Hello everybody. Before I get to this week’s mindfulness practice, I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank you all for signing up and commenting on last week’s practice Use Your Non-Dominant Hand.
You may be interested to know that we now have 30 members who have signed up to receive weekly practices via email, all in the space of a week! I think that’s pretty wonderful and I gently ask you all to continue to spread the word and get other interested parties involved, friends, family,loved ones etc.
So, here we go….the practice for week 2!
Instructions
Choose one room of your house/flat and for one week try leaving no trace that you have used that space. The bathroom, sitting room or kitchen works best for most people, but go with what you fancy. If you’ve been doing something in that room, cooking a meal, eating a meal or taking a shower, clean up in such a way that you leave no signs that you have been there, except perhaps the odour of food or fragrance of soap.
Reminders
Put a sign in the room you have chosen saying “Leave No Trace” – In Zen paintings according to the book, turtles symbolise the practice of leaving no traces, because they sweep the sand with their tails as they creep along, wiping out their footprints. Instead of a written sign therefore, you could use a picture of a turtle by way of a reminder!
Good luck!
Please Share the Practice
Image courtesy of AprilandAndy
Right I’m going jump in here as I feel strangely resistant towards doing this practice; despite having teenage children who I am constantly exhorting (in a rather judgemental way) to tidy up after themselves, to no avail I might add, I can also be extremely forgetful and lazy in this arena!
So I’ve decided to go with kitchen….now let me see…no mugs in the sink, no tea bags in the mugs, put away the saucepans….the marmalade back in cupboard…milk in fridge…coat NOT left over back of chair…kettle refilled with water!
I’m exhausted already :)
Well – this is a really interesting one for me. I also feel very resistant to it. My issue? These days I usually live alone with my small dog, but this week one of my adult children is staying whilst in transit to a new job and new flat in Brighton. I choose to live tidily. I find it helps keep my head clear. My daughter lives happily in what, to me, is total chaos – If I should get an accidental glimpse ito her room it makes me feel quite unsettled (mind you – it’s not the full-on Tracy Emmin version it was in her late teens). She is a treasure and is sensitive to my needs and so does her best in the ‘common parts’ of the house. And I am a treasure and sensitive to her needs and so happy to plump up a sofa cushion/wash up the odd coffee mug. But could I just leave things un-plumped, un-washed? Well, I could, but I really, really don’t want to. So I’ve gone for the bathroom option. I can probably cope with a bottle of shampoo left on the window ledge. It really did interest me, the way that I didn’t want to engage with this practice at all. I have created a way of life that I like; that works well for me and mine … ‘resentful’ might not be too strong a word for my reaction. And suspicion about the practices to come. Where did mindful ‘curiosity’ get to??!
It really does throw up some interesting issues this practice, plumping up the sofa cushions or washing up the coffee mugs of our less meticulous children….. because sometimes it’s just easier to do it myself methinks. On reflection this low grade enabling, although creating extra work for me, is also an aspect of my laziness in a sense, because I do not have the patience to train them properly or energy to maintain the boundary, rule, or whatever you like to call it.
So even tidying up after others can be seen as leaving a trace – a tidier trace, but a trace nevertheless.
Absolutely! – and that’s the issue for me. Leaving no trace means not impacting on the environment, either by adding dirty mugs, or by removing them! And that’s why I was dreading it so much. I knew that, for better or worse, I had done my parenting (as far as tidyness training goes) and that my adult daughter and I have different ideas about what tidy means. I guessed I would be itching to tidy … how would I resist it? Luckily (?) for me, the picture of the turtle on the bathroom door has meant I haven’t had to resist tidying it, except after myself (easy). So, so far, the practice has really been of interest to me because the idea of finding it difficult to comply really bothered me. And yet, I wanted to ‘do the task properly’. There I was, projecting forward into thoughts/ideas about what might happen – and yet Mindfulness teaches us to be in the present. So I had a lot of ‘noticing and returning to the present moment’ to do – not with the practice itself, but with ideas about the practice… Crackers! Then I went on to notice how much I was beating myself up about my approach to the whole thing. Bonkers! But it’s been interesting in a slightly tortuous way. I look forward to reading about others’ experiences. I’m glad to see James is still up to typing – and not slumped, exhausted, under a damp J Cloth somewhere :-)
Hello James and Melissa and everyone else! I am also trying to follow these weekly exercises. Using my left hand where I normally use my right hand always brings me back to the present so I will continue doing it. This week’s exercise didn’t seem so challenging for me since I always like to have a tidy home. I decided to go for the kitchen and I notice that I do not always tidy up! When I come in to the kitchen and see the coffee mug still on the bench, I try to smile and be gentle to myself. I try to be happy that at least I noticed it and also try to be present in the moment when I put the mug down into the dishwasher. A good exercise since I have a tendency of being a bit unforgiving towards myself. I have no children but I have three indoor cats. They normally don’t tidy up after playing ;-) so I am also trying to get used to just watching their toys lying around a bit everywhere without judging it, just noticing. And Melissa, I always want to be a “good student” and do what I am supposed to do. It is so relieving to understand that these exercises are good whether you “do the task properly” or not. It is like you always have a second chance :-)!
This has been a bit of a strange one to engage with. I too have struggled a bit over the question of whether or not to tidy up after other people, so it’s good to read other people’s thoughts on that one.
One issue this has thrown up for me is that of seeing, and being aware of how I find things. Whether it is noticing just what angle the soap was at, so I can put it back at the same angle, or noticing what I have left out, so I can tidy it away, or noticing what someone else has left out, and then I can make a decision. Whether I tidy up for them or not is not the biggest issue for me. Simply noticing it, and then making a decision, has brought me into the present moment.
So mindfulness, I think, involves seeing how things actually are. And whatever I may or may not have achieved this week, it does seem to have helped make me more aware of my surroundings.
This is certainly a thought provoking practice. For me, it sheds light on the habitual nature of my attachments. The book (How to train a Wild Elephant) speaks of the satisfaction gained from ‘putting things in order’ and ‘cleaning up the space and things around us’, but as we have seen, even this activity can cause disquiet when we become overly reliant on it. The invitation with mindfulness practice is to hold these attachments lightly and when we become aware of them we can exercise choice over what to do and also experiment and explore our reactions by doing something different. In itself, the choice is not so very important, rather it is how we relate to the choice once we have made it, that is key.
Alas and woe, I was away, unconnected to the inter-webby-whotnot for the past week-and-a-tad. So, no deeply meaningful input from me on tasks one and two.
What do do? Simple!
The third exercise is due today, and I’ll simply cram all three into a Super Mindful Week and see what the heck happens. :)
Now that’s a capital idea!
Tell me Chris, how did the retreat go?
James
Well, the retreat was a bit of a mixed bag.
The first venue was pleasant enough, but after a handful of days it became blindingly obvious that one of the owners was in a more turbulent mental state than I was! Also, way too much reliance on pushing the sort of hackneyed drool promoted by bull-poop merchants like Wayne Dyer.
So, I moved on to… a rehab centre!
Although I had a drink problem in the past, I have been stone-cold sober for almost 6 years: booze is, quite simply, not something I even think about anymore. Even so, it was interesting to find myself in a delightfully welcoming place with a dozen or so junkies and drinkers all seeking a way past their addictions.
And any preconceptions you may have about these centres and theirs guests would probably be very wide of the mark. I could not have wished for more pleasant company. And yes, the centre handles the ultra-stressed, like yours truly.
I learned more from the guests than the therapists, but the end result is a somewhat better informed me. And yes, I still have stress levels that are too high. This is very much a starting point, I know that.
On the other hand, I do, occasionally, experience moments of near-calm. And very welcome they are, too.
I still believe there is a gap in the market: someone, somewhere can emulate the aims of the first venue (a welcoming home, one guest, good therapy) minus the cobblers and underlying “issues” of that place’s owners. A mindfulness-based version of it, preferably. I know I’d buy into it like a shot!
That’s quite a couple of weeks Chris… no preconceptions here, I’ve been acquainted with both over the years :)
Enjoy this week’s practice