LOOK UP!
Several times a day, deliberately look up. Take a few minutes to really look at the ceiling in rooms, to tall buildings, at the tops of trees, at roofs, at hills or mountains, and at the sky. See what new things you notice.
Looking up opens our perspective, letting the mind out of its neurotic squirrel cage and allowing it to stretch and flex. When looking up, people notice many things they hadn’t seen before: light fixtures on ceilings, decorative carvings on buildings, treetops tossing in the wind, the shapes and colors of clouds, people looking out of apartment windows or leaning over balconies, birds suddenly wheeling in tight formation. When our vista is wider, our experience of self expands, too. We aren’t so trapped in the small box we call “me, my world, and my worries.” Looking up is looking out- out of the small box called “my self.” Won’t you step out?
The eyes are an important tool for mindfulness. Open up your field of vision and really look!
From Mindfulness on the GO Cards by Jan Chozen Bays, MD
