Finding Quiet in the Noise: A Beginner’s Guide to Mindfulness

“Be present.”

It sounds simple enough.

Until you actually try it.

You sit quietly for thirty seconds and suddenly you're thinking about tomorrow's meeting, something awkward you said in 2017, whether you remembered to pay the electric bill, and what you're going to make for dinner.

Welcome to being human.

Mindfulness isn't about emptying your mind or achieving some perfectly peaceful state. At its simplest, mindfulness is the practice of noticing what is happening right now without immediately needing to change, judge or escape it.

You don't have to become a meditator

Meditation can be a wonderful mindfulness practice, but mindfulness can happen almost anywhere.

Try it while drinking your morning coffee.

Notice the warmth of the mug in your hands. Smell the coffee. Take a sip slowly enough to actually taste it.

For thirty seconds, just be where you are.

That's mindfulness.

Come back to your senses

When your mind is racing, your senses can help bring your attention out of your thoughts and into your present environment.

Notice five things you can see.

Notice the feeling of your feet against the floor.

Listen for the furthest sound you can hear, then the closest.

Notice the temperature of the air against your skin.

You aren't trying to force yourself to calm down. You're simply reminding your brain: I am here, right now.

Notice thoughts rather than becoming them

One of the most helpful shifts mindfulness can teach us is the difference between having a thought and believing a thought.

Compare:

I'm going to mess this up.

with:

I'm noticing that I'm having the thought that I'm going to mess this up.

It sounds almost too simple, but that small amount of distance matters.

Our thoughts contain information, fears, memories, predictions and assumptions. They aren't always facts.

Mindfulness gives us space to notice them before automatically reacting to them.

Start ridiculously small

You don't need twenty minutes of meditation every morning.

Try one minute.

Take five slow breaths before getting out of your car.

Notice your surroundings while walking from your office to the parking lot.

Eat the first few bites of lunch without looking at your phone.

Look outside for thirty seconds and actually notice the sky.

Mindfulness is less about adding another task to your life and more about showing up for the life you're already living.

There will always be noise around us—and sometimes plenty of noise within us, too.

The goal isn't to make all of it disappear.

It's learning that, even in the middle of the noise, we can find moments of stillness.