January through June of 2019 have to have been the quickest six months of my life. And experience tells me that the next six months of the year won’t be any more leisurely if left to their own devices. How can I slow down time—or at least make it feel slower?

Summertime is the perfect time to do that, because generally the pace of life tends to slow down on its own. Many people schedule vacations, kids are out of school, and most of us make an effort to chill a little more during the hot months.

What it boils down to for me is becoming more mindful of the quality, pace, and texture of my days.

Again.

(Sigh.)

Here are a three simple ways to slow down and become more mindful that I swear I’m going to try. Want to join me?

Build in breaks. Use a timer if necessary. After a work session, schedule at least a 15-minute break, to stretch, drink a glass of water, walk around the house or office, look outside at blooming nature, and so on. I'm TERRIBLE at this. I tend to rush from one project to the next without taking a few minutes to reset and suddenly it’s 5 p.m. (And it has to be a break. No sorting the mail (or reading emails), tidying up the kitchen, or pretending that chores are a break. They are NOT.)

Create rituals throughout the day. First thing in the morning, take your coffee outside to see what’s going on in the yard, sit in meditation for 10 minutes and do a few yoga poses, or climb back in bed to write in a journal and read something inspirational. At lunchtime, pause to appreciate the smell and appearance of your food before eating, take a short walk afterwards. At bedtime, jot down three good things that happened to you today, read a poem, or practice relaxation exercises in bed. Rituals can help slow us down, as long as we don’t let them become mindless ruts. 

Revise the to-do list. Take at least one thing off it, and when you’re done with your list, you're done. Go put your feet up and read a book. Or whatever your favorite thing happens to be.

I’ve written about these things before, and tried them all with varying degrees of success, and it’s time to get back into practice. Do I control my life, or does it control me? Do I want to look back in December and wonder where the last six months went? No, I do not.

More posts about mindfulness and slowing down:

Banishing the B Word

Mindful March: Work, Rest, and Healing

What’s the Rush?

World Enough and Time

Also, check out the Action for Happiness July calendar. Today’s prompt: Make a list of things you’re looking forward to. I love it!

Yesterday’s Action for Happiness Mindful March calendar prompt was “Make a list of amazing things you take for granted.”

So I did.

Here’s a portion of it, in no particular order:

We live in a challenging, chaotic, stressful age, but we are also surrounded by amazing things our ancestors couldn’t imagine. While it’s in our natures to want—to be always searching for the next Shiny Thing—now and then, we should stop to appreciate all the amazing-ness we already have access to.

It’s easy just to rattle off a list like this, but if you make one yourself, I encourage you to spend a few moments thinking about each item, how it enriches your life, how many people were and are involved in getting it to you, and so on. For most of us, life is pretty amazing!

What amazing things do you take for granted?

I’m not the only one with mindfulness in mind (hee) right now. The word “mindful” seems to be a popular addition to any topic: mindful eating, mindful parenting, mindful decluttering, etc. There’s a lovely print magazine simply called Mindful (see below, no affiliation). And when I type the word into Google, I get 82,500,000 results. Here are just a few mindfulness-related links, plus a few more links just for fun:

Mindful magazine’s introduction to mindfulness. 

Another good introduction to mindfulness, “What Is Mindfulness? (And What Does It Mean to You?)”

One way to become a calmer person: by “observing and allowing” uncomfortable emotional experiences as matter-of-factly as possible.

This guided journal looks intriguing. 

“How to Be Mindful While Reading” was a good reminder for me not to simply hurry through my books. 

I don't think I've ever linked to Susan Branch’s blog in Link Love before. I got a kick out of her recent post, “Stress Make You Fat? Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me?” In her own charming way, she makes the case for indulging in simple pleasures as often as possible.

I’ve finally started listening to podcasts now and then. I listened to my first What Should I Read Next? podcast, and ended up adding NINE books to my TBR list. Yikes. Better not do that again in a hurry. 

Laura Vanderkam’s just started a new podcast, Before Breakfast, every weekday morning. Each episode is less than 10 minutes long, and offers a time management strategy to help you make the most of your time at work and at home.

I love a cappella music, and recently discovered The Swingles. Have a listen here:

or here:

I’ve been playing with my theme of mindfulness these past 10 days—doing simple things like turning off the radio while I drive so I can hear myself think, pausing between tasks to take a breath and notice my surroundings, etc.  A sub-theme has appeared: listening*.

What I’m hearing, especially from my body, is that I need to take better care of myself. In addition to the pulled muscles from the fall from Tank, I’ve been dealing with severe tendonitis in my right (dominant) wrist and forearm. My preferred method of self-care, ignoring discomfort and pain and hoping it goes away, isn’t working. I’m also due for some routine checkups at various healthcare practitioners’ offices. The pain I’ve been having has impacted my exercise habits, which is a problem in itself. It’s time to reevaluate how I take care of my physical health, and devote a little more time and attention to it.

After a season of hard work preparing for my trip to France, and a season of turmoil, stress, and change following my dad’s death and moving Tank, I find I need extra time to care for my body, mind, and heart. I need renewal, nourishing, and to cut myself some slack. I do want to keep building my freelance business, and I have new projects I’m excited to work on, both professionally and personally. But at the same time, I’m trying to be better at responding when my mind cries “enough!” and my body stiffens from sitting at my desk and begs for some movement.

I know I’m lucky to have the flexibility I have—it’s much easier for me to move things around to get the healing and rejuvenation I need than it is for those who work full time for someone else, or who have small children at home. I’ve been in those situations, and I’m grateful for my current life stage…even if it is a bit challenging physically.

I also know that some of the crazy mind pressure I feel is coming from me and no one else. I know it’s important to set and reach goals, and not to waste hour after hour of precious time, but that constant, driving voice that remains impossible to please…that voice needs to stop.

And that’s what mindfulness has revealed so far this month!

How do you find balance when you need to work, but you also need rest and rejuvenation?

*I’ll be writing more about listening in March’s Happy Little Thoughts newsletter, a once-a-month email in which I share unique content, favorite recent reads, and other happy little things—click here to subscribe. 

In other news:

One of my favorite freelance articles ever has just been printed: “An American Quarter Horse in France” (click on the title to read the article). Monica and Bandit’s story is delightful—I hope you’ll check it out!

Though you may not have noticed, I sometimes choose a monthly theme around which I loosely organize my posts on Catching Happiness. For example, February’s was the unimaginative-but-appropriate “Love.” As I was casting around for a theme for March, I happened upon the Action for Happiness March calendar, “Mindful March”—how perfect! (Printable PDF file here.)

I’ve been bemoaning the speed with which life seems to be moving (HOW can it be March already?!) and feel like I’ve been missing my own life. I still feel anxious and stressed, even though things have settled down considerably after the whirlwind that was the last three months of 2018. I could do with a dose of mindfulness. Maybe you could, too? We can all benefit from paying more attention to the present moment.

So this month, I won’t be just writing a few posts related to mindfulness, I’ll be actively trying to practice it.

For me, mindfulness involves paying attention, focusing on the present moment and what I’m doing, thinking, or feeling. It has elements of appreciation and gratitude, because if I’m paying attention, I notice the simple pleasures and everyday adventures that populate my life. My worries fade, and I’m able to see the larger panorama, the ebb and flow of my own life’s experience. No matter what is happening, this, too, shall pass. As James Baraz says, “Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).”

How else might we (I) practice mindfulness this month? Here are a few things I’m going to try:

Would you like to explore mindfulness together? What do you do, or avoid doing, in order to become more mindful?

“When we can be centered in ourselves, even for brief periods of time in the face of the pull of the outer world, not having to look elsewhere for something to fill us up or make us happy, we can be at home wherever we find ourselves, at peace with things as they are,

moment by moment.”

―Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Everything natural—every flower, tree, and animal—has important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen.”—Eckhart Tolle

I’ve had various pets nearly all my life. Aside from their cuteness and cuddleability, pets can be expert teachers of life lessons (and if you doubt me, check out the delightful book Guardians of Being). Currently, I have one elderly dog, a “teenage” kitten, and a middle-aged horse. They’ve taught me many, many things (including don’t wear any clothes to the barn you’re not prepared to ruin, and no, the kitchen counter is not tall enough to keep food away from either the kitten OR the dog…). 

Here are a few of my favorite life lessons from my pets:

From Prudy:

There is a time for play and a time for cuddling. Know your priorities and stick to them.

The world is to be explored.

Like everyone until they prove unlikable.

Assume everyone likes you until proven otherwise.

From Scout:

Do everything joyfully: get up in the morning, go to bed at night, eat, announce your presence to the world.

Sleep when you’re tired, even if something interesting is going on elsewhere.

Don’t put up with bull$&@, but only do as much as you have to to get it to stop—don’t overreact.

From Tank:

You can make huge progress by taking many small steps.

Relationship is more important—and ultimately more satisfying—than tricks or blind obedience.

Hold out for your favorite treats. Spit out the ones you don’t like. Don’t waste time (or calories) on them.

Don’t let the turkeys get you down. 

Animals live in the moment. They don’t worry about what might happen tomorrow, or what the dog next door has, or what the horses in the next paddock might be saying behind their backs. Seems like some pretty valuable wisdom to me.

Have you learned any life lessons from an unusual source?

Have you ever driven somewhere and found once you arrived you couldn’t remember how you got there? Lately, it seems like I feel that way at the end of the day, too. I’ve arrived at evening, but I couldn’t tell you how I got there. I know I’ve been busy all day, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was I’d done. This is no way to live a life of simple pleasures and everyday adventure.

Why am I so oblivious to my own life? Several reasons, actually. Despite repeated efforts to stop already, I still equate being busy with being productive so I rush around trying to pack more into every day. I also tend to live in my head, mulling things over, projecting and obsessing, even while rushing around. And there’s this: I resist being present because I find too much stimulation overwhelming and if I paid attention to every thought and feeling, I’d have a nervous breakdown.

So what am I doing instead of really being there? I’m:

Useful, right? I know I’m not the only one facing these challenges. The good thing is that improving my level of attention to my own life doesn’t require anything expensive or difficult. Just a few behavioral tweaks to bring myself back to mindfulness, starting with scheduling fewer to-dos (but making them of more importance to me), creating buffer zones of time around each activity, and pausing several times a day, just for a moment to take a deep breath and check in with my body and my mind. (Happify has an exercise called the Body Scan Meditation that I’ve been actively avoiding—maybe it’s time?) I’ve even started writing haiku several afternoons each week, focusing each one to reflect the moment I’m in. (They’re pretty terrible, but reading back through them I get  a clear image of where I was and what I was feeling when I wrote them.)  None of these strategies is new (except maybe writing haiku)—I just have to do them instead of just talk about them.

I don’t know if it’s possible to stay 100 percent “in the moment”—or even if I want to. (Daydreaming is fun and I enjoy it!) But I do know I want to spend more time paying attention, not missing my life.

How do you pay attention to your life?