Mindfulness: The Liberal Arts

     This last two days (May 28th and 29th) of mindfulness I have tried to do a new activity; try and practice music. To be honest I have really enjoyed practicing a little music as a mindful activity. Since I began piano I have always taken about a week and a half to learn a single song. However, the song I´m trying to learn is "Moonlight Sonata" is much harder than the rest. This, in turn, have helped me concentrate during the practice sessions, and afterwards. What I like about practicing music is that after the practice I can still concentrate in the moment because I can still hear the song I have been trying to learn during an hour after the practice.

A drawing without tutorial

     This last two days I have also been doing some of the old activities, such as walking my dog around my neighborhood and by drawing. As I wrote in my last post I have been having trouble concentrating while I walk my dog because I know the rout so well that it no longer has anything for me to see and concentrate in. However, when I walked my dog today (the 30th) I changed my rout; and while it still does not have the same effect as my first mindful walk, I can say it helps me concentrate a little bit and stop thinking about schoolwork. Drawing still helps me concentrate; however I no longer need to see tutorials. Now all I need is too see an image of a drawing and shut down the computer and I can draw by my own without seeing the image again. This is the best way I could find to concentrate when drawing because by using tutorials I no longer concentrated; but by trying to concentrate in how to replicate a drawing (with my own style) I really stay in the moment. I think this last two days have been the most mindful up until one; because with the increased difficulty level of drawing and the music practice (that is really difficult for me) I have been able to always stay in the moment.

Mindfulness: Cats and Dogs

New Progress:

     This last two days (the 26th and 27th of May) I have been trying to get used to my mindful activities. For instance; before I began this English class project I used all of my free time to fool around and do nothing. However, after the first 6 days of mindfulness I have found out that I´m getting used to making small pockets of time to do this activities. However, this weekend I have found out that sometimes it is hard to make time for this activities. For instance, this weekend I have passed a lot of time with my parents and brother, away from the house and the peace and quite I need for my mindful activities. However, even though I needed to act a little harsh in my parents to take time and do my activities, afterwards I was much calmer and passed a better time with my family.

My cat drawing

      I have also made progress with my drawing skills. Even though I still need to see tutorials to get and idea of how to draw something, I´m now able to make modifications in the drawings to make them my own design. Now that the drawings are becoming my own, I find it easier to concentrate while drawing and afterwards, for I feel a lot more relaxed because I no longer must be completely focused in the video; now I concentrate in my what I´m doing more. 

My dog after the walk

     However; I think I have been using my walking rout too often this past days. This is because I have found out that I no longer concentrate as well as before because I know the rout so well that I no longer think about what I´m doing, for I have travel that rout so often I no longer concentrate while I walk. Now I kind of think in what I need to do after the walk and I stress a little. However, my dog is still as energetic as ever and help me concentrate after a while and relax myself a little bit. However, to make this activity mindful again, I think I must make at least 2 new routs and walk each one at different days. 

Trying Mindfulness: Progress

Progress in Mindfulness:

     This last two days (May 25 and 26) I have found out there has been a little bit of progress in my mindfulness. As of lately, I have been a little more focused and I´m able to relax with less effort now. This is evident in the fact that I have been able to complete the 10 minutes of meditation that I place did the 26th. In my previous post I said how I was unable to concentrate for longer than 6 minutes, so I think this is progress. However, while this has helped me relax more, I feel as if I could still improve. This is because after the mindful meditation the effects of focusing only last for over 20 minutes, and I think this exercises should help me focus more a little more all day long, not only a few minutes. 

     What I must say is that I have began to find it appealing for me to draw as a mindful activity. Drawing has never been a strong point for me, but because of that I have tried really hard and the effort keeps me in the moment, even though I still require a little help from tutorials. My previous drawing (the face of a person) was done entirely step by step as a video told me to. However, this new drawing I made the 25th and 26th was made using advice from a video, but mostly by me. What I found out is that animals, specially foxes, are more difficult to draw than humans, for they require more detail and by not using a step by step tutorial, it depends more in how I want to make it. However, this experience has made the activity even more mindful, for that way I don´t focus in the tutorial and mostly focus in the present and in the drawing. I feel drawing helps me more than meditation, after I draw I feel as if a lot of my nervous energy is gone (for about an hour) and I stop trying to have small objects in my grasp to play with them; or do things with my fingers every 2 minutes. 

Drawing of a fox  (mostly made without tutorials)

     While I think there is still a lot I need to improve in my way to practice mindfulness, I think that I have made some progress. With this new experiences I have learned that to truly grasp mindfulness I must practice it as regularly as possible, and that time will be the best teacher to this activities. Also, I think that if I continue doing my activities daily, I will reduce my stress levels considerably. Tomorrow I think I´m going to try and walk my dog again as a mindful activity, and this time keep him away from strangers. The time I made this I learned that walking and passing time with my dog really helps me focus in the present, and relax because of the physical activity.

My First Attempts in Mindfulness

What Have I Done?

Drawing I made with tutorial and over 50 minutes of work

     I have began this attempts to begin practicing mindfulness since May 23 of 2017, and I have been doing now for two days. Yesterday I tried drawing for 35 minutes (20 minutes in the afternoon and 15 before going to sleep) and meditating for 10 minutes. However, I have not found a lot of results from this methods to reduce stress together. I know that drawing did take my mind away from what I needed to do that day, and meditating did relax me. However, drawing did not relax me much because I got a little frustrated because I have lost some of my artistic abilities. The good part is that today, the 24th of May I revised some tutorials in the basics of drawing again before my mindful exercises and the 15 minutes I spent drawing were more relaxing and it was easier to focus in the task at hand.

My dog

     In the other hand, I have found meditating does help me relax a lot, especially if everyone in my house is completely quite while I do it. However, I have found out I can´t stay focused for more than 6 minutes, after that the last 4 minutes of mediation I began to drift to thoughts about homework and things I needed to do afterwards. However this did help me stay concentrated in that day´s reading of "The Catcher in the Rye" and correcting my humanities homework. 

     In the 24th, meaning today, I tried drawing again, with the tutorials, and as mentioned before it bore better results than last time. Also, today I decided to take my dog in a very long walk, with music from Vivaldi, to help me concentrate. I must say this method has helped me more than the previous two. Controlling my dog in a walk is hard and requires all that all my concentration is in the moment. However, this also relaxes me because my dog walks as if he owns the world and likes to play with strangers, so he makes me laugh a lot and forget everything else. 

     Even though it is early days still, I think that this project had began to help me relax somewhat. This can be seen because my parent´s say I no longer stay at edge all the time and take things a little more lightly.