Mindfulness

[Enda Goodwin]

Are you:

• Unable to focus your attention on career transition activities?
• Preoccupied with ruminating on what happened in the past - or what might happen in the future?
• Distracted by constant ‘mind chatter’?
• Giving yourself a hard time about what you should - or shouldn’t – do next?
• Experiencing anxiety at interview, which negatively impacts your performance?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above - you are not alone. You are simply experiencing the mind doing what it does best - being busy, wandering off, creating distractions and getting caught up with thoughts and emotions.

The good news is that mindfulness can help. Mindfulness enables you to focus your attention where YOU want it to be, leave the ‘mind-chatter’ behind, decrease stress and become grounded - so that you can be your best during career transition. 

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the ability to pay attention non-judgmentally to events that arise in our lives.

Mindfulness is a form of ‘fitness training’ for the mind. When the ‘brain muscle’ is worked out regularly, we can come into the present moment and focus our awareness where we would like it to be.

Mindfulness enables us to simply notice our thoughts and emotions and not to get caught up with them. We learn to create a ‘pause’ which enables us to come off autopilot and choose to respond - not react - to difficult situations. We can then bring these qualities of increased focus, calm and clarity into our everyday lives.

Where to begin?

While there are many tools, courses, and “apps” available to help you reach mindfulness, sometimes a simple pause in the day for a walk can be very calming. It just means setting aside a little time every day for a brain break.  Here is a simple approach you can try:

1.  Sit quietly in a comfortable position and close your eyes.

2.  Pay attention to your breath as it goes in and out. Experience the feeling of your incoming and outgoing breath. Breathe calmly from the diaphragm, letting the stomach rise and fall.

3.  If your attention wanders from your breathing pattern, to thoughts or feelings that start to take over, don’t worry. This happens to all of us. Simply note that change of attention, and gently bring the attention back to the breathing.

4.  No matter how many times attention strays, bring it back to the breath. This act of continuity prepares your mind to cope with reactive feelings and thoughts in a calming way, resulting in a more stable state of mind.