By Sage Thee
As I drive down State Street, the late afternoon sun is beaming brightly through my windshield, and my phone is in my backpack, in the backseat. My favorite Joni Mitchell CD is playing loud through my car’s frizzy speakers, and I’m singing along quietly as I try to look at my city through the eyes of a visitor, for whom the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant and various shops are an unfamiliar sight I have never seen before. The heat waves in front of my car on the road call to mind a mirage, and for a moment, I am not in my car but another time, crossing the desert with nothing but the clothes on my back.
Mindfulness is described as “being fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s happening around us.” But mindfulness can feel challenging to achieve or even to begin. As with any daunting task, it’s best to start small—my favorite mindfulness practice is to be fully present while driving and looking for things I haven’t noticed before.
Other mindfulness practices hiding in plain sight are activities such as gardening, painting, yoga, going for a walk, journaling, and even napping. There is no one right way to practice mindfulness because everybody has different stresses in their lives, so the way we de-stress needs to be different. What’s important is to find what helps your brain unplug from the busy world and decompress, even for a few moments.
Burnout may feel inevitable, especially when temperatures are in the triple digits, but mindfulness can help keep you present, rested, and energized. If you’re feeling burnt out, try and take just ten minutes out of your day to notice five things around you that you’ve never seen before.