Mindfulness has become a buzzword, if not a commonplace. Everyone around us advises learning to “be here and now,” and books have appeared on the development of these qualities in oneself. The topic of mindfulness has never been so popular. What’s happening? Why mindfulness, how does it help and how does it affect life? “The ability to give yourself an answer to four questions at any given time: Who am I? Where am I going? How am I going? Why am I going? — this is awareness, according to the spouses Ekaterina Inozemtseva and Dmitry Yurchenko, who have been looking for a way to a conscious life for many years themselves, and now they are sharing their experiences with others. “If you answer these questions every time you doubt what you are doing, or when you feel an inner imbalance, everything falls into place.” “My husband and I came up with the practice of “21 insights”. “Insight” can be translated as “insight” or “flash of the day”: It can be an event, a word, a quote, a conversation, or your own thought that struck you with something and led to reflection or reflection. “Hunting for insights” during the day develops awareness very much,” Dmitry and Ekaterina say. As a result of practice, sensitivity to oneself and any kind of relationship increases, a person learns to notice what is important and discard what is superfluous. Everything unnecessary goes away, life becomes more effective, yours, the real one. How do I measure my awareness? To begin with, build your own scale from 1 to 10. The unit is “I act automatically, I don’t get involved in the process, I make the usual mechanical movements.” Ten points — “I am clearly aware of myself and my path.” Ekaterina and Dmitry came to the conclusion that awareness can be different: mental, physical, sexual, behavioral, intellectual, bodily, visual, intuitive, and even olfactory. Based on the experience of joint relationships and mutual development, they have come up with a developing practice or exercise for each type of mindfulness. In their opinion, developing mindfulness is the fastest way to make life more fulfilling, vibrant, and meaningful. And it affects all areas — from health and success at work to mutual understanding in the family. We have selected five types of mindfulness practices for Psychology readers. Everyone can measure their effectiveness for themselves by observing the dynamics of their own “awareness index” during the day.

1. TYPE OF AWARENESS: SLEEP AWARENESS

Practice: sleeping in separate beds. What opens up: understanding the criteria of healthy sleep that are important to you, understanding the same criteria of your partner, realizing the need to find a compromise between your expectations, and forming a joint ritual that will significantly affect the quality of sleep and rest. How to practice: answer the following questions for yourself. Which room does your partner like to fall asleep in? Cool or warm? What kind of bed does he like — hard or soft? What kind of underwear? Smooth or soft? With or without a book? Pay attention to which position you and your partner fall asleep in, which is more important for you to fall asleep quickly — hugs or freedom? Do you/he have your own personal bedtime ritual? A common ritual? And the awakenings? Discuss it, determine the most important thing for you and your partner (for example, for one of you it’s cold air, and for the other it’s always quiet music when falling asleep), try it once or make it a rule for 21 days.

2. TYPE OF AWARENESS: EMOTIONAL

Practice: within 7 days, in response to internal irritation or resentment towards a person, mentally send him 7 sincere compliments. What opens up: changing your relationship with yourself and the world around you, acceptance, understanding, the ability to see a person in front of you, not an act. How to practice: keep track of your thoughts from the category: “what a terrible skirt she’s wearing” or “well, what a terrible belly”, not realized until now. Through pain, work through the ambiguous situations of their assessments: how not to condemn a mom yelling at a child on the playground? How can you not condemn a colleague who violates deadlines? An alcoholic on the subway? Rudeness in the store? How can you not condemn yourself if you didn’t act very well or completely dishonestly? The primary awareness of condemnation and then the search for sincere compliments with their evidence will help in practice.

3. TYPE OF AWARENESS: MENTAL

Practice: planning for the future based on your real desires and goals for the future, rather than past experience. What opens up: getting rid of the fear of starting something, realizing different ways for self-realization, sometimes even requiring a change in life trajectory, getting rid of the “excellent student syndrome”. How to practice: before starting any new project, make an agreement with yourself that you are undertaking a new activity for yourself, calling it an experiment (and not “a lifelong task that must be completed with a five-plus at any cost”). To say several times that this is just an experience that needs to be gained, without necessarily showing a certain result.

4. TYPE OF AWARENESS: INTUITIVE

Practice: de-digitalization (disable any electronic means of communication for 36 hours, do not use the phone, Internet and TV, minimize communication with the outside world). What opens up: the ability to pay attention to oneself, to shift the focus of attention from external sources to internal ones, to see oneself from the inside, in isolation from the usual external reactions. Irritability, constant dissatisfaction and self-struggle are replaced by self-confidence and self-reliance. How to practice: turn off all possible communication channels, if possible, do not plan anything for that day, and if meetings are already planned, learn to act without the usual means of communication, relying on prior agreements and intuition.

5. TYPE OF AWARENESS: PHYSICAL AND BODILY

Practice: identify and find orthopedic shoes that are suitable for your feet. To conduct a thoughtful self-massage of one part of the body, you can start with the feet. What opens up: understanding the real needs of the body is not in general, but in a specific part of it, recognizing oneself “in parts” with an understanding of what makes life full of pleasant sensations, understanding that joy is in the details, and happiness is the way to it. How to practice: when you do a massage, listen to your feelings, and then describe them on paper, compare the physical sensations with the habit of analyzing the mind. Source: www.psychologies.ru