although I haven’t written in quite awhile, I have been doing this exercise, if only intermittently.

The first thing I noticed with this exercise is that blue is everywhere!  Whenever you’re outside, it surrounds you, from the blue sky to blue tones in many natural objects to blues on cars, roads, signs, houses, etc.  But blue is, if anything, even more present when you’re inside.

Blue is a favorite color for consumer packaging. Look around and you’ll notice that so many consumer goods have elements of blue in their design.  And blue is common in decorating as well: blankets, cushions, art, wall colors.  At your home, in a store, in an office building: everyone loves blue.

But while blue does seem to be ever-present, this is as much a matter of fact as it is a matter of noticing.  Swap green for blue and you’ll find green everywhere as well.  Maybe not as much on consumer goods, but it’s everywhere in the grocery store and it’s also a favorite for decorating.  Not to mention, of course, nature.  It’s called the green movement for a reason.

And that is really the point of this exercise: that whatever we take the time to notice we will see.  The world is so incredibly full that in order to survive we quite simply can’t notice everything.  But we tend to take this to the other extreme and notice almost nothing.  One important aspect of mindfulness is to notice your surroundings, whether it be what you’re eating, how you leave a room when you're done using it, the trees you see, the sounds you hear, or the colors you see.

So stop going through your life with blinders on: take the time to notice!

This week’s exercise is “Bottoms of the Feet: As often as possible throughout the day, place your awareness in the bottoms of your feet.”

Scarlett Sister Mary (1929)

Scarlett Sister Mary is about the shame, and eventual redemption, of Sister Mary.  The story takes place in the deep south in the early 1900s, among a black community living on an old plantation. 

Sister Mary is a member of the church, but when she dances on her wedding night, she is kicked out.  When her husband soon leaves her, her shame truly begins.  She wants to be a member of the church, but she can’t resist the life of sin and pleasure that she truly enjoys.  As the years pass, her struggle becomes more acute, ultimately reaching a climax.

This book is interesting in that it gives an incredibly detailed inside look at a culture most people are not familiar with.  I’m sure that’s why it won the Pulitzer.  It’s fascinating to read about the family traditions, birthing rituals and church society of that culture.  In some ways that culture is very far removed from our own, but that makes the similarities all the more remarkable.  Their wedding traditions are a simpler version of our own, modern traditions; their birthing rituals could be the template for the natural birth movement; and the dogmatic, fundamentalist church, while in many ways foreign to a modern reader, is also very similar to some modern-day churches.

On the whole, though, I wouldn’t recommend the book.  The story is antiquated and the plot would likely seem bland to most readers.  It’s not bad, it’s just probably not worth your time when there are so many amazing books to read.

Mindfulness Exercises: Say Yes

This exercise, “Say Yes”, was to say yes to everyone and everything that happens in your life.

I gave myself two weeks with this exercise because it was exactly what I needed right now.  I have been struggling with depression over the last month or so, and that inevitably comes with a heavy dose of negativity.  Everything seems more difficult or even impossible.  I needed to say yes to my circumstances and to my future.

Of course, my mind still tended towards negativity much of the time, but I did say yes on a few very important occasions.  Sometimes it was simple, like saying yes when David offered to take Adeline to daycare in the morning.  Normally I would have declined his help, done it myself, and stressed about it the entire time (sitting in traffic for double the time, losing an extra hour from the time I was supposed to have to work, etc).  But instead, I said yes.  And it has made a difference.

Sometimes it was more profound, like saying yes to getting help for my depression.  The very act of admitting you need help is the hardest part.  It’s much easier to say no and to go on with the status quo.  But it’s much better for your life if you can manage to say yes.

What can you say yes to in your life?

This week’s exercise is “See the Color Blue: Become aware of the color blue wherever it appears in your environment.”

Mindfulness Exercises: Rest Your Hands

This week’s exercise was to relax your hands completely and be mindful of your hands at rest.

When I’m reading a book, I constantly thumb through the pages.  When I watch T.V., I pick at the skin around my fingernails.  When I sit on the floor playing with Adeline, I tap out rhythms on toys. When I wait in line at the store, I check my iphone.  When I walk down the street I click my fingernails and my thumbnails together.  In other words: I never stop moving my hands!

I already knew that I’m a fidgety person, but this exercise opened my eyes to just how incredibly fidgety I am.  The above list doesn’t even take into account the constant fidgeting I do with my legs and feet: shaking my legs, tapping rhythms with my feet, crinkling my toes.  I’m constantly moving.

I actually don’t mind that as a general matter.  For one thing, I think it keeps my metabolism up, and I’m ok with that.  And also, I think it keeps my general energy level up.  It helps keep me awake when I might otherwise be flagging on a long day.

But I can also see the value in taking time to relax every now and then.  And this exercise definitely helped with that.  When I actually remembered to do it and managed to relax my hands, I found that the rest of my body automatically relaxed.  My breathing slowed down, any tension I was holding in my shoulders or chest melted away and my mind calmed.  It’s amazing that just the act of resting your hands would have such an impact on the rest of your body, but it really did.  I’ll keep this exercise in mind for days when I just can’t slow down.

This week’s exercise is: “Say Yes: whenever it’s not dangerous to do so, say yes to everyone and everything that happens in your life.”

Mindfulness Exercises: Notice Trees

This week’s exercise was to take time each day to notice trees.  At first I thought that this exercise would have been more fun during the summer or the fall, when the trees were covered with leaves.  On the first day of the exercise I looked out the window and saw bare, dead-looking trees and I felt disappointed.

But then I realized that the trees are amazing right now.  During the summer or fall I would have focused on the leaves, seeing only the over-all effect of the canopy of leaves or the burnt colors in the fall.  But with the leaves stripped away, I saw the structure of the tree.  I saw the tree for what it really is.

Gnarled, imperfect, misshapen: trees are fighters.  Each knot and bit of broken bark is a scar, a souvenir from an infection or an injury.  Sometimes the branches have grown around obstacles, adapting and pushing on despite challenges.  In the cold of a December day, the bare trees stand alone against the elements.  They look naked and barren, but they’re not.  The hard, rough bark protects the life inside the tree.

Once I began to focus on the trees in this way, I discovered the hidden underside of even the evergreens that are still full and green. 

Because, although the bare deciduous trees and the evergreens look so different right now, underneath they look remarkably similar.

We can learn a lot from the trees, about our similarities, the hidden struggles we all face, and the fact that, in spite of it all, we have to persevere, we have to fight on, day after day.

This week's exercise is: "Rest Your Hands: Several times a day let your hands relax completely."