The post-shower towel shot serves several purposes. First and foremost is the clickbait aspect that typically gains more viewers when anyone takes their clothes off. Second, there is the bait and switch aspect for which this site should be better known. A post fronted by gratuitous nudity that ends up being about meditation and mindfulness is one of those twists that keep me interested in this nineteen-year-old website. Third, taking a shower is a mundane everyday moment that is ripe for mindfulness, so these photos go along with that idea, and give me a chance to expound upon a beginning practice in meditation and mindfulness, which some friends and family have asked about.
I’ve been making my way through Matthew Sockolov’s ‘Practicing Mindfulness’ book, a collection of ’75 Essential Meditations to Reduce Stress, Improve Mental Health, and Find Peace in the Everyday.’ The most recent meditation I tried is ideal for anyone looking to begin a meditation practice, and I wish I’d happened upon it sooner in my journey. It’s about resting the mind, which seems to be the most difficult part of meditation for almost everyone I’ve talked to about this.
Sockolov recommends this easy ten-minute practice as a way to calm the thoughts that invariably creep into our heads as soon as we stop moving and sit still. In today’s world where information and distractions are thrown at us non-stop from the moment we wake to the moment we fall asleep with our phones in our hands, still mindlessly scrolling like automatons, this is especially challenging to do. We are conditioned to be in a state of constant stimulation, and that is wreaking havoc on multiple levels. The best and easiest way to break this cycle, and the addiction of the phone, is to step away from it, and insist on carving out time and space for simply sitting still in silence. Not the most comfortable place for anyone to be anymore, but if you give it a chance you may find the rest of your life begins to calm down too. It worked for me.
Begin by finding the time and place to do this. If you are one who worries about time (like my Virgo self), set a phone alarm for five or ten minutes so you’re not constantly looking at the minutes passing by. Find a quiet place of solitude, even if it’s just a bathroom to escape. Ideally you have somewhere better to go where you can be comfortable. The practice is to sit or lie down and begin deep breathing. One slow breath in and one slow breath out. Then again. And again.
Once you are doing this, you will find a number of thoughts start creeping into your head. What you are making for dinner, what time you need to pick the kids up from practice, what you need to get from the store, what outfit to wear for next weekend’s get-together, who you need to call back, who you don’t want to text back – a myriad of life’s nonsense will suddenly impede on this moment, and that’s ok. Allow the thoughts to come, acknowledge them, and let them pass by. Eventually they will stop. If they don’t, it’s good to find something else to focus on to maintain the quiet posture. Sockolov advises on holding a couple of phrases in your head:
May my mind be at ease.
May I be at ease with my mind.
On each slow inhale, you can focus on the mantra ‘May my mind be at ease’ and on each slow exhale repeat it again ‘May my mind be at ease.’ On the next inhale think of the next one ‘May I be at ease with my mind’ and doing the same on the exhale. It provides a basic framework and focus that may help in pushing other thoughts from the mind, and achieving that divine blank space in your head is the purpose here. When worrisome thoughts are eradicated, it’s difficult to worry. This magic is something I wish I had discovered earlier, because it bleeds into the rest of life.
If you can manage five to ten minutes of this each day, you will find it easy to increase by a minute or two until you’re getting in a good fifteen to twenty minutes of meditation, and that’s when things get even better. It allows you to be more fully present, and leads into the practice of mindfulness, inhabiting the most mundane moments of the day, such as a simple shower, or the act of getting dressed. These things are typically rushed and blown through without thought, other than worrying about what comes next. By being present to the task at hand, you may find a joy in the process itself, and focusing on each step of a task is another way of pushing worrisome thoughts from your headspace.
{Naked selfies not required in a shower situation; I’m only here to illustrate and illuminate.}
