March Mindfulness Challenge: Why We Need to Stay Mindful in Conversations

What’s up everyone! How in the world is it already April? My mind is constantly blown at how fast time flies. Time for a little recap on what we learned throughout March and my Mindfulness Challenge for the month: Mindfulness in Conversations.

Too often in life we talk to people without being fully there. Our mind wanders, thinking about what we have to do later that day, what we’re hungry for, or focusing on something about the person other than what they’re saying. Even worse – a lot of us have the horrible habit of checking our phones in the middle of a conversation. IT’S SO BAD! Like why do we even think that that’s socially acceptable? Of course there are exceptions here… when we’re around family or the people we live with sometimes there are instances when we’re having a casual conversation and it isn’t a big deal to be on our phone or whatever else. But for the most part, it’s super disrespectful to be distracted when someone is trying to speak with us. Most likely, whatever we’re doing can wait.

March’s Mindfulness Challenge was simply this: when you’re talking to someone, be fully there. REALLY listen to them. Engage in a natural flow of conversation without distractions, judgment, constant thought, etc., and see what happens.

Lessons Learned from Mindfulness in Conversations

You automatically make the other person feel more important

This one seems like it should be no-brainer for me. What’s more satisfying… a.) having coffee with a friend who’s scrolling through Instagram half the time, distracted by other people, or too busy talking about themselves, or b.) having coffee with a friend who is listening intently, wants to hear what you have to say, and doesn’t glance at their phone even once? The answer is B, DUH! It feels so so good to be listened to. It makes us feel valued. Why not go about our daily conversations, as small and as short as they are, doing everything we can to make the other person feel important?

You can actually hear & take in what’s being said

The other day during my daily meditation in the calm app it said “How many times do we converse with someone only to realize we’ve totally lost track of what’s being said, and perhaps missed out on something important? Using mindfulness to develop the habit of returning to the present significantly enhances and improves the quality of our lives.”

AMEN.

One thing I know we’re all guilty of is saying “oh yeah uh-huh” (or something along those lines) in response to someone when in reality we have absolutely no clue what they said. Why the heck do we do this?! Well, it’s natural for the human brain to wander. It’s what it does best. This is exactly why we have to train it to be more mindful in every day things like conversation. We hear better when we’re mindful and present. I don’t mean sound wise – I mean we actually retain what’s being said to us. And, if we aren’t fully listening, a mindfulness-trained brain will nudge us to say “hey can you repeat that? I zoned out for a second there”. Trust me, I think we’d all way rather repeat ourselves than roll our eyes knowing the other person has no idea what we said.

Relationships are deepened more easily

This relates to the first two points directly. When we’re completely engaged in conversation, the gateway to more meaningful conversation is immediately opened. If we aren’t in a rush to stop talking to this person and get to the next thing, we may end up having a really nice, much-needed talk. So many things can happen here: they might open up and tell you more about themselves or give you insightful advice. Or, if it’s someone you’re close to, they could tell you something they’ve been meaning to bring up for awhile that may have been hindering your relationship for some reason. You never know what will come up and work itself out when mindful conversations are happening!

Gives you an instant reminder to come back to the present

As mostly all mindfulness practices are, this challenge was such a good reminder to focus on the present moment and prevent the mind from thinking about a zillion other things as it always seems to want to do. When we’re living in the moment we’re happier, more fulfilled, and even more productive.

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All of this being said, let’s continue to work on staying mindful in our conversations each and every day. Of course we’re human so we won’t be successful 100% of the time, but I know for a fact that our efforts will pay off and won’t go unnoticed by those around us.

April Mindfulness Challenge

Anyone else feel like they have a million things on their plate and don’t know where to start?

Recently I’ve had a really really REALLY hard time focusing on one thing at once. It feels incredibly impossible to work full-time, keep up with my blog, eat healthy, work out, and maintain all of my relationships with the people I care about by spending time with them. Sometimes I feel like I’m failing when I’m not doing all of these things amazingly well… which is SO not true. Our worth isn’t dependent on how much we accomplish. And sometimes, when we have so much to do, we have a hard time knowing where to start and focusing on just one thing.

April is all about Mindfulness in tasks. Let’s work on avoiding multi-tasking – if you have a ton of things to get done, just pick one and stick to it for at least 25 minutes with no distractions (The Pomodoro Technique… it works wonders!). If you get distracted, simply note what it was that pulled you away and return to your task. You’ll be surprised how much you get done! I’m trying this out as I’m working on this blog post and it’s amazing how much I’ve gotten done in such a short amount of time.

As always, let me know how this month’s challenge goes for you!

Thanks for reading, friends! So fun having all of you along on this mindfulness journey with me!

XO Sorelle