The positive impact of mindfulness in the workplace is increasingly clear, and we are delighted to be collaborating with Barry Lee to roll out a Mindfulness Programme here at William Fry. Will Dekorte from our IT team has agreed to share his personal experience of participating in the programme over the coming weeks. Find a link to his first blog here.  

We are now half way through the Mindfulness course and my perspective is most certainly changing. How can it change so fast though you will be asking? I have given it my undivided attention and commitment, I have let it flow into my head like nothing I have ever done before. There is a very popular mindfulness app you can purchase called “Headspace” and they describe the feeling of being mindful as like a river of sunlight flowing into your body from you head to the tips of your toes. In fact, to supplement my classes with Barry I have been using this app in the evenings to aid my meditation. I am constantly asked however by my colleagues what does it mean to be mindful. Right now, I describe it as being aware, to which they reply, “Aware of what though?”  is always their follow up question.

Awareness is living in the now. How often do we just coast by on auto pilot? How often do you get into your car and suddenly arrive at our destination, without paying attention to your journey? Our attention is often caught up in the future and the past, it is rarely in the present moment. There is great foresight in planning for the future, but the reality is you need to appreciate the now. The “now” is hard to quantify as an actual state of mind because we are constantly changing but it is learning to slow down your life just by the slightest modicum to understand and take joy from what we are currently doing.  Last week Barry gave us all a printout last week whereby he wanted us to write down each day for a week what gave us joy, what made us smile. I must be honest I didn’t fill it out. I had it on my desk all week and I didn’t even attempt to fill it out. It is not because I didn’t want to, but I felt it was maybe a little wishy washy and I was only a week in to learning about mindfulness. So, at the start of this week’s class when some people read out their moments of joy and appreciation, I kept tight lipped, the dog ate my homework. Even without doing the exercise I could not even think of a single happy moment from the previous week. It is not because I am some sort of Shrek like ogre, it is because I spend so much of my time in auto pilot mode, I don’t notice the good moments.

Barry mixed things up this week; he wanted us to fill out a similar print out capturing all the moments in the week that bring us anguish and frustration. I started filling out the bad things on the print out more willingly, I had not even attempted the happy moments, yet the bad things just came so much easier. But I stopped filling out the bad parts on Friday afternoon and threw the page in the bin.  The previous exercise I was meant to complete suddenly started to flow into me like the river of sunlight. Epiphany.  

I have started to appreciate the little things in my day or moments where I know I am being more mindful and aware. The negative thoughts or moments that fester to create anxiety are more at bay. We spend so much time thinking about everything, sometimes we don’t even know we are thinking. This overlays our present moments and distorts our lives, as it can breathe unhappiness thinking about the future and regretting our past. Having a mindful approach to our lives helps alleviate this, it is learning to appreciate the self. 

I truly believe that these past three weeks have improved my way of awareness about myself. Every Thursday morning, I look forward to coming into work and learning more about how to be mindful. I don’t know how or why I feel happier in myself but I have learned to appreciate the feeling post a mediation session. There is pure sense of serenity and calm, knowing you exist and are aware of the self.

Will