Have you ever gotten in your car, driven somewhere and then realized upon arrival that you have no recollection of the trip over? How about checking the clock at work and realizing ‘holy crap, it’s already 2:30, where did my day disappear to?’ Or how about getting into an argument and then suddenly stopping to ask yourself, ‘how did we get here?’

This happened to me all the time, I would float through my days doing my best to steer my life in the right direction and be as productive and positive as I could be but often (too often) I would get swept up by the current of the moment and before I knew it I was way off course and wondering how I got there.

I always equated this problem to a personal weakness in controlling my life. If I only stuck to a better schedule or had a better handle on my emotions than I wouldn’t get myself into so much trouble. Following this line of thinking I tried my best to correct the problem. I bought day planners, attempted to write down my daily tasks and read books about ‘how to control your emotions and be a better partner.’ The only problem was…none of it seemed to really work. I felt like I was living in that classic cartoon where the main character was constantly trying to fill cracks in a dam with his fingers and toes. Every time I would plug a hole another would spring up and pretty soon the dam would break and I would get swept away.

During this month’s challenge I proposed the question that maybe my lack of control had a greater root problem. Maybe the reason I couldn’t solve my problems of organization, distraction, and stress was because my real problem was something greater: Mindfulness.

Mindfulness vs Mindlessness

If I wanted to take control of my issues I needed to first be aware of when they were arising. Instead of drifting through my days with only minor awareness as to my distractions and emotions I needed to figure out how to be more present in the moment so I could actively self correct. I went searching online for mindfulness practices and ways to become more present in the moment. After sifting through a lot of spiritual mombo-jumbo and self help marketing noise I eventually came across the concept of mindful vs mindless living.

Mindless living was (unfortunately) exactly how I described my life; basically living an unfocused, unaware and uncontrolled lifestyle where distractions and emotions ruled your day to day activities (like being cut off by some dickhead on your commute and then not being able to focus the rest of the morning). Mindful living was essentially the exact opposite; being fully present in the moment, with your attention on what you are doing and a conscious awareness of your emotions and how they are impacting your actions (basically owning life like a boss).

This was it, the root of my problem, I needed to ditch mindlessness and figure out how to become more mindful and present all the time.

Frustrated with the chaos of information (and misinformation) on the internet I thought it was again time to bring in an expert. I reached out to basically the only person I knew who meditated and could possibly offer me some insight: Chelsea Ray.

Insight and Inspiration

Chelsea was a registered yoga and meditation instructor, holistic nutritionist, life coach, blogger and over all awesome person. I didn’t know Chelsea incredibly well but when I reached out and explained my intentions she was very excited to help and suggested I attend her upcoming yoga workshop that she just happened to be hosting on ‘Being Present’ (sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good). She also offered to take a walk with me after to discuss my challenge and offer some insight.

When the day of the workshop came I was both nervous and excited to take Chelsea’s course. The only experience with yoga I had ever had was when my boss duped me into going to an advanced 90 minute long Bikram (hot) yoga class of which I had spent most of my time curled up in ‘child’s pose’ and coming up with good excuses to make a break for the door and the fresh-air beyond.

Surprisingly Chelsea spent most of her 2 hour course just sitting on the floor and talking to the group about her story and her perspective on being present. Chelsea had recently had a tragedy in her life as her fiancee Renee had passed away in a rafting accident the summer prior. I knew Renee through the Jr Chamber so her story carried a strong impact for me.

Her strength, and perseverance in the face of such a horrible tragedy was inspiring to say the least but what really took me by surprise was her passion and lust for life. You could obviously tell that she was still dealing with the weight and emotion of it all but what really defined the depth of her character was her persistence to not let this life shaking instance define her. She wanted to use her story to help others gain perspective in their own lives, to inspire instead of depress. 5 minutes into her course I was feeling that same inspiration.

Create Calm & Conquer Contentment

I won’t discuss the personal stories that she shared but I will speak to some of the mindfulness insight she discussed. Chelsea spoke about the importance of living in the moment and embarrassing only what was ‘real’ in our lives. She encouraged us to not let ourselves become swept away by negative and meaningless life distractions. Whether it was cell phone notifications or stress about unfinished work, anything that was not meaningful and valuable only served to take away from the involvement and enjoyment of our current moment. She used the analogy of walking her dog and his tendency to constantly pull her in 100 different directions all at once. “So often, we also have our own ‘dog brain’ in our lives so we need to practice and train our minds to focus and not let shiny objects steer us away.” she told us. She suggested that mindfulness was just another term for self-awareness and that the goal was simply to take a moment to reflect on our current mental and emotional state so that we could engage more wisely with our lives.

Taking A Breath To Take Control

On our walk Chelsea was a fountain of insight. I already regretted not taking notes during her workshop so now I was scrambling to write as much down as I could.

The biggest thing that really stuck with me was our discussion about distractions. I asked her how she dealt with distraction in her life and she told me just like meditation the best thing to do was to try and return to your breath. “If you can focus your mind on your breath it becomes a focal point of clarity and perspective to which you can better asses distractions and if necessary refocus.” she said.

This struck me as interesting since the idea of taking a breath was something we’ve all been taught since we were very young. “If you’re feeling upset just take a breath and count to ten, if you’re still feeling upset by the end then you can act.” said every mom ever (I would guess). A big part of Mindfulness seemed to basically just be an off shoot of this core concept: take a breath and gain some perspective.

As our walk ended I told Chelsea how inspiring and insightful I found her workshop and thanked her for sharing.

Capacity Before Correction

It’s funny, at the beginning of the week I felt like I was actually making a big mistake diving so deeply into meditation and mindfulness as I have. I thought I should be spending my time working on more productive things like building a better task schedule for my day or identifying distractions that could be minimized but upon looking back I don’t think I would have been very effective in correcting these problems. Without the foundation of mindfulness my brain would have just naturally found it’s way back to the same unproductive cycle I had started with. Now having this new found mindful insight I was far better prepared as I moved forward to consciously identify distractions and focus on what was most important in the moment.