Inviting Mindfulness into Your Daily Routine

Mindfulness Bells:

• Identify a sound that typically happens daily beyond your control (phone ringing, dog barking, wind chimes).
• When you notice the sound, invite yourself to pause for a moment and open to the experience of breathing, body in contact with floor and/or furniture and sensations (taste, touch, smelling, hearing and vision).

Are distraction and denial your typical reaction to stress and anxiety? Consider adding mindfulness to your stress reduction strategy:

• Begin with a daily centering exercise (exercises available for download at www.mindfulnesstrainer.com).
• Begin to notice your tell-tale signs of increasing stress and anxiety (your typical thoughts, sensations and emotions)
• Also take notice of the well practiced ways you typically distract and deny your thoughts, sensations and emotions.
• When you notice the above reactions, for a moment, invite your focus to shift to your breath (the experience of expansion and release in belly and chest).
• Consider committing to staying with your breath for three full cycles of inhale and exhale.
• Over time, practice with a longer series of breaths.
• At any time, remember you can return to the old strategies of distraction and denial. This is not an either/or approach. Practice and play with the old and the new to develop a broader response to stress and anxiety.