Mindfully Doing Nothing

I had a chance to listen to one of Dr.Saundarya's sessions in the series "Discussions with the Career Doctor". She spoke of Mindfully 'Doing Nothing' and its psychological benefits. She did mention that it was quite a challenging task, particularly for women who are trained to always do something useful, and more so useful for others. I had always thought successful people did something every second in their life. So this contrary idea sounded interesting and I wanted to give it a go. 

When I asked my friends about this, they said they were doing it. When asked what they did when 'doing nothing', one said she sleeps, one said she scrolls through Insta feeds, another said she does online shopping and comparing prices between Amazon and Myntra. I had to turn Grammar teacher to explain that sleeping, scrolling, shopping were all action words, they were not 'doing nothing'.

As advised in the session I decided to try a 15 minute slot of 'doing nothing'. As there were no DIY instructions on how to go about 'doing nothing' I had to tailor-make one. The first day I sat down and closed my eyes; then realised that would lead to meditation and ultimately sleep in my case. So I quickly opened my eyes, constantly telling myself to 'do nothing'. I stared at the wall for a while, and then there was a gush in my mind of all the things I had to do. Was the gas switched off? Did I switch on the washing machine? What time would the maid come today? Did I make the list for today's team meeting? Is there enough milk for evening tea? And so on it went. 

On Day 2, I ended up with a list of things for my team to do. By Day 5, I realised that I was indulging much less in my creative pursuits and had almost quit blogging. There was a gradual evolution in the way I was thinking, moving away from trivial things to things that really mattered, like my relationships, behaviours etc. 

It then dawned upon me that perhaps the whole purpose of doing nothing was to let the body do nothing, so the mind would be free to do the thinking. I would say a step forward in self-introspection; mindful Inactivity of body which can lead to mindful actions that truly matter to us. Having said that, I am not quite sure this is what was referred to in the session, but I found joy in making amends, restarting my artwork and blogs, changing my parenting approach and hope to continue this newfound spurt of pleasure. 

This blog is a consequence of Happily Doing Nothing.