“Our talents are what Heaven gives us to help others” – Dr. Nash Siamwalla
Yesterday, I attended a full-day ‘Mindfulness Retreat’ with Dr. Nash Siamwalla, a mindfulness expert from Thailand.
He had spent more than 10,000 hours honing his mindfulness practice and has gone through over 70 week-long mindfulness retreats.
Dr Nash was a lifelong practitioner of martial arts and expert in neuroscience – two fields I personally was interested in – which made me very eager to learn from him.
The practice of mindfulness, although is a very ancient practice, has gained popularity over the last decade.
Mindfulness is simply being aware and paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment, without judgment.
While it may seem like a complex psychological process, it isn’t.
It’s just being silently attentive to what’s going on.
And yet such a simple process can invoke profound physical and psychological benefits.
Mindfulness is proven to drastically lower stress levels, improve memory, heighten focus, enhance problem-solving and decision making, and even bring about anti-ageing effects.
Mindfulness helps us to gain a sense of clarity and space in our minds so that we have the wisdom to make the right decisions.
With mindfulness comes wisdom. With wisdom comes liberation. And with liberation, we find peace.
I won’t go deep into what mindfulness is in this post, but I would be sharing a little bit about the practice of spending time with yourself.
We live in an intensely noisy world.
Our plates are already full with work and social commitments. And then we have the incessant glare of our phones, computers and ads blasting in our faces every day vying for our attention.
We block our calendars for other people, but rarely do we do so for ourselves.
We rationally know we need to do so, but why don’t we ever do it?
Shouldn’t the act of spending time with yourself be something you do naturally?
Let’s get down to the fundamentals.
How do you define the act of ‘spending time with yourself’?
There’s a difference between spending time FOR yourself and spending time WITH yourself.
When you spend time FOR yourself, it’s usually involving some form of ‘me-time’. You could be just chilling, watching Netflix, going to the gym or pampering yourself at a spa.
It involves doing something, with a particular outcome: to de-stress, to break the monotony, to relieve boredom.
But when you spend time WITH yourself, you are just present with yourself.
You’re not on your phone, you’re not in a daze, you’re not occupied with any tasks. You’re not doing something to accomplish something else.
You’re just here, with you.
You’re acknowledging that you – are your best company.
The best gift you can give yourself is presence.
Being with yourself does not require money or effort. Just time.
And the best way to do this is to take advantage of ‘pockets of time’ that you have throughout the day.
These ‘pockets of time’ are the time we take for granted.
They exist in between appointments or commitments scheduled throughout the day. Being busy individuals, a lot of it is usually during the commute.
When we go through our lives on autopilot, without being conscious of how we use these ‘pockets of time’, they tend to be filled in two (main) ways:
The first is through idle thinking: through worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.
The second is to use our phones… to chat, watch videos, listen to music or to read articles (like this one).
Both methods are NOT spending time with yourself, because your attention is used on something other than the present moment.
Instead, when you’re on the train, bus or cab – turn off all notifications and give yourself just 1 minute to spend with yourself.
Start with 60 seconds to enjoy the delicious present moment in silence.
Just take 3 deep breaths and feel absorbed into the environment, savouring it with your 5 senses.
See the colours and the faces around you.
Truly listen to the sounds, voices and chatter in the environment.
Feel the weight of your body and the sensations within it as you soothe your nerves.
Nothing is a distraction – be aware and accept everything in your reality at that very moment.
Be committed to that 60 seconds… before you jump right back into ‘life’. That’s the least you can do to spend time with yourself.
And if you want to spend longer, by all means – it’s your time to spend.
By making the habit of consciously using those ‘pockets of time’ to just spend time with yourself in silence, you’ll begin to look forward to the tiny bubbles of peace that are available to you throughout the day.
Those moments with yourself become time you look forward to – because they give you a sense of respite and relief from the relentless pace of life.
After a while, you’ll start to find that clarity of mind becomes a state you can switch into immediately whenever you need to tackle a big problem. Because you’ve been practising it in tiny ways on a daily basis.
You don’t need to wait for enlightenment or achieve Nirvana to taste that inner peace.
You can have it right here when you become aware that you have access to it, throughout little ‘pockets of time’ throughout the day.
To truly make use of every moment you have on Earth to live, we have to first be aware that the only moment we have is now.
Summary
Take advantage of ‘pockets of time’ that exist in between appointments or commitments scheduled throughout the day, usually during the commute.
When we go through our lives on autopilot, these ‘pockets of time’ tend to be filled in two ways: through idle thinking and using our phones.
When you’re on the train, bus or cab – turn off all notifications and give yourself just 1 minute to spend with yourself.
“Our talents are what Heaven gives us to help others” – Dr. Nash Siamwalla
Yesterday, I attended a full-day ‘Mindfulness Retreat’ with Dr. Nash Siamwalla, a mindfulness expert from Thailand.
He had spent more than 10,000 hours honing his mindfulness practice and has gone through over 70 week-long mindfulness retreats.
Dr Nash was a lifelong practitioner of martial arts and expert in neuroscience – two fields I personally was interested in – which made me very eager to learn from him.
The practice of mindfulness, although is a very ancient practice, has gained popularity over the last decade.
Mindfulness is simply being aware and paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment, without judgment.
While it may seem like a complex psychological process, it isn’t.
It’s just being silently attentive to what’s going on.
And yet such a simple process can invoke profound physical and psychological benefits.
Mindfulness is proven to drastically lower stress levels, improve memory, heighten focus, enhance problem-solving and decision making, and even bring about anti-ageing effects.
Mindfulness helps us to gain a sense of clarity and space in our minds so that we have the wisdom to make the right decisions.
With mindfulness comes wisdom. With wisdom comes liberation. And with liberation, we find peace.
I won’t go deep into what mindfulness is in this post, but I would be sharing a little bit about the practice of spending time with yourself.
We live in an intensely noisy world.
Our plates are already full with work and social commitments. And then we have the incessant glare of our phones, computers and ads blasting in our faces every day vying for our attention.
We block our calendars for other people, but rarely do we do so for ourselves.
We rationally know we need to do so, but why don’t we ever do it?
Shouldn’t the act of spending time with yourself be something you do naturally?
Let’s get down to the fundamentals.
How do you define the act of ‘spending time with yourself’?
There’s a difference between spending time FOR yourself and spending time WITH yourself.
When you spend time FOR yourself, it’s usually involving some form of ‘me-time’. You could be just chilling, watching Netflix, going to the gym or pampering yourself at a spa.
It involves doing something, with a particular outcome: to de-stress, to break the monotony, to relieve boredom.
But when you spend time WITH yourself, you are just present with yourself.
You’re not on your phone, you’re not in a daze, you’re not occupied with any tasks. You’re not doing something to accomplish something else.
You’re just here, with you.
You’re acknowledging that you – are your best company.
The best gift you can give yourself is presence.
Being with yourself does not require money or effort. Just time.
And the best way to do this is to take advantage of ‘pockets of time’ that you have throughout the day.
These ‘pockets of time’ are the time we take for granted.
They exist in between appointments or commitments scheduled throughout the day. Being busy individuals, a lot of it is usually during the commute.
When we go through our lives on autopilot, without being conscious of how we use these ‘pockets of time’, they tend to be filled in two (main) ways:
The first is through idle thinking: through worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.
The second is to use our phones… to chat, watch videos, listen to music or to read articles (like this one).
Both methods are NOT spending time with yourself, because your attention is used on something other than the present moment.
Instead, when you’re on the train, bus or cab – turn off all notifications and give yourself just 1 minute to spend with yourself.
Start with 60 seconds to enjoy the delicious present moment in silence.
Just take 3 deep breaths and feel absorbed into the environment, savouring it with your 5 senses.
See the colours and the faces around you.
Truly listen to the sounds, voices and chatter in the environment.
Feel the weight of your body and the sensations within it as you soothe your nerves.
Nothing is a distraction – be aware and accept everything in your reality at that very moment.
Be committed to that 60 seconds… before you jump right back into ‘life’. That’s the least you can do to spend time with yourself.
And if you want to spend longer, by all means – it’s your time to spend.
By making the habit of consciously using those ‘pockets of time’ to just spend time with yourself in silence, you’ll begin to look forward to the tiny bubbles of peace that are available to you throughout the day.
Those moments with yourself become time you look forward to – because they give you a sense of respite and relief from the relentless pace of life.
After a while, you’ll start to find that clarity of mind becomes a state you can switch into immediately whenever you need to tackle a big problem. Because you’ve been practising it in tiny ways on a daily basis.
You don’t need to wait for enlightenment or achieve Nirvana to taste that inner peace.
You can have it right here when you become aware that you have access to it, throughout little ‘pockets of time’ throughout the day.
To truly make use of every moment you have on Earth to live, we have to first be aware that the only moment we have is now.
Summary
Take advantage of ‘pockets of time’ that exist in between appointments or commitments scheduled throughout the day, usually during the commute.
When we go through our lives on autopilot, these ‘pockets of time’ tend to be filled in two ways: through idle thinking and using our phones.
When you’re on the train, bus or cab – turn off all notifications and give yourself just 1 minute to spend with yourself.