Almost everything we ever do for ourselves or for one another has also been done by our ancestors throughout history, but in a different way. Likewise, every task we set out to do has received a contribution from someone else in order for us to have the ability to do it. If we can bring this heightened awareness to our everyday lifestyle, even the smallest, most mundane moments can be turned into opportunities for gratitude and honor. In learning to be mindful, we come to appreciate the true meaning of whatever it is that we’re doing by tracing it back to it’s source.
Often times, some of the things we do are automatic….to the point where we can do them while doing something else. We call this multitasking and it’s something our society, especially where I live in NYC, values tremendously if you are going to be “successful.”
Not to long ago, I thought that if I could eat my dinner, check emails, watch my dog, and have music on for background noise, I was being efficient. If I could live this way and get more done, as long as my brain could handle it, why not? But the costs were obvious: I wasn’t sleeping well at all, was always under stress, and I couldn’t control my weight. I had to make room in my schedule for “down time” to recharge my batteries and didn’t leave any room for things that fed my spirit. Feeling so compartmentalized drove my mind into a state of perpetual distraction, always focusing on what was next. If I didn’t keep up, I’d miss something…so this paranoia made me even more of a constant thinker/planner. What was really happening is that I wasn’t actually focusing on the task at hand. I wasn’t at all present or mindful.
I thought that learning to live under constant stress is how one “becomes and adult.” Certainly, that’s what I remember being told by my elders. I can recall an older 9th grade World History teacher who saying to us on the first day of class: “From here on out, life’s a bitch…and then you die.” How comforting!
The truth is, we can only really focus on one thing at a time. Anything more and our attention is diverted, split - whether we choose to accept this reality or not. In the hustle and bustle of modern day living, we’ve gone far away from a societal model where almost everything is sacred and ritualized…but it used to be that way not long ago, and still is in some areas around the world.
How can we reclaim the ancestral connection with our most essential activities so they mean more to us? So that they become worthy of our singular focus and attention?
Let’s take the acting of eating or preparing a meal as an example. Eating has held a very sacred place over time as an act of feeding oneself and feeding another. Imagine the meal you are consuming today and try asking yourself the following questions:
Where did every ingredient in my meal come from? Whose hands might have touched in order for me to have it procured by wherever I got it from? From the planting of the produce, the transportation, the packing/unpacking, the assembling of ingredients, baking/cooking, right down to how it ended up being placed on the table in front of you.
What am I doing for myself or another by eating this meal? What is it providing now and for my future self after I consume it? Perhaps it’s fuel for your run. Or maybe it’s the first thing you’ve had all day.
What would receiving this kind of meal from another person have meant a hundred years ago? 500 years? What would that exchange have looked and felt like?
There are no right/wrong answers. This is about taking time to honor the spirits involved (both human and animal) for having brought the nourishment to your table so that your appetite and energy may be fulfilled. I find that in doing this, one becomes more grateful. Tasting of it is more satisfying and chewing is inevitably slower. In acknowledging the meal itself as the event rather than an accessory to whatever else we are doing, it becomes impossible to eat mindlessly or on auto-pilot.
Mindful questioning can be applied to any activity. We could express gratitude for transportation as we drive our cars, appreciating how we would have connected with others in generations before. We could express gratitude for the music that is broadcast to us from a satellite antenna. Everything then becomes sacred.
I believe that if one is seeking to make a change to better their overall lifestyle, they could either try meditating or make life itself more meditative by incorporating mindfulness. Over time, one will begin to affect the other. Here’s a challenge: how many activities can you make more mindful tomorrow? Give it a shot and keep track of how it makes you act/think/feel.