Notification alerts or thoughts : Respond with Awareness

We all are familiar with our share of “Mindful Days” when we made a resolution to practice mindfulness. Thus, a good way to initiate this intention is by keeping our phone in the silent mode. Unfortunately this widely popular belief becomes obsolete if we keep the notification alert on the “0N” mode. The notification buzzing sound will constantly divert attention away from our prevailing task. Obviously one feels tempted to look at the phone for a “just a second” to check a new message or breaking news! We justify this act as urgent message! How can we distinguish between essential and non-essential notifications to escape distraction? Filtering information is an important process so we may continue to focus on the current moment.

Visualize yourself sitting with your eyes shut. You notice that thoughts keep popping in the head just like the phone notification alerts. The challenge is to not get disturbed by the continuous string of thoughts being created in our brain. How does one differentiate between essential and waste thoughts? Typically, there is no button which will switch them off!

Do we really need to resist the thoughts? A deeper insight enables us to explore a method which enables us to respond consciously.

Enhancing our ability to become more conscious about each and every thought and action is an effective way to start this journey. Once we deepen our own awareness we can watch our thoughts without getting emotionally entangled with them. This is strictly experiential learning.  We have to learn certain tools or practice to enhance this skill. These methods teach us to create a distance between ourselves from our own thoughts. In simple words, we watch our thoughts instead of reacting to the them. Our emotional reactions triggered by the thoughts create anxiety or stress within us.

Tools like meditation, yoga, deep breathing etc are instrumental in getting in touch with our innate intelligence, within us. As we access our inner core and continue to be in touch with our deep-seated consciousness, all our tasks are performed with mindful awareness. How quickly we hasten our progress on this path is directly proportional to our sincerity and commitment to learn. This has to become a daily ritual for us with an internal pledge and responsibility.

In the beginning we may be still reacting to our thoughts but we will be able to recognize the emotions arising within us. This subtle difference enables us to identify the thought process preceding our response. As we get rooted in these practices, watching our own thoughts and emotions will become a natural activity.

Notification alerts or thoughts both disturb the silence and tranquility. Once we become conscious we grasp the power to respond with ease without creating an ambience of resistance within us.