Mind full, or Mindful?

Stop. 

Trust me. Take a second. 

Breathe in.

And out.




When was the last time you took time to pause and appreciate the present moment? When you were breathing just now, was your mind racing with all the things that you have to get done after reading this post, or did you savour the brief instance of peace? I'll admit that it's been a while for me; at this point in my life especially, it is not something that has been particularly high on my list of priorities. Perhaps it should be. Getting caught up in the demands of  life is so easy, and often leads to us placing ourselves, and as such our health, be it emotional, mental, physical or some combination of the three, on a back burner. Is this really such a bad thing though? Isn't the current generation seen as one that places too much of an importance on self, and not enough on doing for those outside of oneself? While, arguably this is true, there is the idea of the Golden Rule to consider: "Do unto to others, as you would have them do unto you." In expecting the best from others, you should [and should want to] give the best of yourself. The thing is, you can't be or give your best you without consistently taking time to recharge. This is where our February focus of mindfulness comes in. 

We'll discuss the differences between mindfulness and meditation in a later post, but here's a simple definition for the time being:  

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You can probably see where we're going with the mindfulness talk; Thursday's post promised a resolution reboot and a month of challenges, so here's your first:

Spend 20 minutes a day consciously practising mindfulness meditation.

There's a video below to help you get started. During the month we'll explore the idea of mindfulness meditation in more depth, check in to see how you're getting on with this (and the other challenges we set you), encourage you, update you on how we at OrangeMouth are doing with the challenges, and send a few of  our best tips and tricks your way. As always, we love hearing from you, so write on our Facebook page, email us,  tweet us your emotional and mental health stories, and thoughts on our February focus!

The OM team is always up for a good challenge, join us?

Until next time...

M-J