I was walking up the hill on the way back from school. It
had been a long working day and I was tired, hot, and anxious to get home.
Suddenly, my three-year-old daughter stopped dead in her tracks and pointed,
excitedly: “Look, Mummy! A spider!”
“Yes, yes, I see it. Come on now, we need to get home…”
But she stood stock still, and refused to budge, adamant:
“Mummy, you’re listening with your ears, but not your eyes!”
I stopped and looked at the tree she was pointing at for the
first time, and we both stood and watched, entranced and fascinated, as a
spindly-legged spider spun her web before our very eyes. Each miniature
gossamer thread grew as we watched, creating a structure of intricate beauty,
delicate, yet strong. I’ve no idea how much time passed. I’d already forgotten
whatever it was I’d been anxious to get home for. Instead, the two of us stood
transfixed, enjoying this special moment together – listening with our eyes.
Mindfulness, at its very simplest, is a simple choice to
live life in the moment. Approaching situations mindfully, we can momentarily
forget our cares and anxieties and simply enjoy and appreciate the here and
now.
A lot of the time we do things without really being
conscious of them at all. For instance, how many times have you eaten an entire
meal and not really tasted a single mouthful? Or got to the bottom of a cup of
coffee without realising you’d drunk it?
We spend much of our time on autopilot – in a way, we have
to, otherwise we’d get nothing done. We become expert multi-taskers. It’s not
unusual to find me, of an evening, simultaneously cooking a meal, sorting socks
into pairs, and editing and article! This is even more the case in today’s
multi-connected, multi-wired society. We are all instantly contactable at the
click of a button, even in the privacy of our homes. With social media and aps
such as Instagram and Facebook, there are always voices to be heard, messages
to be checked and responded to, news items and personal matters demanding our
immediate attention.
Being connected can be helpful, and even give us a sense of
community. The problem is that unless we make a conscious effort to stop
occasionally, to switch off and slow down, we risk missing out on life’s
richest moments.
There’s an internet photo doing the rounds at the moment, a
picture of tourists on board gondolas in Venice, the most beautiful city in the
world. It could be the perfect picture-postcard shot, but for one small detail.
Every single person in the picture is looking at the screen of their mobile
phone. In their eagerness to tell the rest of the world about their amazing
experience, they are missing out on the beauty and joy of the moment itself.
Often, if we’re honest, we’re all like that. Here we all
are, on this beautiful and amazing planet for, if we’re lucky, 80 or so years,
on the journey of our lives – and we’re
missing the whole show!
So why not take a moment or two today, just to listen. Listen with your ears, your eyes, your whole self.
Because that’s really, in essence, all that Mindfulness is. It’s incredibly
simple, when you think of it. But also life changing.
