There’s nothing like a drastic, life-changing event to test your practice. I recently became a father. Being a new parent of an infant has its ups and downs. The lows come mostly from lack of sleep, but also from second guessing everything from when, what, where, who, and why… The highs—the moments of absolute peace and joy—give me the energy to get through the lows. My practices of mindfulness and Stoicism have helped immensely through both the good and the bad. One aspect of mindfulness in particular has helped me more than anything else: mindful movement. Late Zen Buddhist monk and mindfulness teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh describes mindful movement as a life-or-death matter:
“Every act must be carried out in mindfulness. Each act is a rite, a ceremony. Does the word ‘rite’ seem too solemn? I use that word in order to jolt you into the realization of the life-and-death matter of awareness.”
Our ability to live depends on this
I love that he uses the word ‘rite’ to describe how we should approach all physical tasks with more presence, care, and dedication. It implies that there is something special hiding within our mundane tasks and routines.
Having an infant has made this abundantly clear to me. My physical interactions with him really matter. They are life-and-death, in a sense. If I’m careless or distracted while holding him, then I could harm him. If I’m thinking ahead about the email I need to send while changing his diaper, then I’m missing a precious opportunity to simply be with him, to talk to him, to comfort him.
Our ability to live depends on our capacity for mindful movement, because life happens while doing the dishes. Life happens while brushing snow off your car. Life happens while peeling a carrot. If we skim over these moments, we let large chunks of life pass us by. Where do they go? They’re swept away by thoughts of the past or future. We never get this time back. The remedy is not sitting meditation. The remedy is mindful movement.
What is mindful movement?
Mindful movement, also known as mindfulness of task, is present-moment awareness while performing a physical movement. The object of focus is the movement itself. There are a multitude of mundane activities that can be made into beautiful life experiences if we just apply mindful movement. If we enter into physical tasks with the intention to practice mindfulness, slow down a bit, take great care with our movements, and appreciate what we’re doing, we can unlock a whole realm of experience that was previously obscured by our autopilot mode of rushing and thinking ahead.
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How to practice mindful movement
Get yourself a physical reminder that you’ll engage with almost as soon as you wake up in the morning. This will remind you of your intention to practice mindful movement throughout the day. It could be anything. It could be a small ornament that normally sits on your bookshelf. Instead, place it on your nightstand. This way, it’s there for you in the morning to serve as your reminder. My reminder is a beaded bracelet, which was a gift from my parents-in-law. Putting it on in the morning is a small ceremony. I do it slowly. I recall my intentions for the day, including the intention to practice mindful movement.
Then, select a routine morning activity to be your first opportunity to practice mindful movement. Don’t try to introduce a new activity for the purpose of this practice. Choose something that is already part of your morning routine. For me, this is my morning coffee. I prepare it slowly. I actually take time to smell the coffee as I’m preparing it. Then, as I’m taking my first few sips, I look out my kitchen window to see if I can spot any small birds hopping from branch to branch. The good thing about this particular activity (coffee) is that I’m never going to skip it.
Having this reliable chance to practice mindful movement soon after waking is critical because it sets the wheels in motion for a mindful day.
Never rush
One of the biggest hindrances to mindful movement and mindfulness in general is rushing. Personally, I struggle with this. I always have perhaps a bit too much on my plate, and I’m always looking for ways to optimize or save time. This leads me to rush. I find myself clumsily knocking things about in the kitchen because I’m moving too fast. But, at least I catch myself doing it.
In many forms of meditation, the primary guidance is to observe the breath, and when we get distracted by thought, we return to the breath peacefully. The same applies to our physical movements. When we find ourselves rushing, we simply acknowledge and return to a slower pace.
Rushing is not only a blocker to mindfulness but it’s also usually pointless. Sure, I may save 45 seconds by cleaning the kitchen quickly after making dinner, but then my whole nervous system is jacked up. Then, when I sit down at my computer to do some work, I’ll probably make a mistake because my mind is still racing ahead. The mistake will likely cost me much more than 45 seconds.
“Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you’re doing.”
– Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation
Don’t multitask
Multitasking is a myth. A more accurate label for what we normally call multitasking is task-switching. However, this is the most cognitively taxing thing you can do. This understanding comes from Amishi Jha’s wonderful book, which presents her research on the relationship between focus, attention, and mindfulness. The book is called Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention.
Expanding your mindful movement practice
The foundations of mindful movement are intention and slow movement. Once you begin to feel comfortable with these fundamentals, you can begin applying this practice to all kinds of routine activities, such as:
Preparing food: Cooking is an excellent opportunity to practice mindful movement. It’s a sensual activity. Allow the fragrances and textures to pull you into the present moment. It’s an activity that we should appreciate more. We should all remind ourselves how grateful we are for a fridge full of food.
Eating: At least once a week, eat a meal without distraction. Chew slowly. Really enjoy the food. Sometimes, I like to do this with a cheat meal like a cheeseburger or pizza. This kind of food is really delicious, but not so good for me, so I can at least enjoy it mindfully as part of my practice.
Doing dishes: I can’t offer better advice than Thich Nhat Hanh’s on washing the dishes mindfully:
“Wash the dishes relaxingly, as though each bowl is an object of contemplation. Consider each bowl as sacred. Follow your breath to prevent your mind from straying. Do not try to hurry to get the job over with. Consider washing the dishes the most important thing in life. Washing the dishes is meditation. If you cannot wash the dishes in mindfulness, neither can you meditate while sitting in silence.”
Typing and clicking: Our time is spent increasingly engaged with digital information on our devices. It’s imperative to bring mindfulness to our interaction with the digital world. The internet is practically designed to distract, persuade, and influence us. A keyboard and mouse allow us to perform cognitive tasks unnaturally fast. How many misunderstood emails have been sent simply because the author’s fingers were moving faster than their mind? Slow it down. Be conscious of what you’re consuming on the internet.
Housework: Cleaning and tidying your living space can be a light and pleasant task if we take a mindful approach. Break down house cleaning into small chunks. Don’t think of it as cleaning a whole room. Clean the table. Then dust the shelves. Then sweep the floor.
Washing your hands: Water can serve as a reminder to practice mindfulness of task, whether while drinking it or washing with it. Water is refreshing. It revitalizes the body. Also, we can be grateful for the fact that we have an abundance of clean water. Washing your hands is an opportune moment for your mindful movement practice because it’s something you do many times throughout the day.
Showering: I struggle with this one. My default mode in the shower is to think. I tend to get ambitious in the shower—planning and getting excited about projects. My mind tends to go everywhere except to the present moment. But, I’m working to bring more mindfulness to my showers, because the shower is the perfect place for mindful movement. We should make showering more of a self-care ritual. It’s an excellent time to relax. We can slow down and smell the fragrant soap, and massage our neck and scalp as we shampoo. We should take great care as we wash ourselves, recognizing that this is an act of care.
Walking: It’s a bit unrealistic to expect to turn literally all of our walking into mindful walking. When I get up to grab a drink from the fridge, I’m probably thinking about the drink and not so much about the connection between the soles of my feet and the floor. But, when we go for a walk outside, we should attempt to walk with mindful awareness. We can focus on the connection between the earth and the soles of our feet. We can maintain an upright posture. Above all, we can slow down. Thich Nhat Hanh often urged his students to embrace the power of mindful walking.
Related: Thich Nhat Hanh Walking Meditation
Make mindful movement a habit
There is another foundation of mindful movement in addition to intention and slowing down. Memory is also a key component. Mindfulness traditions like Buddhism place great importance on memory. Memory is part of mindfulness, because without memory, we forget to practice in the first place. This is understandable. With busy lives, it’s nearly impossible to remain mindful all the time.
The power of habit lets us outsource some of the need to remember to be mindful. Creating true habits allows us to enter into mindful awareness more automatically.
You can try making some of the activities shared in this article, or other ones of your choosing, into mindfulness habits by following a widely accepted formula for building habits.
The habit loop
I first learned of the habit loop from Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit. The habit loop describes the working parts of all habits in an incredibly simple three-staged loop. All habits consist of a:
Cue: This is a prompt, stimulus, or reminder of some kind that calls us to action.
Routine: This can be a single action, but it’s usually a series of actions done in a routine order. This is the behavior you’re trying to turn into a habit.
Reward: There has to be some light at the end of the tunnel for the behavior to become a habit.
We can use this understanding to make mindful movement more habitual. Take tea, for example. Finishing the dishes after dinner could serve as the cue to make tea. Then, we can build the behavior of mindfully making the tea into a short routine. We can establish an order; first boiling the water, then preparing the tea leaves, then reaching into the cupboard for the cups. Finally, the reward can be the renewed awareness itself—the comforting feeling of actually having lived this moment. The reward can also be a nice cup of tea.
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life. Don’t be attached to the future. Don’t worry about things you have to do. Don’t think about getting up or taking off to do anything. Don’t think about ‘departing’.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
The final word
Establish a morning prompt to remind you to set your intention. Remember the foundations of mindful movement: intention, slowing down, and remembering to practice. Have at least one routine activity to perform mindfully in the morning. Then, begin experimenting with your typical actions throughout the day. Can you make them more ceremonious? Is there meaning or a chance to be grateful wrapped up inside certain activities? If yes, carefully unwrap it. Use your knowledge about habit building to establish cues, routines, and rewards to make mindful movement more habitual.
Finally, remember that most of us have been conditioning ourselves throughout our entire lives to perform mundane tasks while thinking ahead or behind. Mindfulness is a practice that requires some dedication, training, and effort. Despite your intentions, there will be times that you forget or fail to practice. When this happens, don’t beat yourself up.