Writing with Mindfulness

What I like about mindfulness is that we can apply it to every aspect of our lives. Then, why not combine meditation and writing? The great philosopher and Roman emperor did this way earlier than us. Marcus Aurelius meditates regularly through his daily journal. His journal is now compiled as the book ‘Meditations’. It’s a classic stoic book that is filled with his ponderings about how to live a good life. The good thing is that everyone can write. So, if you write a journal every day, you have the same habit as the Roman emperor!

Reading my journal (well, a diary, to be exact), I realised that writing is therapeutic. There is an element of meditation in writing; accepting our thoughts and being mindful of them. In a way, writing is pretty active rather than meditation. When writing, I like to contemplate and reflect on my life.

Though, we need to be mindful about how we use a journal. I read somewhere else that we can be pretty self-absorbed and self-centered when we write. But if we are mindful, writing can be beneficial. We can reflect, contemplate, and find solutions to our everyday problems. And this will be more beneficial when we share our nuggets of wisdom with others (like here, in os.me!).

And for me personally, writing can substitute my meditation practice because I find it hard to keep a meditation practice, especially when my partner is around. We are not Hindu nor Buddhist, or any religion’s followers that meditate, and my partner is not even interested in meditation.

I often find myself “disturbed” when I meditate, when he is around. So often, my partner would call me or barge in or something. Often, I’d spontaneously think, ‘Ah, screw it, that just one minute left to enlightenment! Do you know it was so hard for me to focus on my breath? That was so close… I will never attain nirvana anyway…’. Just kidding!

At first, I was pretty disturbed by this situation. But after several months,  I realised that it is me who perceives the condition as disturbing. The true meditator will not be “disturbed” by anything when meditating, right? If something happens when meditating, one can just stop it with grace and answer calmly, “What’s up honey”, and maintain their tranquility. That’s a tough skill to train, though!

Anyway, back to the topic, that’s why I prefer to write than meditate when people are around. At least, it’s something that is more understandable for my partner and I can just say, “Wait a minute, honey, I am writing. Just a sec.”