How to Be Mindful and Present in a Noisy World

We have a lot coming at us day in and day out. This often means that we get ourselves lost in what we’re doing. We miss important queues from those around us that we love. We respond out of context, and this is where our messy emotions come from because we are living alive without intention. Many times we struggle to connect because we are wrapped up in what our emotions are and we forget where our emotions actually come from. A big solution is being mindful and present.

Our thoughts create our emotions. When we witness other people’s emotions, we often take those actions personally. We want to say that our spouse is mad at us or that our wife’s anger is directed at us. This, however, is wrong. Our emotions are felt by us and only us. So to have someone be angry because of how we’re acting or because of what we said is based entirely on the thoughts that they are having themselves. We can’t make another person angry. We can’t make another person happy we can’t make a person. sad we can just control our own thoughts in our own actions.

This is where tools like mindfulness, come in to play

What Is Mindfulness?

Many people look at mindfulness as being meditation. While that can be used as a form of meditation it is also a means of exercising your focus. If you’re ADHD, this is great you can actually learn to focus on a task at hand, however, mindfulness also helps with you paying attention to your thoughts.

When you practice being mindful, you practice paying attention to what you’re thinking. You have the ability to look at why you’re having the thoughts that you’re having. Mindfulness allows you to decide if a thought is truly serving you or if you would like to trade that in for a better one.

Being mindful also allows you to filter out other thoughts. You don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed by too many thoughts at one time. Many times we worry and worry and worry some more about a small minuscule problem. When practicing mindfulness you cut out the ruminating of these thought loop errors. As mentioned before worrying is just you going through the horrible experience multiple times. Every time you worry about what’s gonna happen you’re going through a terrible process and you agonize over it. Only to repeat that model over again constantly flooding your body with cortisol and other stress hormones.

So you can take the time at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day and spend 15 minutes practicing being mindful. Practicing mindfulness is building a new skill where you are able to know what you are thinking.

Is That a Different Way of Praying?

Now many people associate mindfulness as a form of meditation. Some religious groups see this as a form of prayer for other deities. Now my thoughts on this are a bit different. I see prayer as a form of meditation so if you’re praying to God or praying to Allah or praying to any other superior being you are in a form of meditation. You are focusing your thoughts on one being. 

Now when it comes to practicing mindfulness, you’re not so much praying as you are watching your thoughts. So this is where I deviate from many people mindfulness isn’t prayer it’s just paying attention to what you actually are thinking.

Why Do We Need to Practice Mindfulness?

Now, according to mindful.org, there are many benefits to practicing mindfulness. A big one is you reduce stress. More benefits are better performance better insight into your actions, awareness of what you’re thinking, and a better ability to pay attention.

More benefits to being mindful are you can catch yourself if you don’t want to judge, and you can catch yourself when you’re going down a dark path that you don’t want to go down. You can become more pleasant because you’re not living your life by reaction. You notice how emotions don’t just hit you out of the blue you fully understand that you had a thought that put you into that sadness or caused you to be filled with anxiety when you were being mindful, you’re living your life with more intention and less chaos.

So How Does Being Present Fit Into The Process

Many people want to put being present in with mindfulness, and I get how they can see that yet. I think they’re two separate activities. You can be mindful of the thoughts you’ve had in the past. You could be mindful of the thought you’re having in the present yet, there are times that you can be mindful and not be present.

However, with your skills of being mindful you start understanding how you can be present and how you can focus on what your wife is saying you can focus on and notice when your mind is wandering away because she’s talking about something you’re not fully interested in. You’re able to be more present with your son and your daughter as they tell you about their day all because you notice when your mind wants to wander.

When you become present, you find more joy in what’s going on around you. When you’re lost in your thoughts and you’re not being intentional with your thoughts, there are many times you’ll become grumpy because you have grumpy thoughts you become sad because of the sad thoughts you become irritated because you’re thinking of what the boss said last week. 

You cause yourself more suffering all because you’re being unintentional with what you’re thinking you’re giving your power to something in the past which can never be changed. Yeah when you are present, you’re here now you can respond to the events around you. You don’t have to become reactionary.

Why Is All This Important?

All of this accumulates and helps you to find the joy and happiness that you’re after. Yet it also allows you to be OK with the times that the 50-50 principal is in effect. You can lean into those sad times, and understand that that sadness is not going to hurt you because again you’re being present with what you’re feeling at the moment you’re not letting your mind spin-off and re-create the troubles that you were having 10 minutes ago.

You allow yourself to be more open and inviting to your loved ones. Suddenly your son will want to talk to you about the trouble he’s having. He is going to be more willing to share his life with you. He now knows that you’re not going to blow up because he told you something that you didn’t want to hear. Ben often struggles with that Dad I dented the car. What is your reaction to getting angry to blow up to react to the circumstance instead of responding to what happened? 

So if you want a better relationship with your family, practicing mindfulness improves those chances because you have a skill that allows you to become better. You have a better relationship with your friends because you’re more present with them as they’re telling you what they have to say. You have a better work relationship with your coworkers, and your bosses because you present enough to ask the needed questions.

How Do You Start Practicing Being Mindful and Present?

So how do you actually start being mindful and present? Starting it’s not difficult at all I’ve mentioned several apps that you can put on your phone to help you become more mindful.

• Calm – Apple and Android
• Oak – Apple Only
• The Mindfulness App
• The Smiling Mind – Free
• Headspace – Paid service

Some of these are subscription-based, while others are free. They’re all useful if you use them. Most of them only last at the most 15 minutes and what you’re looking for isn’t to stop your mind from talking. No that’s not the case at all on this. What it means to practice mindfulness is as follows. Typically you find a place comfortable sit and you relax your arms, legs your body and breathe, and that’s the key to practicing mindfulness because typically you focus in on your breathing, and as you do this, you will notice your mind wanders. What you do then is you bring your attention back to breathing the air as it flows in and out of your nose, or the feeling of your chest, expanding and contracting. 

Whatever you choose to focus on, and as you keep going, your mind will wander again. When you notice your mind wandering you bring it back to the focus point you rinse and repeat, rinse, and repeat for 15 minutes. The more you do it the better skills you get. Pretty soon you can go 15 minutes and you won’t notice when your mind has wandered because it’s staying focused on what it’s supposed to do. It also allows you to give yourself grace because you gently bring yourself back to the focus you’ll get angry you don’t you don’t don’t start calling yourself names you’re just bringing it back in focus.

Find some time to practice mindfulness if you would like to be the happier, more anchored or grounded man, that your family, your wife, and your children need from you mindfulness is a good skill to start. If you want help with this, I can help you you can go and take the next step down below.