Discovering Mindfulness

There is a place at the oceanside where the surf meets the sand. It changes with the tide as the waters come in and then recede. It has always been my favorite part of the beach, that visible ever changing line.

I have been waiting for many weeks to get to Tampa on a quick R&R trip, and all I could think about was this space. The space where the water touches the sand. When friends asked what I was going to do I repeated over and over “I’m going to sit at the edge of the water, in the sand. That is my plan”. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why this is what I wanted or needed but somewhere deep inside, my body knew this is all that I craved.

Day one I found a beach and promptly planted myself at the waters edge. I sat, observed. I watched the waves, the kids playing around me, the birds at the shoreline.

The longer I sat the more calm I became. The mental chatter completely subsided. As I ran my hands through the grains of sand and focused on exactly what was looking at (tiny mollusks, broken shells), my body remembered why it craves this experience.

Twenty something years ago while on a beach in the Gulf of Mexico I plopped myself down at this exact spot and discovered shore birds and how they eat. I watched them for hours which turned into days. I couldn’t get enough of watching them stick their skinny beaks into the sand and pull up the tiniest mollusks and devour them. All the while watching the minuscule mollusks as the water would rush over them and they would hurriedly burrow back into the sand.

Who cares you might ask, why I am writing about this?

My body knew that it felt calm with whatever this experience was. I wasn’t seeking that but it was certainly its effect.

I wouldn’t have known to have called this mindfulness twenty years ago but that’s exactly what I had discovered. Mindfulness wasn’t a buzz word back then, it was certainly a practice but not mainstream. Jon Kabat Zinn would describe this as “Paying attention, on purpose, without judgment”.

I have spent the last fifteen years purposefully trying to practice mindfulness daily. I try very hard to notice small things, the inflection in someone’s voice when they say certain words, what someone’s hands look like, how the sunrise comes through my bedroom window, the way my cats face looks when he is lapping water out of the bathtub when I am bathing. These are all mundane observations with no judgment, they just are what they are.

The experience at the beach is something else for me, it’s not just mental, it’s visceral. It has the ability to soothe every part of my physical being. Truth be told, I’m not even particularly fond of the ocean, but there is an element of this experience that checks a box for me, unlike anything else, except maybe barefoot hiking.

A mantra I have been trying to live into is:

One Thing At A Time

Focus on one thing at a time. When you eat, just eat. When you walk, just walk. Be present and aware in everything you do. Life is not measured by tasks completed, but by moments truly, and fully lived.

What have noticed today?

Peace 🫶🏼