Moving Meditations for Mindfulness

Intentional Living

Jan 29, 2021

You can meditate—with your eyes open!

Whether your goals of meditation are to clear your mind, slow down your thoughts, gain clarity of thinking, reduce stress, or anything else… there are ways to meditate while you’re moving.

Watch my video below and read through more details after that!

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I know that moving meditations sound like multitasking, but what it really does is that it brings you into the present moment to allow you to do run through your regular routine in a more mindful way.

Usually we numb ourselves out with music, podcasts, books, TV, or other stuff… but these moving meditations can allow you to be more intentional while you’re accomplishing other things.

Benefits of Moving Meditations

It may also be an easier way to begin a meditation practice if you can accomplish these types of moving meditations first.

Especially as creative entrepreneurs or creative people in general, it can be helpful to make the time and space to harness your constant flow of thoughts and ideas.

Examples of Moving Meditations

Here are some moving meditations that I recommend. I’ve tried all of these and practice them as much as I can. I see so many benefits of moving meditations.

Let me run though a personal example real quick. In the past, I’ve gone out for a run and set myself up with a podcast on my watch that streams to my bluetooth headphones. But there were SO many times where it was just so frustrating to get this set up properly when all I really wanted to do was get out the door and start my run with the little time I have to myself as a mom. So instead of fumbling with the podcast download, AirPod connection issues, and other stuff… I now just go out for my run without anything to listen to. And I just watch as the organized ideas for content and products come pouring in!

Here are some examples:

Running/Walking/yoga/swimming/biking/other movement
Taking a shit… yes… gross, but true.
Breastfeeding
Driving
Dancing or swaying
Fiber arts or other creative things like hand lettering

Here’s the video!

  
    Click to Read Video Transcript
  
  Interesting topic today, guys.
What if I told you that you could meditate with your eyes open and with you moving, so you don't have to sit there and just close your eyes and make the world come to a complete stop?
Moving meditations are one of my favorite things to practice.
And today I'm going to be telling you what the heck, that is how you can practice it and what you can do to bring it into your daily life.
Hey everyone, I'm Jenn Palandro of Hello Brio. Hello Brio is a community of conscious creatives. So if that sounds like you, make sure to hit like on this video and subscribe to the channel, so you can be notified of new weekly videos.
So when we talk about meditation, one of the goals that you may have is to clear your mind, slow down your thoughts, really harness those thoughts so that you can use them in a usable way, so that it's not just a constant flow of thoughts, especially as creative entrepreneurs.
I feel like—and let me know if you can relate to this—you always have so many things going on in your mind, like thought after thought after idea after thought after like, Oh my gosh, I have to remember to do this. Oh my gosh, I have to remember to follow up that person. So it was just like a lot of these like sort of stressful, but also motivating factors that happen to us as creative entrepreneurs.
So if you're looking to gain clarity of thinking or reduce stress or anything in between that is related to meditation, you can do that with a moving meditation.
And yes, that might sound like multitasking, but I want to assure you that doing these things is going to bring about a more mindful way of your daily living activities just so you can go about your day in an intentional way.
Usually when we're doing a lot of things we like to numb ourselves out, which is totally acceptable, and I have certainly done it and still do it to this day. But you know, we numb ourselves out with music on the radio, having to have Spotify going on in the background, watching a whole bunch of TV, even reading a book.
But what that does is that it numbs our experience to the world and to our thinking. And in order to do these moving meditations, what we really have to do is be at peace with the current moment, right?
The other benefit of moving meditation is it allows you to start a meditation practice if you've had difficulty with traditional meditation in the past.
Because you're doing moving meditations, you are doing something else so you have something that you can put your mind to instead of just your breath or just nothingness or watching the thoughts float by.
By doing moving meditations, you can definitely increase the power of your traditional meditation practice.
So the one thing that moving meditations all have in common is that you are turning off all notifications from your phone. You are making sure to just be there with your thoughts and letting them come as they, as they arrive in your mind.
To be honest, you can do a moving meditation whenever you want. You can do it while you're out for a run or a walk, or even if you're doing household chores like dishes or laundry, if you just prioritize the experience, instead of numbing yourself out TV or putting on the radio, that in and of itself will become moving meditation.
The other thing that moving meditations can bring about is mindfulness. And really, mindfulness is attention minimalism.
Let me run through a personal example really quick. So I, as a mom, really want to prioritize my running habits so that I can make sure to get out there and get some exercise and also get some time to myself. It was really motivating at the beginning of, you know, reinstating this running habit of trying to listen to podcasts while I go out, which is awesome because with the Apple Watch and the AirPods, that you can just go out with the Apple Watch and the AirPods, and you can just be free, like running outside without the burden of your phone.
So the only problem with that is that you have to have the watch on the charger in order for it to download new episodes. And obviously you have to do that while you're at home. And while you're not doing anything else, because your watch is going to be stuck to the wall.
And the other thing is that the AirPods don't always sync with the watch really easily. Sometimes it'll try and be pairing to your phone or your computer, or you know, for whatever reason, one day I went out and it was raining and it just would not connect to my watch, which drove me nuts because here I am trying to do something healthy for myself and really prioritize my self-care.
And I was just becoming so frustrated. So instead of letting this frustrating experience really drive my, my whole running routine, what I did is I decided to just cut out the podcast entirely, which means, yes, I have my watch so that I could track my run, but I just left the AirPods at home, forgot about having to download the podcast.
And what happened was just so amazing to me. I'm out running, right? And then all of a sudden, like these ideas just come flooding in. I was having these kind of original ideas that had been brewing on the back burner of my mind. And they were coming to the forefront because really all I was focusing on was the environment around me at the road, my shoes hitting the ground. But what that allowed me to do is just kind of reconnect with my thoughts.
And as I said before, as creative entrepreneurs, that's something that we really, really need.
So here's some examples of how you can practice moving meditations. Obviously exercise is a great example, whether you're running, walking, boating, boating, is that a thing I don't know, kayaking hiking, just leave your headphones at home, turn your notifications off and really just immerse yourself in the experience.
Yes. That means that you might face some like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing here? Kind of moments. Not of like the existential way, but just like, Oh yeah, like, this is me alone with my own thoughts. It's kind of cool, but kind of frightening at the same time.
So, you know, ease yourself into it.
Another great way to practice the moving meditation is with driving. I know it sounds really weird to not listen to anything while you're driving, but it can bring so much peace and so much calm, especially if you end up processing things in a stressful way in a car. I feel like I tend to go to bad habits, whether it's like picking my nails or something like that, doing it in a mindful way without any music will just let you of calm down and think about all the things that you want to think about in a more productive way.
You can also kind of do moving meditations when you're doing personal stuff. So taking a poop and yes, did I really just recommend doing moving meditations while taking a crap? Yeah, I did. I'm sorry. But yeah, it's true. Like how many of you take your phone into the bathroom and you know, that is super, super gross. Number one, I won't really go there, but if you just go in there and like focus on your breath and do the thing that you're in there to do and get out, like that's going to serve you a lot better than sitting there doom scrolling on your phone.
The last thing I want to mention is something to do with crafting or any sort of hobbies that you may have. So in the past, I really have loved hand lettering and embroidery, and both of those are really, really relaxing activities, especially when you're focusing on the task at hand. Right?
So when you're doing hand lettering, all the, you know, down strokes and upstrokes and the flourishes and all that, it becomes really, really relaxing. When you just can put your whole mind into the experience and experience that flow that you're looking for. Same with embroidery. It's like you would just kind of go in and out with the fabric and the thread and you just watch your creation come to life.
I would love to know what your experience of moving meditations has been or what you plan to implement in the future. And let me know in the comments below, and again, please make sure to like, and subscribe and I'll see you in my next video.