Day 7: Final Reflection

                Before this project, I had already been trying to incorporate mindfulness into my daily life.  However, this project allowed me to pay more attention and try harder at being mindful. Because I had to record down whatever happened, it also improved my ability to put all of my thoughts and feelings into words since I’m not the best at expressing and communicating my feelings. I have always thought about certain things, but putting my ideas down on paper and writing down everything in my head made it easier to rationalize the situation and figure out what I must do to accomplish something. Writing this blog was kind of like a personal diary. 

Day 6: Saturday

I stayed at home the whole entire day and slept and ate. 

Day 5: Friday

            During my morning class, we took a class field trip to post where we were going to college in the communications hallway. This activity caused me to think a little bit more about my future. I had been accepted to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and I had planned to go there, but the very high cost of out of state tuition threw my parents and me off and scrapped my plan at the last minute.  I knew that in the back of my mind, getting an education at UNC was the most practical plan as it was a blessing to be in-state in order to take advantage of the cheap tuition, and it is a very good public institution as well. Also, it is better in the long term to invest less money into your undergraduate education. However, UNC was definitely not my first choice as I had plans to leave and go far away from North Carolina for college, but I always had an inkling that it was where most people (me included) were going to end up (I mean look at our school).

            As I thought about my future and where I would inevitably be at in the coming fall, I felt a sense of resignation and disappointment. I had tried to avoid thinking about it as much as I could these past few weeks and maintain a sense of ignorance in the hopes that it would lessen the disappointment, but I realized it was just creating more of an unhealthy relationship with my future. In refusing to confront and accept the situation, I was just retreating into my comfort zone, and giving no thought to the positives of the situation and only focusing on what I don’t want and don’t have. This just sets me up for failure from the start and it is definitely not a good thing to not have a positive outlook when embarking on a new path, and in this case I hadn’t even started on my path.

            We have all heard of that age old cliché, “College is what you make of it.” There is much truth in it, but there are many things in this world that are more easily said than done. As of right now, I am still in the process of fully accepting where my future lies after graduation. I know I have no choice but to accept it because obviously nothing can be changed at this point. I have also come to realize that deciding where you are going to go for undergrad, although it was one of the first and so far more important adult decisions I (and I’m sure most of us) have made in my(our) short life, is one of the more insignificant choices you will make in the context of the bigger picture of your life.  Although I’m not undermining the value or importance of an undergrad education and experience, there are definitely a lot bigger and more important milestones and goals in being a somewhat functional adult, regardless of your post-secondary educational experience.

            All in all at the end of the day, I have realized I should focus on the things that I do have and the path that I am currently on, rather than the things I don’t, could have had, and probably never will have anytime soon. I should focus on and live in the reality and face and come to terms with the inevitable, instead of living in the past or the future or in some unattainable fantasy. This can be applied to many aspects of life, not only limited to the first world problem of college decisions (just kidding).

            As I am typing these words and trying to internalize what I have rationalized, I realize I still have not fully accepted my future. I know logically what I should do and the reasons for it, but I frequently let emotions get in the way of facts. I am also very stubborn. Hah. But I am working on it.

Day 4: Thursday

            I decided to go to Hugh Macrae Park again, this time by myself, to do some meditation with nature. It once again proved calming and relaxing and allowed me to clear my mind by focusing on the simplest things around me. I have always loved nature, but this has introduced to me a new way of embracing and appreciating its beauty.

Day 3: Wednesday

I had work today in the evening. As a waitress, dealing with unpleasant people and situations is inevitable and expected. As a service worker, we have to be extra careful to hide our disdain and whatever reaction we may have towards whatever behavior we normally would not tolerate outside of our jobs. This many times results in the release of our anger and reactions behind the customer’s back to other waitstaff through a lot of employee gossip and bitching about whatever table gave an attitude about their napkins not being prompt enough. It isn’t the healthiest behavior, but regardless, everybody does it. It is almost like an unwritten part of the job description. But there had to be a way to overcome as much negative feeling, any form of bitching, and ill feeling as much as possible, so I figured there had to be mindfulness involved.

Before work, I decided I would look at things from the customer’s perspective more often (after all they paid money for their meal and service, and nobody likes to waste money, especially me), I would take things less personally, and I would try to accept circumstances and move on more easily.

For the most part, the evening was quite slow and I didn’t have more than 2 tables at once. This made it very easy and by far one of the least stressful shifts I have ever worked. There was no challenge at all in giving good service and making customers happy. I was almost wishing there was more action and tables. However, the stagnant activity allowed me to focus more exclusively on practicing my mindfulness and allowing me to stay conscious of my thoughts, feelings, and attitude. It also allowed me to be more attentive to my customers and predict and cater to their needs better and quicker.  Probably as a result of that, all of the customers were very patient, pleasant, and left nice tips. Even though I wasn’t confronted with any negative situations that would test my mindfulness, I was able to employ my mindfulness in other ways.

There was this one old guy that kept eating a piece of chicken and spitting it back into his plate. I observed this behavior several times as I looked at his table checking to see if there were any plates I needed to take.  I thought it was kind of strange and I usually try my best not to be judgmental, but this guy raised my eyebrows a bit. When I finally went over to give him the check and collect his plate, he protested and quickly took a napkin and started to pick the meat pieces off his plate and into the napkin. I stood there watching with a pleasant expression on my face.  The fact that his wife glanced at me caused me to smile wider. Then the old man said that they were “dog scraps”. I nodded and said “Absolutely”.  After the wife laughed, I started to laugh as well. It was kind of strange, but funny and I reminded myself to take into account the situations of other people and not to reach conclusions too quickly. For all I knew, he could have had a toothless dog who liked to eat chicken and the only way the dog could eat it was if it was in small moist pieces. I really don’t know, don’t ask me. Anything is possible.

Besides dealing with customers, dealing with bosses is another situation. My boss is sometimes disrespectful in how he speaks to and approaches his employees, and the way he handles certain situations could be deemed a bit unprofessional. I find that he can often times be domineering, but also warm and welcoming in that weird way of his,  where he isn’t completely warm and comfortable with being warm, but you can definitely tell he is trying. I know that his sometimes unpleasant characteristics can be partly attributed to his personality, but I’ve realized that maybe I should start looking at things from his perspective. Having just opened his restaurant only about a month and a half ago, he is striving to maintain his business and profits, and the first few months are always the most crucial in any small business.  I understand that he might be under a lot of stress, and the fact that he works 13 hours almost seven days a week at his restaurant does not do a lot to alleviate this stress. In addition, the waitstaff is predominantly new and because he wants everything to work out, he feels he must obtain the best performance from us by constantly keeping us on our toes and pointing out all of the little things that we do wrong in the hopes of trying to correct us before we form them as long-term habits. I understand his approach and how he is trying to make the service the best it can be and improve his business. However, I do think that there are a few things he should do to acknowledge some of our good attributes and work skills as well, instead of constantly only focusing on the negative. Perhaps that would create a slightly better work environment than it has been and allow the waitresses especially to feel a little more comfortable coming to him with their concerns, instead of only his wife, who is the co-owner. I’ve been trying to figure out his psyche ever since I started working, and now that I know him better and have tried to see things from his perspective, I can approach him and begin to communicate with him more effectively. 

Day 2: Tuesday

During 7am AP Biology, I became aware that I felt particularly negative towards a person in my class. I won’t discuss my feelings in depth or what could have caused these feelings to precipitate, but I was aware of and able to recognize the negativity of my feelings. Even though not being particularly warm towards someone seems a situation a bit too trivial to talk “profoundly” about, the negativity really bothered me and distracted me from my normal functioning. As a result, I tried to figure out why I could be feeling this way and also tried to identify precisely what I was feeling and put it into words.

My precise feelings turned out to be more complex and scattered than I had imagined with remnants of resentment, disappointment, and even jealousy and guilt, along with the awareness that I was also reprimanding myself for feeling negatively. In my normal daily life, I reprimand myself very frequently for feeling negatively or badly about someone or something, and I will admit this isn’t the healthiest habit to have. However, I remembered that acceptance of emotions was one of the key tenets to practicing mindfulness, so I tried to accept and come to terms with the negativity I was feeling even though I didn’t fully understand it.

One of the main obstacles I experienced was the unsettling self-reprimandation that threatened to prevent me from fully accepting the feelings I did not want to admit to feeling. Although it is good to have awareness of what you are thinking and be conscious of what your actions or thoughts could mean,  there comes a certain point to where this awareness and inner dialogue borders onto unhealthy over-self-reprimandation. Also, reprimanding can only help you so much; there comes a certain extent to which you cannot change your negative emotions or feelings for the better, and the constant re-analyzation of the situation only causes you to dwell on the negativity longer.

As a result, the best course of action and compromise I made for myself in the end was to keep my self-reprimanding levels to a minimum and practice acceptance of my feelings and emotions more than I usually do, as well as to avoid dwelling on the fact of the negative emotion.

In addition, I realized that because negativity in one form or another is an inevitable part of life,  it is unavoidable when we end up having to learn the best way to deal with things as they come. Acceptance in conjunction with awareness is an effective way to gain insight into ourselves and move on from whatever inner and emotional burdens we may have.  I can say that it has definitely helped me to think and look at my psyche in a different way today.

I also hung out and had dinner with a friend today. Before eating, we went to Hugh Macrae Park and that’s where I laid out on the grass and closed my eyes.  I started relaxing and being mindful of nature, noticing the smell of the grass, the sounds of the geese, the soft pitter patter of the people around us, the hot rays of sun hitting my face, and the feelings of the prickly grass beneath my neck. I focused on all my bodily sensations and enjoyed every moment of this quiet meditation with nature. It felt like time had stopped as I took the moment to quietly reminisce everything around me.

Day 1: Monday

Mondays are by default one of the worst days of the week according to the majority of school-aged kids who have ever had to wake up to the doom of the sounding alarm. However, the Monday morning after prom weekend is a totally different story and in much worse shape. In my 7am AP Biology class, the whole class was in zombie mode and kids had their eyes half open. I was no different. If it had not been for my bottle of Naked juice, I would have gotten a concussion from my head dropping onto the desk.

The classroom was completely quiet except for the teacher constantly making comments about our lifelessness, which no one bothered or had the energy to respond to or deny. Usually, I am annoyed/entertained by this particular teacher because of her peculiar habits in not grading work and her quirkiness that I have yet to become desensitized to even though it’s nearing the end of the school year, but this morning, I was feeling too tired to even care or bother feeling anything towards whatever the teacher was doing or saying.

This behavior wasn’t the most mindful in that I paid very little attention to my environment, to what the teacher said, and to what even happened in my 7am class. I was too preoccupied and disabled from my own tiredness to also try to pay attention to my emotions, although I am pretty sure I was hankering very strongly for a nice warm bed. Concerning acceptance without judgment, I can report first hand that I was less consumed with my annoyance towards the teacher than I had ever been before mainly because I was too tired to care or notice. My lack of feeling made me indifferent to everything around me, and even though indifference isn’t exactly judging, indifference still isn’t the same as true acceptance.

During my 7am, I also had the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there had been Spanish homework over the weekend and a lot of it. Even through my tiredness, I could feel the apprehension building up and my urgency to complete the homework before the next period, where a zero for homework could really bring down my grade. However, I was too tired and lazy to try to complete it then, so I ended up worrying about it even more to make up for the lack of work I actually (don’t) do, disobeying my first guideline to mindfulness.

All in all, this morning was not exactly off to the greatest start. I had not fulfilled any of my four guidelines/goals and had completely gone against many of them without even thinking about them or being conscientious enough. The rest of my classes/day was much the same. I continued to be tired and unfocused until I finally got home and went into a deep slumber for the afternoon and early evening.

From what happened today, I can definitely conclude that it is beyond important to be fully rested and in the right mental state prior to trying to give it your all in practicing mindfulness in daily life. I unintentionally flunked many personal goals with my lack of sufficient rest, and this left me in the dust for the whole day. With a whole day now wasted, I must take this more seriously and do everything in my power to make the best/most of my week/experience.

Tonight, I will get more rest. Tomorrow, I will be well rested and will do better to follow the guidelines to be more mindful.  

Personal Reflection

I was first introduced to mindfulness by the instructor of my personality psychology class. As a practicing psychologist and a rather spiritual person, she was a strong advocate of positive psychology. Within positive psychology, she frequently discussed a concept called mindfulness which I found particularly interesting.  The instructor described mindfulness as living in the present through a moment-by-moment basis through awareness of bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions, feelings, and the surrounding environment, defined by the observation, acceptance, and lack of judgment of all of these things.  She would demonstrate this concept by leading the students through a form of guided meditation before almost every class. She instructed us to close our eyes, get into a comfortable position and correct posture, and release our minds of any preoccupying thoughts. She would then encourage us to focus our attentions on the sensations of our bodies; the steady rhythm of our breathing; the feelings of the clothes contacting our skin; the particular smell of the air; the sensations beneath our fingertips, the beating of our hearts, etc.  The point was to make us aware of and receptive to all of the things around and within us and to just experience, observe, and accept, while also embracing the connection between body and mind. We would remain in this meditative state for 15 minutes or so, and then she would gradually bring the session to a close in which we would resume with the lesson of the day.

I always looked forward to these encounters with mindfulness.  Ever since I was young, I had always been conscious of the existence of some sort of deeper awareness of the things around us and I always wanted to find and have that awareness. With my introduction to mindfulness, I was now able to give a name to something I have always tried to put a finger on, and this makes the path to reaching a higher consciousness, spiritual and moral enlightenment, or whatever it may be, a bit clearer. However, I was not fully satisfied with just experiencing a 15 minute, mindful mental state for two times a week. Instead, I wanted to consciously apply its set of techniques and skills to my everyday life and hopefully become a better human being. As a result, I have decided to take on the week of living mindfully.

Guidelines of this Week:

1.)    Do not be preoccupied with the past or the future; focus only on the present

2.)    Be aware of and accept emotions experienced

3.)    Accept things without judgments

4.)    Stay aware of surrounding environments and bodily sensations