The 1 Year Mindfulness Project

We are going to use this blog to help guide you through a year of mindfulness.

We will be taking this journey one week, one day, one practice, at a time and we will do it together.

I have read a lot of mindfulness books over the years. Some good, some not so good, and some offering practices I am not sure I would call "mindfulness". But, that can be debated on another day. I have also seen many mindfulness books, articles, posts, etc. instructing people to do things "mindfully". Go for a mindful walk, eat mindfully, play with your pets mindfully, etc. This is all well and good, if you know what mindfulness is or have a foundational understanding of mindfulness. If you don't, then chances are you are just walking, eating, playing with your pets. Don't get me wrong, these can all be great things to do even when not done mindfully. I love playing with my dogs. I really love food!!! and I enjoy walks. I was at a continuing education training for therapists a few years ago and the trainer was talking about mindfulness and getting patients to do mindfulness. The question came up about having patients "do" things mindfully by one of the attendees. What the trainer said, did and still resonates with me today. She stated the first things she does with patients when trying to get them to do mindfulness is "getting butts in chairs".

Pro tip: If you want to understand HOW to DO things mindfully, you first need to understand WHAT it is like BEING mindful and how to be mindful and present in the moment for us to truly do things mindfully.

One thing that is really cool about this concept, is the more you practice mindfulness the more mindful you will become at doing the daily and/or mundane things.

This blog is going to take us through a 1 year progression of different mindfulness practices each week. Yes, we are going to do at least 1 week of each practice before moving to the next one. You may even see the same mindfulness practice pop back up in a few weeks. That is okay, just like with exercise, you do not reach and end point to "exercise" or because you did push ups last week doesn't mean we can't do them again. I've yet to hear anyone say, I have reached the end of "exercise". Heck, even people that practice Zen and have reached "enlightenment" or have done koan work do not stop meditating. Most of those that have attained this status actually report that it deepens their mindfulness journey.

Remember: Mindfulness is the journey, it is not a destination.

We exercise each day, each week, because it is good for us. This is how mindfulness works too, we do it each day, each week, because it is good for us. Also, there is not set magic time that makes you mindful. Is it 5min? 10min? 20min? 60min? - yes, they are all good for you. Again, just like with exercise, some days may be harder than others and some of us may need to start with 2min before working up to five minutes. If you decide you want to run a marathon, you don't go out and run 26.2 miles your first day training. Same here, take your time, build up, give yourself grace, and sometimes even challenge yourself. Maybe set aside one mindfulness "distance day" each week where you try a longer than usual practice. Or decide one week that you are going to do more mindfulness practices on the schedule. The wonderful thing about this is there is no right or wrong way.

Just like the rest of you, I have a job, I am a full-time faculty member with teaching, writing, and research obligations. I also have an adjunct teaching position in another department where I teach psychology classes. I have a small therapy private practice where I see patients. I mentor students, train 2 different martial arts, I am still tryin to be a runner (some days are better than others on my knees), I play soccer a couple of days a week, I enjoy a good weight training session or kettle bell session. I have a partner that I thoroughly enjoy spending time with and I have 2 very energetic German Shepherds. I am not sitting on a mountain top all day meditating. What is really fascinating about mindfulness, is the more you do it, the more you will probably find you are getting stuff done throughout your day and week more efficiently.

When I think about mindfulness I think of this analogous to exercise (you will see me reference this idea A LOT in this blog). Richard Davidson, PhD (see link below to his website) has done some really cool research over the years on how the brain structures start changing when we start doing mindfulness.

https://centerhealthyminds.org/about/founder-richard-davidson

Analogous to exercise, the parts of the brain you flex, they get stronger, the parts you don't flex, "atrophy". This holds true for negative emotions as well, the more you "flex" them the stronger they become. Which we will talk about in another post.

This is week 1, we don't need to unpack all the awesome nerd stuff just yet. However, if you want to start your mindful nerd journey, I will provide you with a book link at least every other week (you don't need to read them that fast). I've just read a few over the years and really like sharing what I find exciting and interesting.

Here is your first book, click no the link to find it on Amazon:

The Science of Meditation

If you don't have the foundations of movement and exercise then you are less likely to do the movements correctly. The good news about doing mindfulness "less right", is that you likely won't get hurt versus if you do some exercises wrong or weight training improperly.

I'm not sure I would ever tell anyone they are doing mindfulness "wrong" as long as they are trying. Plus, my ego is not that big that I think I know what is the "right" way to do mindfulness. There are so many variations out there and they all have their benefits. When you know what you are doing. When I teach martial arts to people and they are not getting the technique quite right, I am often explaining that they did it less right than what was demonstrated, not that they did it "wrong". Thinking you did it wrong is not a growth mindset. Another wonderful thing about mindfulness is that it teaches us we don't have to live in a dichotomous world or do things perfectly. This is not an issue of right or wrong. The more you practice mindfulness you will start to notice that not everything is black and white. As a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) therapist I often speak with my patients about being effective or skillful versus being "right or wrong". This is the world or frame we will live in in this blog, how can we effectively or skillfully to the best of our ability do our mindfulness practice today.

Pro tip: The only "wrong" way to do mindfulness, is to not do mindfulness.

Below is a word doc that you can download and start recording your completed practices. These are only recommendations to get you started. As you see in the first week there only 3 practices to complete and only 5-min per practice. Going back to our exercise analogy, we need to get successes under our belt and then keep going. We want to work from a growth mindset. Make sure you have some way of indicating you completed each one. If you miss a day, that is okay, don't judge it, don't judge yourself and use one of the "off days" to complete it. If you are feeling ambitious, you can do more than what is on the schedule or for a longer period of time. I try to have these working around 4-5 practices a week. Again, if you want to do 7 days, awesome! do 7 days. I also realize that life happens and you will see in this word doc schedule, most Sundays are "off" days. This allows you an opportunity for some grace and forgiveness if you miss a day. Or an extra day to practice!!! if you've completed all the scheduled ones and want to add another day.

When I completed each one when I was doing my schedule, I changed the black ink to green to indicated that I completed it. To hold myself accountable, I did mark it in red if I didn't complete a practice at the end of the week and didn't make it up (see image below). For me, the red ink allowed me to see trends and to reflect on what was happening that day or that week and look to problem solve how to get my practices completed the next week. For the example, below you see the Saturdays are in red. If I noticed a trend of multiple missed Saturdays I could consider pushing back a day and maybe doing the Saturday practice on that Thursday. Or see if I am over scheduling myself on most Saturdays and then I can work to figure out a problem solve for that so I could complete my practices on Saturday. This could be saying no to some things on the weekend to free up some time. It could be getting up 15min earlier, or deliberately scheduling my mindfulness time instead of trying to "fit it in". Maybe I need to move mindfulness up my priority list of things to do on Saturday. Or maybe I realize that Saturdays at this point in my life are not the best time to get my practice completed. If the red ink is too "punishing" for you and will likely lead to you stopping because you've missed a day or two, then don't use red ink.

Just make sure you celebrate your success in some way.

1 year of mindfulness blog schedule.docx

Download DOCX • 24KB

This is enough for now, I don't want to overwhelm you as you start this journey. There will plenty more for use to talk about and to practice.