I have dabbled in mindful living for about a decade, ever since I first read Eckhart Tolle’s ‘New Earth’. While it all made sense to me intellectually, and I spent many hours striving to capture that ever-elusive ‘present moment’, I only ever got glimpses of it. My moments of mindfulness were like glimmers on the surface of a pond, a bright reflection of light there for an instant and gone the next. I travelled to Thailand and Nepal, took yoga classes and eventually became a yoga teacher all in the pursuit of the Now.

I consider myself to be quite in touch with my spiritual side and meditate often. I have spent many hours researching and practicing being present, and still I often found myself in stretches of unconscious thoughts and behaviours.

The statement that made me stop and my tracks.

One evening I was watching a magic show on TV. The program revolved around faith healing and whether it is fact of fiction. Darren Brown, the presenter (or is it performer – I will let you decide) said something that completely startled me.

His sentiment was this:

You become the story you tell yourself about yourself.

That was my a-ha moment. Although I understood it intellectually, I never managed to integrate it into ‘knowing’ before. So I started deliberately practicing mindfulness. I started paying attention to every now that I could anchor in. I would sit and breathe or fully engage with whatever I was doing. Whether it was writing articles or putting on my computer, taking a shower or tying my shoes. I started paying attention more and more, especially to ordinary and boring things in my life. Things that I did as part of a routine that required no attention.

 As I started practicing mindfulness during those moments when I could have easily switched to auto pilot, I started to become aware of my thoughts and self-talk. I heard some interesting things – and some very mean things from myself… about myself.

The awful things you say to yourself.

‘You will never make it’, ‘you don’t deserve it’, ‘you are not worth it’… These have been thoughts that I have been working on changing. Each time I would stop the thought and change it into something positive. I would re-frame it to ‘look how far you have come’, or something similar. You become the story you tell yourself about yourself.

Then there were other stories that I would tell myself, stories relating to my abilities and the fact that I am living with depression and (sometimes nearly debilitating) anxiety. I would hear things like ‘this is too overwhelming’ and ‘it is too much, too big, someone with depression cannot possibly get this done’. You become the story you tell yourself about yourself. And every time, every mindful moment when I managed to catch that I simply reminded myself ‘all you need to do is one thing… just one thing… just this one thing’.

And once that one thing was done, I would take a moment to breathe consciously and sit with the heaviness inside of me that has become a rather permanent companion. I would sit in the darkness of me and breathe. And be mindful of my breath. And then I would pull myself together and do the next ‘one thing’. It would start non-committal, and then, as I practice being mindful I would quickly become absorbed in what I was doing and forget all about the heaviness… if only for a few moments of ‘now’.

Seeing the change.

I had changed my story from thinking that if I attempt one thing, I would have to take on everything… and be perfect at everything. But what practicing mindfulness has taught me is that there is always just one thing… because there is always just that one moment. And that one thing in that one moment is all that matters. Because all of those ‘one things’ eventually sting together to create a life filled with purposeful and conscious living.

You become the story you tell yourself about yourself.

Find out how you can increase your self-love and change the story that you tell yourself about yourself through Remembering Your Worth.

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Burnout is defined by the ICD-11 as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
• reduced professional efficacy.”

With this definition comes the caveat that burn-out is a phenomenon specifically related to one’s occupation and does not apply to other aspects of life.

Other mental health factors that influence employee productivity are anxiety and depression. The WHO estimate 264 million people life with depression globally, with many of these individuals also experiencing anxiety. A study led by WHO found that the global economy loses nearly US$ 1 trillion each year due to lost productivity as a result of these mental health conditions.

A different WHO-led study estimated that for every US$ 1 that was dedicated to the treatment of common mental health disorders, US$ 4 was returned in the form of improved health and increased productivity.

In 1979, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre, Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced the west to The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme.

In a study published in Creating Healthy Work Environments  in 2019, the authors found that integration of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques in the workplace led to lower cases of worker burnout. The researchers also found that MBSR led to lower depression, anxiety and distress amongst employees.

Hilton and colleagues published a summary of recent Mindfullness-based research in Work in 2019, while this article published by Forbes (and this article here) indicate that large companies like Google, Intel, Aetna and General Mills have all incorporated mindfulness training as employee wellness offerings.

While a person’s mind tends to wander about half of his or her waking hours, mindfulness training helps to bring focus back to the task at hand. Mindfulness has been shown to improve stability, control and efficiency. Employees tend to be less scattered and complete tasks more thoroughly and quicker.

Practicing mindfullness has a positive impact on a variety of areas. It improves attention, cognition, emotions, behaviour and physiology. It reduces stress enabling employees to feel calm and focussed on the task at hand. It also has physical benefits such as lower blood pressure and stress-induced health concerns. This means lower cost of health benefits and less employee absenteeism due to poor health caused by stress.

Individuals who practice mindfulness show greater empathy, emotional resilience and compassion which leads to better interpersonal behaviour and workgroup relationships.

Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present without judgement. Often referred to as ‘in the now’ or ‘in the moment’, it is the practice of fully engaging with an activity or situation that is occurring at that particular moment, without judging anything that comes up. Besides paying attention to the activity, practitioners of mindfulness are also aware of themselves in that situation, of their physical and emotional responses in that space, again in a non-judgemental way.

There are many was to cultivate mindfulness, with meditation being one of the most powerful tools to do so. With practice one can enter a deeply meditative state where the focus is completely directed at the quiet space with, linked to the breath and the sensations in the body.

Other practices like yoga and mindful eating or walking can also assist in cultivating mindfulness. Mindfulness practice is exactly that – a practice. Some days it might come easier than others. The key to releasing the benefits is to engage in it consistently.

As per the summary published by Hilton and her colleagues, there are a number of different mindfulness practices aimed at improving employee wellness, and through that efficiency and productivity. With the growing popularity and the pool of research on the benefits of mindfulness in the workplace more and more employers are introducing these programs.

Specialised employee wellness and mindfulness programs provide employees with the skills to perform better under stress and to be more productive while at work. These skills can be, and often are, transferred into the employees’ lives outside work, leading to overall improvements of health, psychological wellness and general contentment. Employees who find contentment in and outside of their workplace tend to be more motivated and stay with their employer for longer.

Mindfulness programs in the workplace not only hold benefits for the employees, but also for the employer in the form of lower absenteeism rates and more productive employees. This, in the long run, lead to lower costs per employee, and higher income due to a more efficient workforce.

Take a look at our employee wellness and mindfulness offer here.

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I mean, surely this is a natural state of being. In fact, it is a natural state of being. It is the default position that our bodies, minds and souls want to get back to. It is a moment or more where every bit of you can just relax and be. With no judgement, no second-guessing, no ‘what if’s’. It is fully just present and paying deep attention to what is happening in that one particular fraction of time.

Moments of mindfulness offer us a space to just breathe. Away from the race of life, away from thoughts speeding through our minds at light-year speed. While this is a moment of rest, it is not a moment of inaction (although it could also be that). Studies on mindfulness have shown that being focussed and present makes you more efficient – multi tasking actually gets less done.

Being mindful means you pay full attention. You take in everything that is present in that moment. You really notice the details that sometimes get lost in the madness of a moment. Like the colour of the eyes of the person that you are talking to. Or the feeling of the wind on the back of your neck. It not only helps you to do things more thoroughly, it also creates a space where you get to soak up the essence of life. Moment by moment.

Being mindful and staying present is something that needs to be practiced. It is something that you need to remind yourself to come back to again and again. A good way to start practicing mindfulness is to invite small moments into your everyday life. Become fully present whenever you remember. Here are some tips to help you do that:

Pay attention to your breathing.

Your breathing tells you a lot about what is going on around you and within you. Long, deep breaths tell you that you are comfortable and relaxed. Short, quick, shallow breaths usually mean that there is something you need to pay closer attention. In these moments ask yourself what is going on, check in with your thoughts, feelings and emotions to identify exactly what is happening inside. Once you have identified this, then you can look at your surroundings and the situation to see what could have triggered this response. You might find that there is some healing work that needs to be done, or you might find that you are just really unfit and out of breath from climbing that hill! Either way, congratulations, you just spend a few moments being fully present.

Make a habit of bringing mindfulness to everyday tasks.

Start to develop the habit of being mindful during specific everyday tasks like taking a shower or doing the dishes. Pay attention to each and every spoon, knife, fork and plate. Notice the tiny scratches or dents. See the bubbles that the soap makes and notice the texture of the sponge in your hand. Fully immerse yourself in washing the dishes. As this becomes a habit you will naturally start to become present and notice more and more moments of being mindful during your day. The wonderful thing about practicing mindfulness is that the more you do it, the more spontaneously you will slip into those moments of peace.

Do yoga.

Yoga is a great tool to help you achieve mindfulness. Yoga means ‘yoke’ and aims at binding or connecting your mind, body and soul. Through practicing yoga, you aim to get all three of these elements in synchronisation. During practice you focus on your body and breath, lose your focus and your poses become less stable and you tend to be unable to go as deep as you might when you are focusing and breathing. By focusing completely, you are giving your mind the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be fully present, to focus on only the asana that you are in, with no distractions from outside, or from your own scattered thoughts. Yoga is the ultimate tool that leads you to be able to experience deep meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation.

A powerful way to crate mindfulness is through meditation. It helps you to cultivate that deep stillness where your mind and soul can rest. Meditation aims at quieting your mind and creating a space where you can just be. As you are, in that moment.

Like all forms of mindfulness, meditation is a continual practice and some days the quiet will come easier than others… and that is ok. As time goes by you will experience more moments of quiet and those moments will get deeper and deeper until you get to the space where you enter a semi-dreamlike state. Where time does not exist, and you feel like you are floating in a universal soup of energy. That…that beautiful moment is what meditation is about, or at least for me. I have created a few guided meditations here, they are great for beginners and more experienced meditators.

The ultimate goal of practicing mindfulness is to become fully present in each moment. It is to create a space where your mind is quiet and focused, and you are free to absorb everything that the moment brings you. Every moment of ecstasy and every moment of sorrow. Every ordinary moment… until you realise that there are no ordinary moments, only extraordinary moments waiting to be witnessed.

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