Thirty Thousand Days - Fall 2013 Vol 18 No. 1 | Page 7

from the second? How soon do you reach for your fork for
more? What does it feel like as you swallow? What does it
sound like as your chew?
You can even take it a step farther and try to imagine
where your food came from. If you’re drinking a cup of
coffee, reflect on where the beans came from. Who picked
them? Where were they roasted? How did they get shipped
to the store where I bought them?

3. Practice leaving no trace

I’ll admit that when I get caught up in the
responsibilities of daily life, I can really let
clutter build up in my home. So I decided
to pick one room in the house and practice
“leaving no trace.”
I picked the kitchen, and what this means is that when I
leave this room, I try to leave it exactly the same as I entered
it, as if I had never been there.
If I have a bowl of cereal, I rinse out the bowl and spoon,
dry them off, and put them back in the cupboard. If I make
dinner, I don’t wait until later that night or the next day to
clean up, but clean up right then and there. If I accidentally
spill something on the floor, I get a paper towel and wipe
it up before doing anything else.
This practice can help you become more aware of the
impact you have on your environment, and it will probably
make anyone you live with really happy, too!

4. Practice mindful listening

Often when we listen to another person
talking, only part of our mind is listening. The other part is thinking about what
we’re going to say in response, or making
judgments about if we agree or disagree, or even daydreaming about something completely different.
Instead, practice really listening to what the person is
saying, as if you were absorbing their words like a sponge.
Pay attention to the speaker’s voice, their body language,
their tone. What emotion or feelings do you imagine them
experiencing?
The best part about this exercise is that you are giving
a gift to the other person. Is is so rare that people really
get the full attention of another person.

5. Practice mindful waiting

This is perhaps my favorite exercise,
because we typically view “waiting” time
as a waste of time, but it’s actually an
opportunity for you to pause, observe,
and be mindful. The next time you are standing in line at
the bank, or sitting in the waiting room of your doctor’s

Thirty Thousand Days

office, or sitting at a restaurant waiting for your friend to
show up, use that time to be mindful.
Without judging, observe how you are feeling in your
body. Do you feel tense and impatient? Excited? Bored?
Where in your body do you feel it? Is it like a tightness in
your chest or a buzzing in your head? You can even practice directing your attention to a neutral object, like your
breath or the ambient sounds. When your mind wanders,
bring it back.

6. Answer the phone mindfully

Often we hear the phone ring and immediately jump up to answer. Instead, practice pausing and taking two deep breaths
before you answer the phone. Pause, deep
inhale, deep exhale. Pause again, deep inhale, deep exhale
and then proceed to answer the phone.
As you can see, mindfulness does not need to be some
elusive or abstract concept, and it does not need to take
extra time out of your day to practice. And as you start to
practice these small habits, you will notice big benefits.
Mindfulness is a skill that you can develop, and as you do,
you will start to notice and appreciate small joys in your
day that had previously gone unnoticed.
Elana Miller, M.D., writes at Zen Psychiatry about integrating western
medicine with eastern philosophy to help people lead happier and healthier
lives. She is based in Los Angeles, California and enjoys writing, surfing,
meditating, and playing the ukulele.
http://zenpsychiatry.com/

ToDo Doings
• Congratulations to Valerie Galante and Anandi Nelson for
completing their ToDo Institute Certification in Japanese
Psychology
• Congratulations and thanks to Mexico members, Jorge Zarate
Arvizu and Sabrina Carsi Perez, who recently completed the
Spanish translation of A Natural Approach to Mental Wellness
by Gregg Krech.
• Professor Clark Chilson of the University of Pittsburgh recently
conducted a Naikan workshop in Vancouver, Canada.
• Gregg Krech was a featured speaker at the national conference
on Mindfulness and Compassion in Psychotherapy in Seattle.
•  oraine Rickard-Martin made a presentation on Morita and
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Naikan Therapies at the United Nations.
•  elcome to Paulette Thibault, who recently joined the staff
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of the ToDo Institute as our Office Manager.

Fall 2013 • 7