We have many things going on in our life at the same time. That is why we often have also many thoughts going on in our head at the same time. Sometimes it is OK to be so, but sometimes your thoughts just spin around in your head making you stressed and tense.
What to do when you find it hard to switch many simultaneous thoughts off?
Here is one simple technique to do it:
- Whatever, you are doing, slow down, or even stop.
- Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself. Breathe slowly and deeply. Close your eyes if you want.
- Continue what you were doing, but now focus consciously all your senses on one detail at a time.
- If your thoughts start to wander, take again a few deep breaths and bring your senses back to what you wanted to focus on.
When our family went to the forest to pick mushrooms last weekend, my head was full of thoughts. I thought about many things at the same time, yet nothing really well. I find it hard to even hear what our children said to me because I felt that the only thing I heard was my own thoughts.
That’s when I remembered this technique.
I stopped and took Liilia’s hand to my hand. But I didn’t just take it, I really watched when I took her hand to mine. I focused on feeling the warmth of her hand and how her little fingers felt against the back of my hand. I even said to myself in my mind that “it feels so good to hold her hand”.
As we started to walk together, I continued this way. After awhile I noticed that just by bringing my senses to that moment and focusing on thinking about it, all other thoughts had at some point gone away from my mind. I felt both mentally and physically relaxed and I felt that I was fully present picking mushrooms with my family.
When your thoughts spin around in your head, stop multitasking and start to do one thing at a time. Often that already helps. If not, try then this technique, and focus on one detail at a time.
If you find it hard to practice different kinds of mindfulness techniques, I recommend you to go to nature. Norwegian psychiatrist and mindfulness-expert Dr. Bjarte Stubhaug opens up some reasons for it in Huffington Post’s article “Mindfulness: Why nature?”
There’s calmness in nature. Is it contagious? “It is more like tuning in with some melody, a harmony of life being what it is. Right now. And then of course, nature provides some basic sensations to our mind and body that has always caused calmness and peacefulness. Somehow, it creates some old, primitive yet soothing experiences of rest, being embraced by acceptance.”
Yes, nature’s peace and silence. It helped me also this time. Thank you!
