Mindfulness

What comes to your mind when you think of mindfulness? Do you think yoga? Meditation? Eastern religions? Some new age mumbo jumbo? Do you think it’s just new psycho babble? There’s so many books about it. How to practice it. What it is. How it’s the new thing to do and you need to take classes and therapy to learn how to practice it. In some ways, it does seem to be ridiculous that our society is all gung ho about it.

While there is mindfulness in the practice of Buddhism, there is also evidence of practicing mindfulness in Christianity. You can do that research on your own. What I want to talk about here is how important mindfulness is when learning how to successfully manage a home with someone who has ADHD or managing yourself if you have ADHD. It can be a tremendous positive tool and it’s not that difficult to learn how.

So what is it? According to mindful.org “Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. While mindfulness is something we all naturally possess, it’s more readily available to us when we practice on a daily basis. Whenever you bring awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses, or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re being mindful. And there’s growing research showing that when you train your brain to be mindful, you’re actually remodeling the physical structure of your brain.”

Pretty simple isn’t it? Don’t we all want to be like this?

When Ryan was in High School, his college and career counselor mentioned to us that mindfulness training could be very helpful for Ryan especially when dealing with his impulsivity. She put us in touch with a psychotherapist who was trained in mindfulness and taught others how to practice it. And really, that is what it is – a practice. Learning how to stop in the moment and be aware of your surroundings, what is happening around you and how you are acting, behaving and speaking is a big part of what mindfulness is all about.

It is useful when you are spending time with someone. Are you fully present in the conversation? Or does your mind wander, thinking about all of the other things you need to do later in the day? Do you put away your phone when you are with others so there’s no distractions? Do you think about what you’re going to say in response to a question posed to you by a colleague or friend, or do you just spew out words without thinking? In a moment of anger do you take a step back, take a deep breath, think about what you’re going to say, or again just vomit anger in return?

Mindfulness gives you the tools to work on being completely present in the moment. It allows you to think before you speak, to think about the other person, not just yourself. It can prevent miscommunication, and hurt feelings. It also gives a neurodivergent mind like Ryan’s a chance to stop and think, and reset. And for those of us in Ryan’s life, the ability to stop and think about what we might say to be helpful instead of hurtful, and it gives Ryan the chance to work through whatever is going on at the time. You might call this state, a caring awareness.

We as a family continue to work hard in practicing mindfulness. When having a conversation, we try to give the other person our complete attention by putting down our phones or whatever else we’re doing so that our full attention is on each other. We work hard at not interrupting someone in the middle of a sentence. If we aren’t able to give the other person our attention because we’re in the middle of something we can’t put down, we try to tell the other person kindly after a deep breath that we can talk when we’re finished. We continue to fail miserably at times, but like I said before, it’s a practice.

There are only positives when you add mindfulness in your life. In a world where we are going a million miles an hour, constantly being bombarded by sounds and sights and multimedia in every instance of every moment, just stop. Put your phone down, turn off your computer, turn off your TV and sit in silence and breathe. Just breathe. Listen to the quiet, be aware of your surroundings and be thankful and grateful for the beautiful life you have. When you get in your car, take a moment and feel your physical surroundings. Feel the seat under you, feel the steering wheel, and be aware of turning on the car. When you talk to your wife, husband, children, take a moment, put down your phone, look them in the eye and listen to them as if they were the only people on earth. And if you live with a person with ADHD, whether they are your child or your spouse, take a moment, breathe in and be aware of what is happening at the moment with them and breathe out your most heartfelt intentions.