You're listening to a Mum with mea podcast. Hello, but are you happy listeners? And welcome to this extra little drop in your feed I'm doctor annisaga Hernas, clinical psychologist, and I wanted to jump on and record this for you because well, the world can feel very chaotic at times, it can feel loud, it can feel noisy, and it can feel super overwhelming. So I wanted to bring this episode to you like a little chill out session, just this moment in your life, in your busy day where
you can take maybe ten minutes to reset. We're going to do a mindfulness exercise and this is a quick, simple, easy one that I personally absolutely love. I teach it to many of my students and to my clients. But before we jump in, I want to clarify something. Mindfulness has done the rounds through social media so often people have heard of it before and perhaps even tried it. But I noticed that there's a few myths about what mindfulness is and what it does that kind of float around.
Mindfulness isn't just about sitting cross legged and breathing. That's one way to practice it, but it's certainly not the only way. Mindfulness is actually all about being present in the current moment in a non judgmental way. It's actually not designed to be a relaxation technique as many people think it is, but what we often find is that we do feel somewhat calmer after doing it. When we do mindfulness, we want to focus on paying attention to the present moment, and we can do that in two
kind of broad ways. We can either use an internal anchor or an external anchor. So an internal anchor would be something like focusing on our breath, our sensations in our body, something that exists within us. External anchor would be focusing on something like an object in front of us, or using our senses to focus on sites, sounds, and
smells in our environment. So what I find is that for people who are new to mindfulness, or perhaps have a history of anxiety and don't like focusing on sensations inside the body, starting with an external anchor is the easiest place to start. So for this mindfulness exercise that I'm going to talk you through, it's best if you can pick up and hold an object in your hands. So listeners, if you're currently driving or otherwise occupied, just listen along for now and bookmark this one for later
to come back to and practice along. So pick up anything in front of you. It could be a water bottle, a pen, a set of keys, a mug, a coffee cup, absolutely anything that you can see and find in front of you. Doesn't have to be particularly interesting. In fact, the more boring the better for this exercise. So hold this object in your hand, and I want you to focus all your attention on it. Look at it closely.
You can move it around in your hand if you like, And I want you to just start off by focusing on the shape. What's the shape of the object like, has it got harsh edges or is it rounded? As you look closely at the object in your hands, notice the colors. Is it one color or do the colors change? Are there different shades of the same color. Notice if you can spot any imperfections, perhaps any blemishes, marks, scratches
that perhaps you hadn't noticed before. Move it around in your hands and just look closely at what you can observe. Try and hold the object up to the light and just notice if you see any changes. Does it change color at all? Is there any part of it that's perhaps transparent in some way? Bring it back down in front of you, and just notice what the texture looks like. Can you see sharp, rough edges? Can you see smoothness?
Can you see pattern? Now I want you to bring your attention to what this object feels like in your hand as you hold it, notice the weight of the object in your hand. Really pay attention to the weight of it. Is it heavy or is it light? Notice the temperature. Does the object you're holding have a warmth to it or is it cool? Cold and crisp. Move the object between your fingers and notice what the texture
feels like. Feel the smoothness or the roughness. As you pass your fingers and hands over the object, really tune in to the feeling of your fingertips against the object. Focus all your attention on the ends of your fingers touching the object. And now hold the object and up to your ear. If you move it between your fingers and pass it from hand to hand, does it make any sound? Can you hear your fingers moving over the object? Can you tap your nails against it and focus on
the sound. And when you're ready, just gently place that object back in front of you, perhaps where it was before you first picked it up. Now, if you've managed to stay with us for this long. Congratulations, you just completed a mindfulness exercise. In order to reflect on this exercise, I want you to just think about what you noticed. Did you notice things about the object that maybe you
hadn't noticed before. Were you able to actually stick with the exercise, or was your mind wandering here, there, and everywhere. It's very normal and natural for our minds to wander and run away from us, but one of the goals of a mindfulness exercise like this is to be able to notice when our thoughts wander off and bring them back to the present moment, reorient our thoughts and our focus just on that one object that we're paying attention to.
So hopefully you found this mindfulness exercise a way to focus and tune into some calm feelings. But this is just one way to practice mindfulness, So if you'd like, we can practice some of those others too, Just let us know. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on