Mindfulness is the practice of bringing awareness to our thoughts, feelings, and physical state of being. Practicing mindfulness can help you reduce stress, improve sleep quality, and improve your mental health. If you’re following us on social media, you are familiar with our Mindfulness Monday posts. Mindfulness Monday is designed to serve as a gentle reminder to the women who are booked and busy to check in with themselves and practice a little mindfulness. Just in case your busy schedule has kept you away from our Instagram page, here are the three posts that we selected as the Best of Mindfulness Monday. 

  1. The Happiness Challenge

The Happiness Challenge encourages people to incorporate activities or experiences that make them feel happy into their day. Ensuring that your day has a little bit of joy in it does not have to be extravagant. It can be as simple as playing your favorite song in the morning before you head to work, reading a few pages of a good book at the end of the day, or putting on your favorite outfit on a trip to the grocery store. Incorporating these seemingly small things into your day can help you feel a consistent feeling of contentment. When we put our pleasure on the back burner for too long, we feel burnt out, tired, and possibly unappreciated. Sprinkle a little bit of pleasure (minus the guilty part) into your daily life and see where it takes you. 

  1. How to Accept Yourself

Self-Acceptance is the first step to achieving self-love. Self-acceptance involves recognizing the reality of where you are in your personal journey, being radically honest with yourself, and confronting your fears. Being rooted in reality allows you to see your life and who you are as a person in an honest light. When you start to assess who you are and where you are in life, you must do so with radical honesty. Radical honesty is not harsh or demeaning; it is truthful and constructive, but it can also be a hard pill to swallow. Being objective in your self-evaluation means holding yourself accountable for your actions. This can be a scary process, but you must confront the fears you hold within yourself in order to grow. 

  1. Ways to Be More Present

Life is not a passive experience. You must be an active participant in your life in order to live it to its fullest. Being present helps you become a driving force in your life so that you can achieve your goals, maintain your relationships, and stay grounded. 

We may get caught up in the pain of our past or all the things we hope to achieve in the future. Release the pain of your past, envision your future, and build in the present. The past can only hold you back if you let it and your goals for the future will only be met if you start taking realistic, actionable steps in the present. 

Being present in your relationships sometimes means just listening. Not listening just so you can get a word in next, but listening to understand, sympathize, and learn from the people around you. You’d be surprised at how many doors will open for you in your relationships if you listen with the right intention.

Mindfulness is a simple practice that can act as a tool to help us live better lives. If you found these methods of mindfulness interesting, check out our Instagram page every Monday for a Mindfulness Monday post.