Many people live with stress and fear as their dominating drives and this is incredibly sad. To truly reach our true potential we must practice living in the moment: the art of mindfulness. It is all too easy to stay in the comfort zone of our well-worn preconceptions about life, but this will not lead to prosperity and mental wellbeing.
Making a positive change to your everyday routine is not always easy but it can be achieved with willpower. One of the best ways to kick-start a change in your life is to take a holiday. You’ll find it much easier to practice mindfulness when you’re away from home.
Mindful Travellers Create Happy Memories
The happiest times of our lives tend to be those when we are not dwelling on the past or agonising about the future. At these times we have no other thought than how best to approach the moment. It can be as simple as enjoying a cold drink on a sunny afternoon, or exploring a new place with all of your attention. In such situations we let go of the what-ifs and enjoy the newness of our surroundings.
Mindful Travellers Make Unexpected Discoveries
Many of us lead such busy lives that we are often on auto-pilot mode most of the time. This prevents us from ever discovering anything out of the ordinary as we tend to scan past it all. When travelling somewhere new, mindfulness helps us to slow everything right down. When you turn off your auto-pilot setting you will be surprised at what you might notice. A sudden change in the light, a bunch of flowers on a windowsill, a line of birds perched on a rooftop … who knows?
Knowing how to let go
Some travellers are worriers, planning for every eventuality and thing that could go wrong. Once on holiday these people can be consumed by their anxieties. Mindful people know that worrying is not going to help their problems go away. However, mindfulness isn’t just the art of forgetting your troubles – it is a way of standing back and viewing them objectively. When you are able to do this you will find that your worries are part of a larger picture and shouldn’t be allowed to take over – especially on holiday!
Appreciating the small things
Breathing in a big gulp of fresh air, walking barefoot along a sandy beach or on a hillside, lying in the sun: mindfulness is about giving thanks for such simple pleasures. Travellers with a grasp of mindfulness don’t need much to enjoy themselves. Mindfulness is also about saying yes to new experiences – this is a theme that has been explored both by mindfulness experts and mainstream travel brands like First Choice. Bring more mindfulness to your life and you could soon be enjoying holidays more fully, completely getting away from your daily concerns. Have you taken a mindful holiday recently?
Images by mindfulness and markus spiske used under Creative Commons License.
Make Your Trips More Memorable: Practice Mindful Travel
Originally posted on January 22, 2016 @ 2:38 am
