Challenge yourself to do some form of mindful practice, even for minutes each day by using our tracker (being tested, coming next week hopefully)!
Check in each day by putting your checkmark down that you've practiced, whichever practice you're focussed on. The goal is to keep your streaks going, so you can see how many days or weeks in a row you have practiced. If you miss a day, your days of practice streak re-sets to zero, but your highest streaks of practice remain. Then you try to pass them.
Find someone, or a group to practice with, as we try to "take over the world" with mindfulness! The more people in the world making conscious choices, instead of operating from habits, or stress-mode, the better the world becomes.
Remembering to be mindful, as you move through the day is one of the big hurdles of mindful practice, so this is a fun way to encourage you to check in with your practice, and build new habits.
Use the articles, and weekly topics/cartoons and other tools in the app, along with relevant issues in your life, to choose a practice (or focus), each week for a year. Carry the practice you've chosen in your attention (and intentions) through the week, and see what you notice.
Think about practicing with thoughts, feelings, or actions/interactions, depending on what you'd like to focus on. Evolve as a person (soul), with each aspect of self that you bring into mindful awareness.
Mindful on the Move App helps you understand your "self" (how you experience your sense of self), and mindfulness, through a new topic each week. Whether you're new to mindfulness, or a seasoned practitioner, challenging yourself to keep a practice in mind each week helps you sharpen your mindful focus, while observing your habits "as they happen."
Mindful on the Move App is unique because it helps you understand how your "sense of self" is connected to mindful awareness. The 52 weekly topics are attitudes or actions/reactions that we all use during everyday life. As you take a closer look at habits connected to each weekly topic, you develop a nuanced awareness of yourself of how you operate with issues like anger, avoidance, love, choice, and vulnerability.
Mindful observance of the "self" and its habits, is a natural part of mindfulness practice, but it helps to have prompts, like our weekly topics. Mindfulness is traditionally a practice in eastern philosophies (and really all major religions in their deeper aspects) toward enlightenment, elimination of "ego," or spiritual connection with God or source. With practice, as conflict clears from different levels of self (mental, emotional, physical), you become the proactive version of yourself, and stop being the reactive version. You also actually feel lighter (probably where the term enlightenment comes from), and intuition kicks in more often, to make things really interesting - but that's for each person to internally discover!
Your brain responds by supporting neural networks for calm intentional awareness, and adjusting ones that go straight to the habit or stress response. Focus with more clarity on your highest goals, and less on managing (reacting to) problems, or spinning/negative/judgmental thoughts. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to change, which is what happens when you use your focus more in some ways, and less in others. In mindfulness practice, you gradually take more conscious control of how you use your attention and thoughts. With practice, your brain responds by augmenting neural networks that support your intentional focus. If you stop using some of the neural networks formed from old habits, the brain dismantles them and redistributes neurons to support things you're doing more.
Instead of waiting for world leaders, or others to clean up their act (does anyone really have that kind of time)? ...take full control now of the one thing you have control over- YOU. The state of the world is an "outer world" reflection of the "inner worlds" of people. As people settle their inner world conflicts, fears, and negativity, the outer world will reflect that with more harmony. You do your part just by becoming the best version of you, and contributing what you uniquely have to offer. No matter how big or small that contribution seems, it's why you're here!
So enjoy the ride (ie: mindful moments along the way)... and thank you for your part in making the world (and the world in you) a more mindful place.
...more on practical application in the Mindful Walking, 16 Practices, and Practice on the Move sections. For other ideas on practice, check out the cartoons and my explanation about why I drew them to illustrate the week's topic, watch videos in Types of Practice, and read articles!