Informal Mindfulness Meditation Practice

Step 1

Choose a brief, simple activity during the day for an Informal Mindfulness Practice. Examples could be making coffee, brushing your teeth or driving a car.

Step 2

Right before you begin the practice, begin to notice all the steps and micro-movements required to prepare and lead up to the activity.

Step 3

As you begin the activity, turn your awareness to your senses - sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. Explore each sense individually at a time and with as much attention to detail as possible. Become curious noticing and naming what you can about the experience using each sense.

Broaden awareness to consider where the product, ingredients or materials you are using came from? Where were they made? How were they made? Who made them? Who are the people who had a part in getting the objects to you? 

Step 4

Now turn your attention to your emotions and body sensations. What emotions are present? Excitement to finally go somewhere! Irritation at traffic. Happiness or anger lingering from an earlier exchange. What about physical sensations? Lightly scan the body to see what can be noticed - coolness on the skin from wind or air conditioner, softness of clothing, tension in the shoulders, feelings of fullness or hunger, etc.

WELL DONE!

There is absolutely no way to do this wrong. Even the willingness to begin to turn your attention, on purpose, to the present moment, non-judgmentally IS the practice...

 

Let’s use driving the car as an example. What could you bring into awareness and notice about... 

  • Taste - are there any tastes you can detect in the mouth? Coffee or tea from the morning, an earlier meal, toothpaste or nothing. 

  • Smell - any scents present in the car or breezing through windows or vents?

  • Touch - what physical sensations are present? Feeling of the legs and back meeting the cushion of the seat, warmth or cold, pressure of the hands on the steering wheel, heart beat

  • Sound - what sounds are present? talking, construction, music, wind, nothing. 

  • Sight - what can be seen? What can be noticed that was outside of awareness?