Often, we progress through our days on automatic pilot, as if sleepwalking through life. We become so familiar with our routine that it becomes just that – a routine, a series of unconscious habits. People and situations fit into neat little boxes that we know and understand; life happens as we glide through it. We don't challenge ourselves to call on our deep creativity, so it lies dormant.
What can you do instead? You can learn to Pay Attention. In other words, you can practice observing precisely – really paying attention to what’s inside and around you. It takes a continual, conscious, dedicated effort on your part.
One of the requirements of this week is to 'Change'...
Each day this week, do at least one thing differently from your normal routine. Go to bed at a different time. Wake up at a different time. Get to your work in a different way. Exercise at a different time of day than normal. Be warm and friendly to that person whom you can't stand and usually ignore. Try a new restaurant. Use a different type of pen. Wear a new pair of shoes. Speak up at work if you tend to be silent, or just sit and listen if you tend to talk a lot. Everything is fair game. The more entrenched the routine, the more interesting it is to change it. Don't try to think about the best way to change things. Just change things for no reason other than to change it. See how everything is new.
And, do try the color/shape walk. It's fun and will bring you very present:
Take a walk around your office or your neighborhood, or somewhere where this is a lot going on. Select a color and look for as many forms as possible that contain it. On the return trip, pick a second color and retrace your steps along the same street looking for the second color. Write down your impressions.
Next time, walk the same route, but now on the first leg of your walk, look for a shape: oval, square, round, triangular, etc. On your way back, look for a texture or material - rough, shiny, brick, plastic – it’s up to you! Write down your thoughts.
(Note: this is a brief exercise that should take no more than 10 minutes per walk. If possible, do the two walks on separate days, or at least separated by several hours.) Sometimes being creative is as simple as seeing with clarity what is right in front of your nose – noticing what others have missed because it is so "obvious."
Reflect on your experiences, then post your reflections here...
I could talk about my experience with this exercise for hours- I absolutely LOVED it. Changing up my routine even in the slightest ways made me excited and happy, despite my thinking it would stress me out. The main thing I noticed was that changing up my routine first thing in the morning inspired me to continue to change minor things throughout the day, mostly because I was much more aware of every action. I found myself breaking down my day into things that had to be on schedule (work, appointments, etc.) and things I had free reign to change. I surprised myself when I realized how much freedom to change I could find in my day to day life and that I wasn't, in fact, stuck inside of the box.
ReplyDeleteAs a nanny, day to day work is definitely set up as a routine schedule, with only a little room (so I thought) for flexibility. My morning routine with the two year old revolves around drop off and pick up times for the oldest child at camp. Breakfast has to be eaten at this time in order to leave by that time to make it to school by this time, etc. And the same goes for lunch, nap, and everything else from start to finish.
My weekends, on the other hand, are completely spontaneous with no routine whatsoever. I don't set an alarm in the mornings (though I am usually up extremely early) and I tend to take my weekends in flow depending on what opportunities are present around me. Thus, I decided to do my "do one thing different from normal routine" during the week days.
I started out extremely ambitious on the morning following the post and it was great! On a "normal" morning I wake up at 6am and leave my apartment by 6:45 to drive in my car to work. On Thursday, upon waking up at 6am I was inspired to hurry out the door and bike to work- yay I put my new road bike to the test! I got to work early and feeling extremely refreshed (despite being a little sweatier than usual). I then proceeded through the normal routine that comes with my job, but since I had switched up a major component of my routine the day didn't seem as mundane as it can sometimes feel, especially towards the end of the week. What I didn't factor into this change for day one was that by changing my morning commute I inevitably changed my evening commute as well, which I didn't think about until I went to leave work that night. All in all that was a fun experience and I want to start biking to (and from!) work more often!
On Friday, I decided that instead of doing our normal "lunch at 11:45 in order to leave the house by 12:30 for pick up at 1pm" (my routine is extremely dictated by these times I have engrained in my brain), we would change that entirely. After a morning activity, we left the house sometime well before 11:45 to drive to the pick up location. We picked up a couple sandwiches at a local shop and had a picnic in a park. We didn't have to rush through lunch and, better yet, there was no mess to clean up after! Not only did I love changing up the routine but I could definitely tell that it impacted the two year old in a positive way. After all, kids have such creative minds I need to change up the routine (where I can, without being late for drop offs and pick ups) to benefit not just my sanity and creativity but that of the children as well.
So far this week I haven't changed the routine as drastically as I did last week, but a few minor changes have still made a positive impact. Even just thinking about the things I do in terms of "does this have to be done or can I switch it up" has made me infinitely more aware of my actions.
The color/shape walk has been something I have unsuccessfully attempted many times over the past week. For as long as I can remember, whenever I walk I am constantly counting. Sometimes I count trees or poles I walk by, sometimes I count steps, and sometimes I just find myself counting by 2s. Trying to observe the color red inevitably ended in counting for me, and I was counting things that weren't even red. Perhaps I am overthinking this exercise, but anytime I have attempted to observe like this the only thing I find myself getting out is "it took me 427 steps to walk to the end of the street" or "I stepped on 8 cracks in the sidewalk."
ReplyDeleteI made a conscious effort this week to change my routine. Although I was not super consistent with it the whole week ,the small changes showed me confirmations about the importance of this practice. It was not without the VOJ. Actually the greater the change, the louder the initial VOJ however because I had been practicing the week before I was more quickly able to quite the VOJ.
ReplyDeleteOn sunday, I practiced being present the full day. My day was not set with any schedule but I just was open to the possibilities and present to anything or anyone that I happened to encounter. My day led me to meeting a wonderful family who showed me the power of true resilience and patience. I was led to a wonderful afternoon of music in the park and an impromptu salsa dance with my lovely boyfriend. It led me finally to an amazing drive through beautiful mountains and natural pastures. I became so at peace with the beauty around me. I found myself engaged in a wonderful, deep and meaningful conversation. That night I could not put my finger on it but I knew it was a different day. It seemed that I was having a true spiritual experience the whole day!
This week I tried changing the way I have been communicating with my father, who has severe dementia. For weeks he has been saying that he needs money. Living in assisting living, bedridden and unable to walk, he really doesn’t need cash. Each day, when he goes down this path, I have been telling him that when he is stronger and ready to go out, I’ll bring him all the money he needs. Trouble is, my dad thinks he HAS been going all kinds of places in his car—driving, eating out, going to work, etc. These experiences although untrue in this realm, are very real to him. The daily cycle of this conversation has been exhausting. This week, I tried taking a different approach. I played along with it. I showed him where his money was and asked him to tell me about all the places he had been. The stories made no logical sense, but inside these stories are hidden agendas—things that are important to a dying man: the need to succeed at work, the need to see family, etc. By allowing myself to change my perspective and accept his experiences as real (to him), my father began expressing his own awareness that his mind is working in ways that he can’t make sense of right now. As a result, my feelings have turned from frustration to compassion.
ReplyDeleteI tried the color walk, although I didn't really go out on a walk. I decided to look for the color orange, mainly because it's the color of the Dutch soccer team, and I was supporting them this past week. I started noticing the color orange everywhere. Whenever my mind started thinking about past or future, I quickly tried to focus and look for something orange, which instantly brought me back to the present.
ReplyDeleteFor the weekend I had planned a lot of things, but on Friday night when I came home, my Internet didn't work. I decided not to worry about it and look into it on Saturday. Turned out there was an issue outside and the earliest repair date was Monday... At first I was not happy, since I had a project to work on this weekend, but then I thought of my homework for this class and saw the lost internet connection as a blessing. Perfect! I was being forced to be in the present and not worry about all the other stuff. On top of that, I wasn't feeling well, so I couldn't do much else than take it easy and rest. The result was a very restful and relaxed weekend. All the things I had planned for the weekend and could not do, turned out to be not that important at all. I can easily catch up during the week.
This week I did "pay attention" and "mindful presence" by practicing the color/shape walk, fertile listening and letting go of VOJ and being in the moment by opening my senses to all that was around me. I also had an easier time of it because my week was not my normal routine due to work travel.
ReplyDeleteI also had an opportunity to speak up and be more of my real self with my boyfriend's adult son who lives with us. I tend to want to hide and avoid conflict because I am not his parent nor have I parented. But, the fertile listening and trying a different approach with him seemed to make our interaction more honest and I felt more connected to him.
You can learn to Pay Attention and than you find out how you missed so many things from not doing that. It seems like paying attention caught me just in time from change I wasn't aware of because i didnt pay much attention. I decided to make a choice and do one thing at a time and share that with my friends and on my calendar it help me a lot not to multi task and start being more present. it also help me found a good opportunity for partnership with my design studio after listening closely and hearing a clint need more clearly.
ReplyDeleteMy observation is that paying attention and being mindful is very powerful. It is so true we usually do so many things on autopilot.. As an example, I have parking garage at work and it is huge..When I come to work, I am usually in a hurry to start my busy day and accomplish as much as I can at wok. So, when I park I am already thinking on what is the next thing to do.
ReplyDelete:-(:-) As a result, it usually takes me in average 10 minutes to find my car in the garage on the way back! :-( So this week I payed close attention and wrote down where I parked which saved a lot of time and was much less stressful for me to find my car :-).
More importantly, I practiced being very focused when I drive my team meetings at work: listen and observe as much as I I could. I can for sure say it helps a ton and also takes enormous amount of effort to stay focused all the time ( at least in my experience). As a result, I definitely felt much more confident and lets stressed, making productive discussions within the team and getting what I need from my meetings.
I’ll keep practicing mindfulness and paying attention. Thank you for giving us such a great tool and ideas!
The first activity that I did was paying attention when I took a walk during 30 minutes looking all circles that was in my way for me that it was very easy because I had a circle in my mind and I really was aware of what was going on around me. I realized that focusing on one thing I was feeling focus in the moment I could not imagine the number of circles that had in one block, I learned to be awaken to look to other eyes and discover new things that had not been seen to be in my routine, I really liked this exercise because I had an amazing results.
ReplyDeleteFor my color walk I took my camera and went on a red color scavenger hunt in Redwood City. I love making photos and really had fun with this exercise. After a short time my eyes easily detected anything red. So many things that I had never noticed before. And suddenly they seemed so obvious. Anything that was not red was not really on my radar. So, when you focus on something very intently, all the other things are kind of blurry.
ReplyDeleteI did a similar exercise on my morning run. I paid attention to all the street signs and was very surprised by how many I saw for the first time.
I always try to pay attention to all the things that i have close to my, but sometimes it's very hard because I'm a little clueless so I decide to start doing the activity, and in my way I was seeing all the green's things that i have it, was very important for me because sometimes I forgot the important things that i need to do, because i know what are my priorities but for the work, my family and the different things that happen in my life I forget them, so it was super important to find an activity to keep me focused on what I really want to do.
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