How to Practice Mindfulness without Life Triggers

“You will have to wear these for 23 hours a day and rest well. No serious movement or stress, we need your body to heal.”

I didn’t know the meaning of those words when the doctor had said them last week. I was like it’s fine

The anesthesia was still in my body system that evening so I was still able to run my mouth about the owambe I had scheduled for the next day.

By morning, the anesthesia had cleared off and I was there on my bed looking like fish. I knew I couldn’t go nowhere.

Damn! The fine gown I had just got from my designer was going to sit this one out.

The thing is I didn’t know that I was going to have the surgery that particular day. I can be very spontaneous. So when the surgeon said we could have it done that day, I was like hell yeah. Let’s get this shit over with.

I didn’t say it like that exactly as the surgeon is a Yoruba man so I behaved.

He saw my waist beads and asked me what they were in a condescending manner. I just smiled and told him it’s none of his business, in my mind. Lol

So, I wanted to have my bath the next day and had to be helped. It was weird. Meanwhile I had jogged, done my squats, donkey kicks and struggled with 2mins plank the previous morning. I couldn’t do them, my morning routine.

I had to be careful about my movements so I wouldn’t tamper with the site.

It was that morning that the saying really hit home that

“You do not value what you have till you lose it.”

I’m grateful this restriction is for a while because it takes a long time to do normal stuff.

Boy! I’ve learnt a lot in this past week. A situation like this makes you sit back and patiently look at your life critically as you have the time.

It takes a while for the body to heal up and you really have to do your time well to get out clean and in time.

I’d like to use this situation as a metaphor for life, if we deprive ourselves of some things we are used to for a while then we can assess our lives and focus as we’d understand why some things are important and some things are just distractions.

It is just sad that this life situation-inducing assessment majorly happens when there are life triggers i.e when we are at our lowest or when we experience a setback/loss.

You remember when we heard news about Kobe Bryant’s death and everyone had a rethink about their lives? Exactly.

How is everyone now?

Back to the “norm” I suppose.

The reality is that our lives only change by consistent actions. Habits shape us as humans.

You can’t maintain a lifestyle without consistently living it repeatedly.

The world seems busy and you would think you are too till something happens that adjusts your focus for a while. Then you start focusing on the important things in your life. You begin to identify the irrelevances using up your time under the guise of work or socializing.

In the past few days,the important things of my life became clear; the people who love me, the people I love, the seemingly simple things of life that I take for granted, my goals and aspirations, and distractions.

I am really grateful for this experience.

In addition, I’ve made some lifestyle changes due to the lessons learnt from this experience and I am loving it as it has made me more productive and focused.

Because I do not want to have to be triggered by life situations or experiences to Be mindful or assess myself, I decided to find out how to induce this assessment experience or instill the mindfulness practice without life triggers (low moments or setbacks or losses)

I mean, how can one deliberately create a situation that would make one question one’s actions and inactions and ultimately make you zoom in on your life?

I found an answer, simply create a routine and in your routine, schedule a time to ask yourself the following questions:

• What am I happy about in my life now? What about it makes me happy?
• What am I grateful for in my life? What about it makes me grateful?
• What am I excited about in my life? What about it makes it exciting?
• What am I proud of in my life? What about it makes me proud?
• What am I committed to in my life now?What about it makes me committed?
• What do I enjoy most in my life now? What about it makes it enjoyable?
• Who do I love and who love me?

You could select a day of the week to ask yourself these questions and answer them, say Friday or Monday or do it everyday like I do.

At the end of the day, I ask myself these questions;

• What have I given today?
• What did I learn today?
• How has today added to my quality of life? How can I invest that into the future?

This, my friend is how to assess yourself per time and practice mindfulness so you need not wait for life situations to set your head straight.

Wishing you the very best of your human experience.

I hope you find this helpful.

If you do, kindly clap 15times so many people can benefit from it and please share the link with your friends.

I intend to live my life to the fullest and write about what I find useful in my journey here.

Cheers!