Transitioning into a more mindful life.

     As I began Module 3, the final module needed to complete my degree, I got hit with covid followed by a bout of the stomach virus. During those two weeks stuck at home I was able to re-align my priorities, begin a new sleep cycle, awaken to the idea that social media is not for me anymore, fight covid off, and begin to apply mindfulness in more areas of my life. 

    "Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves."

P14, The Miracle of Mindfulness, T.H Hahn. 

    The Miracle of Mindfulness is a book gifted to me by a dear friend of mine. This book is filled with ideas of love, spirituality and how to feel more connected to yourself and inevitably the nature around us. I took the bold choice to exit myself from social media at a time where it's aiming towards quite the opposite direction to which the book was directing me. I realised that a lot of my subconscious thoughts and notions were based around false ideas of reality and the false ideas of the people within it, false ideas that were embedded and influenced by social media. I am now seeking to develop and commit to more genuine connections with the people around me. The fondest memories I have of people are the ones I've made with them and not by what I've learnt about them online. Furthermore, I came to the conclusion that those false ideas were at one point taking over my perception of the people around me, and therefore the perception of my own reality. Is the world really transitioning into where if it happens online- it must be real?

    With social media out the way I was able to feel free; like a big burden was lifted off me and I could look with only open eyes to the world around me, creating it as I please. I could only look within myself and not have that constant comparison to the fake world that was constantly being sold to me on my screen. I realised I used to celebrate things and validate events on social media, constantly drawing validation from my false reality, so much so that I was unable to fully enjoy the pleasures of my own achievements in real life. I respected friends more who had come off social media as I valued more our time together as that was all I knew about them: just the relationship I had between me and that person, rather than the relationship between me and the person in which they showed the world on social media. I realised I did have one commitment on Facebook which was a group that linked me to all of my colleagues where vital information is shared. Apart from this one commitment I am losing, I am so glad I made this step and I urge others to give it a try. 

    Since this time away from scrolling I joined the 5am club where my morning starts with making a fire, followed by making a cup of tea and curling up with my cat for a good half an hour to breathe and be entirely present with the idea of simply drinking a cup of tea, stroking my cat and taking in the beauty, smell and warmth of my fire. Something about making a fire every morning taps into a primal need in me and taking in it's majestic quality connects me to the thought that one day all of us will burn out. To know life, is to know death, as explained in the book The Miracle of Mindfulness. With ballet, our career is so short that I've heard dancers explain it's almost like a big part of you dies at retirement and are reborn. I think that's why it seems so daunting to take the step away from ballet, it feels like you have to willingly enter your own grieving process in which you say goodbye to yourself as an artist, who appears on stage and then enters the "real world". 

    I write this from my changing room, 30 minutes from stepping onto the stage, making an ode to myself to be entirely present and mindful in every step I execute, with the total acceptance that anything can truly happen out there, and the only variable I can control is my decision to how I respond to it.

Bibliography: 

The Miracle of Mindfulness, T.N Hanh. 1991, Beacon Press, Great Britain.