It’s tempting to think “I’ll develop more mindfulness after my job is less demanding, my kids are grown, and I have more time.” We’re waiting for the perfect schedule to magically align with our desires. Yet we may need the benefits of mindfulness even more when we think we have the least time to pursue them! Like a good diet, adopting a mindfulness practice is a matter of looking at the habits of our life and making choices about what we can reasonably do, setting an intention, and getting the help we need to stick to it. A good meditation diet mixes some daily practice with pauses throughout the day, something else we do weekly and/or monthly, and if possible something longer and deeper that we do once or more a year. Your personal circumstances dictate what works for you. There is no single right way to do it. If you struggle to artificially jam meditation into your day, it will become an unpleasant tug of war. In the end, marrying meditation with your life is a matter of balance.
Here are some examples how to fit mindfulness into your life:
(You can click on the chart to enlarge it.)
