Mindful Living

It has now become a common theme in sessions and in personal conversations to hear understandable concerns about federal policy changes and ongoing economic downturns that are palpable at the grocery store and beyond. When changes are happening that are beyond our control, it is tempting to enter a state of helplessness, stagnation, and even depression. Even though this desire to shut down is completely understandable, it is important to live a mindful (aware) and value-centered life to combat these feelings.

Mindful Living

A mindful life is one where there is awareness of the self and awareness of external events. When someone is truly living a mindful life there is an increase of awareness and a decrease of judgement. What might this look like? If you’re feeling overwhelmed after a long day of work, the news, and social engagements, it might be tempting to judge yourself for all the things that you’re failing to do and to be critical of yourself and others. When we are engaged in a mindful life, we are aware of the challenges that we are faced with, aware of our bodies responses to these challenges, and we are able to provide ourselves with the space and self-compassion to rest.

Mindfulness can be incorporated through small daily changes, such as taking breaks to be aware of one’s breath, aware of one’s body temperature, and aware of any areas in the body that are sending signals or holding tension. Let’s say you take a 10-minute break at work. Rather than doom-scrolling, you might choose to do a body-scan, to practice progressive muscle relaxation, or do some deep breathing. Is this going to make everything better? No. However, it has been shown that those who regularly practice mindfulness report improved psychological wellbeing (Bernardez et al., 2023).

A Value-Centered Life

A value-centered life happens when our behaviors match our core values. Core values are akin to lighthouses which guide us. For example, if someone values adventurousness, they will hopefully be spending their free time travelling, exploring new places, etc. However, if someone values education, they may spend their free time attending conferences, expanding their education, etc. When our behaviors match our values people usually report being happy and content with their lives.

It’s easy to fall out of a value-centered life. Maybe you took on more hours at work, you fell into a rut, and before you knew it, you were just going through the motions. Correcting this is easy.

Take a moment to reflect on your values. What do you most care about?

Then, take a moment to reflect on how your life matches or doesn’t match these values.

Want to take a deeper dive reflecting on your values? Download this PDF.

While living a mindful and value-centered life will not remove all stressors, it can make the day to day more manageable and less daunting. These small changes won't fix everything. In fact, you might realize that nothing about your feelings is changing or getting better. However, through regular practice of mindfulness and value-centered living, you might start to notice that your behaviors and your reactions to things improve.

B. Bernárdez, J. A. Parejo, M. Cruz, S. Muñoz and A. Ruiz-Cortés. (2023) On the Impact and Lessons Learned from Mindfulness Practice in a Real-World Software Company. ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) Retrieved from: doi: 10.1109/ESEM56168.2023.10304864.