Consider these everyday opportunities to practice Tactical Composure and Mindful Attention:
- Practice paying attention on purpose, without reacting or making judgements.
- Just observing how your body feels across the day.
- Observe how you breathe.
- Listening fully and intently to others speak.
- Discreetly and selectively relaxing muscles and deep breathing in group settings.
- Noticing your habits of mind and habits on action at home and at work.
- Paying detailed attention to your inner experience as you go about everyday tasks (eg walking, washing dishes, eating etc).
- Notice any urges arising and how you can inhibit responding to those urges with deliberate thought and action.
- Activate your conscious mind by asking one of those great questions, like “what am I doing now and for what purpose” or “Where do I want my attention to be focused right now”.
- Just being your own best friend when things don’t go your way (tuning on the empathy and self-compassion when you notice unhelpful self-criticism).
- Practicing patience and perhaps slowing down ever-so-slightly.
- Acknowledging the good things, and savouring them.
Over time, you’re likely to cultivate some aspects of discernment, including:
- Being aware of what’s happening as it’s happening.
- Seeing things (and people) for how they really are now, rather than how we’d wish them be.
- Accepting reality (versus struggling with it) in order to re-focus on wise action.
- Understanding what might need to happen now, in order to better serve us, others, and the situation.
- Clarity and composure of our inner world, in order to respond to, and influence, the outer world, within reasonable limits.