Housework

Hi, and welcome to the Headspace housework exercise. So the beauty of mindfulness is that we can apply it to everything and anything that we do in life and housework is, or for most of us, it's probably not that enjoyable. But if we see it more as an opportunity to train the mind it actually becomes a very pleasant thing to do. So as we're doing it, of course still allowing thoughts to come and go, but bringing our attention to the act of cleaning or vacuuming or washing, whatever it is at the time, noticing the physical sensations. So rather than being caught up in the storyline of I don't really want to do this, I'd rather be somewhere else, or doing something else, instead, we're simply present with the physical sensation of whatever we're doing in the moment. And as I say, as a result, more often than not it actually becomes a very enjoyable experience. So no matter what's been going on in your day and no matter what's coming up later in the day, as much as possible, just putting those things aside, putting them down for a moment and giving your full attention to whatever activity, whatever type of housework you're about to begin. Could be washing the dishes, could be cleaning up, might be laundry. It could be ironing, vacuuming. We all tend to have certain preferences and often we kind of approach housework just wanting to get past it. So the way to begin this exercise is by taking a couple of nice, big, deep breaths. So if you do this by breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, as you exhale just letting go of anything else that's going on and just feeling the connection between the feet and the floor. So just a sense of being present in the room. Again, allow thoughts to come and go as always. Not getting involved in them, just letting them come and go. just present with that sensation, the feet on the floor. And then as you begin the activity, actually approaching it with the intention of being mindful throughout. Of course, we'll lose our attention at times. That's perfectly normal. As soon as you do, just see it, acknowledge it, let the thoughts go and bring the attention back to whatever sensation or to whatever sense is most prevalent at the time. So if you're washing the dishes it might be the feeling of warmth and moisture. Your hands in the water. If you're ironing, it might be the weight of the iron or the movement of the hand extending and then coming back again. In a similar way with the vacuum or it might be the way that you hold your body, noticing whether there's more weight on one side than the other. So the advantage of applying mindfulness to each activity like this is that we start to do things not only with a little more care...