You might have read the title to this and thought a few different things. Maybe you’re a Christian and asked yourself, how can you bring God and Mindfulness practices together, isn’t that taboo? Or perhaps you aren’t a believer and find it odd to even included both in one sentence. Or, you’re curious either way to here what I have to say about this topic. Where you landed, I think we are all a little curious when it comes to science and God. What I share here isn’t something I am telling you to believe, I am simply stating some research I have come across and coupled it with my own experience and knowledge. I hope you find something that sparks just a little glimmer in your skepticism however.

Okay so most of you reading know exactly what mindfulness is and some know absolutely nothing about it. Let’s define it first so I paint my experience for you. Mindfulness according to dictionary.com is “a technique in which one focuses one’s full attention only on the present, experiencing thoughts, feelings, and sensations but not judging them.” The first initial experience of mindfulness for me felt very abstract to me. I had started to learn about it in my Master’s program back in 2020 when things were anything but quiet in my head. I was curious about the class and wanted to know more since it was something I equated to yoga. When I had done yoga years before, it took me awhile to fully embrace it for the physical and mental benefits. Yet, I did and felt this class would be a similar challenge. With this in mind, an assignment of our was learning about mindfulness-based mental skills. Meditation was one of these skills and man, I was NOT a fan at first.

The thought of being alone in my mind and trying to just ‘observe’ what I was thinking wasn’t just impossible for me to think about, it was absolutely preposterous! What do you mean you ‘observe’ your thoughts without judgement?! Like WHAT? What does that even mean?! I remember laying on my bed one afternoon at our old house and popped my headphones in to do a meditation, reluctantly. I laid there and this was maybe the third or fourth one I had done and it was physically angering me to sit in stillness. My body was twitchy, my brain wouldn’t stop racing, and that fueled even more anger which led to judging myself, my thoughts, ‘this stupid meditation’ or whatever I said at the time. If anything, meditation and mindfulness were doing anything but pulling me in.

Now I’m going to keep it real, it took me probably a solid month or two before my nervous system, my persistence, and consistency of doing the meditation EVERY day for 5 minutes a day before I began to surrender. If you’re looking for a quick fix to anything in life, good luck. You won’t find it, especially here. This shouldn’t be a new thing yet we seem to think everything in this world should just happen like that. Wrong. That’s one of the most fundamental parts of growing up in sports and school. You’re there to learn and grow, not to do it because you’re already good and smart enough. It takes 10,000 hours to master most things and that would take over a year minimum, I digress.

All this to say, I was able to get a habit going and my body was beginning to acclimate to the new stimulus I had introduced to my brain. I started to notice my anxiety beginning to slow down, my awareness of myself, the world around me and the spiritual world better. I was beginning to understand what it meant to be ‘present’ and how I could tap into that anywhere I would go. My focus began to sharpen more also. What was once a jumbled mess of thoughts, was now unraveling into a clearer picture. I still struggle from time to time with anxiety so I’m not completely passed that but I am at a place I’ve prayed about and can manage my thoughts better now. I have been wanting to share this gift with anyone that is willing to try it.

I’m going to teach you one mindfulness exercise below and will also link the five minute meditation on Spotify that started it all. I highly recommend listening at night or laying down because her voice is very soothing. To start your mindfulness journey you need to learn two things: how to breath deeper and how to use your five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing) to build awareness.

One of my favorite mindfulness exercises that I’ve been taught is mindful eating. Now you can chose to do mindful walking, mindful teeth brushing, etc.

First, let’s start with how to use breathing for a relaxing benefit. We will learning box-breathing (also known as square breathing) to find stillness, breath deeper, and prime our bodies for becoming present. What you’re going to do is find a comfortable position to sit. Relax your body, sit back in your chair, and put your hands comfortable on your lap. Close your eyes so you don’t get distracted. Now breath in for a count of 1… 2… 3… 4…, hold for 1… 2… 3… 4…, exhale for 1… 2… 3… 4… and finally hold again for 1… 2… 3… 4. Continue doing this 3-4 more times until you slow down your breath enough to not feel like you’re struggling to breath. If you need to do more counts you can increase to 5 or 6 if you’re already familiar with breath work. Here is a good visual example of what this looks like.

Mindful Eating:

Now that you’ve gotten into a more relaxed and present state, we will do mindful eating. What you’re going to do is find one piece of a food item (chocolate is usually what I do) and put that in front of you. You’re going to eat this piece of food but first, we are going to use all of our senses except taste to observe things. Take that piece of food and look at it. What patterns can you see visibly? Does the food or wrapping around the food look shiny, smooth, bumpy, colorful? Take a moment here. Then move to touch. How does the wrapper or food feel in your hand? Is it staying solid and strong or crumbling as you move it around. Does it feel dry or wet? Now take the wrapper off or crunch it. Listen to how it sounds. Does it make any noise at all? Move on to smell. Notice what your food smells like after unwrapping it if it had a wrapper. Is there a sweetness to it? Nutty, fresh, or fruity smell? Is the smell strong and or hard to distinguish? Pay attention to how your body reacts this smell. Is your stomach gurgling and ready to eat? Is your mouth starting to water? Take a moment here. Okay now for the best part, put the piece of food in your mouth and slowly eat it. Take your time chewing, tasting all the flavors of what you’re eating. Savor the food more than you normally would, like it’s your last piece. Stay a moment more and then come back to the present.

That’s it! You just applied mindfulness to your day! Write down or mentally note how this experience went for you. What you’re going to do now for the next week is the same exercise or a different one every day. Eventually, these will start building on each other and you’ll notice yourself becoming more aware of things that were once ordinary to you. After a week, start to add in the mindful meditation to your day and observe how you begin feeling, thinking, and seeing the world around you. The biggest thing I noticed spiritually was how my gift of discernment exploded and I was beginning to lean more into what the Holy Spirit was telling me on a daily basis. Remember, it’s okay if you mess up. Start it again and move forward 🙂 The longer you practice, the more you’ll learn about yourself and the world you live in.

As promised, here is the 5 minute meditation channel from my Spotify. I would love to hear about your experience and thoughts on this. Feel free to reach out to me via email: kelsey@unchainedmpc.com or my socials to give me feedback. I am excited to see where this takes you and your spiritual journey 🙂

With Love,

Kels