Seeking Mindfulness

After my Computer Science degree mindfulness has had the most impact on my career.

Few things things have transformed my life like mindfulness has. And I’m not even that much into it!

It was quite late in my career when I made the discovery. Had I found it earlier I am certain I would have avoided burning out from overwork ten years ago. But learnings come to us when we are ready for them. It was that burnout that pushed me to search for answers before I even knew what the question was.

I was so exhausted I had to quit my job. I knew how to care for my body but not my mind. I worked out to keep my body healthy, what was I doing to keep my mind in shape?

What I found back then was a lack of open conversation around mental health. I am certain that nobody in my office ever said the words “mental health” out loud. And it is only recently, in the last few years, that I have become comfortable saying them myself.

COVID hit us like a ton of bricks, the topic it was impossible to ignore. The pandemic exposed how much in need of mental care we are.

We are a fragile species living with anxiety on the edge of collapse.

I was never into sports growing up. That changed once I hit adulthood and I realized I had to take care of my body to keep it healthy. It was burnout that helped me find meditation.

I am lucky to have discovered meditation. The pressures of work would have been quite the struggle during the lockdown otherwise.

I train my mind to prepare for when the next crisis hits. I know worse challenges than late projects and budget cuts are ahead in my journey.

I train my mind to prepare for life. And thanks to mindfulness I am much better equipped to deal with it.