Hi Tomodotchi’s,
Did you watch The Office? If so, do you remember Andrew Bernard’s (“Nard Dog”) quote “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.” This week as we were reflecting on our journey, this quote popped into our head. It’s one that really resonated at the time, but all these years later, we recognize that we still lack the awareness needed to recognize the good old days before we leave them. As such, this week, we wanted to share 5 things we are going to change in order to build up better mindfulness and to learn to truly enjoy the moments we are in. We hope you can relate and join us in practicing better awareness and mindfulness! Added bonus, we love reading with music, so if you want to set the mood, please enjoy the “Good Old Days” by Macklemore.
1. Gratitude Practice
First and foremost, we are going to do a better job at gratitude practice. While it is so cliché, it is completely true that we take most of what we have for granted. So often in life we get too busy or frustrated to take a moment and reflect on the things we should be grateful for. We plan to take a few moments each day to reflect on what we are grateful for, whether it be our health, relationships, or even a beautiful sunset.
We know some of this will sound like Captain Obvious speaking, but the things we should appreciate often become the good old times we miss. As an example, in the past we recall feeling frustrated and tired when our baby puppy would wake us up all through the night or when he would destroy some piece of furniture. We would wish that time would move forward and he would grow out of that stage and we didn’t recognize that we should be grateful for the chance to enjoy him as a puppy. Now, we think what we wouldn’t give just to enjoy our fur baby as a puppy again. Ultimately, we want to better reflect and recognize the things we should be grateful for before the moment passes.
2. Self-Reflection
Can you sense a theme? A big part of our goal is to build up our awareness through better self-recognition. One of the best ways to do this is through self-reflection. We plan to take some time each day to reflect on our actions and decisions. We want to ask ourself what went well, what could have gone better, and what did we learn from our experience. A huge part of this will be to question ourselves and understand if we aren’t appreciating a phase of like that we are in.
Further this will also be a core component of our mental wellness plans as we set goals and boundaries and reflect at how well we enforced and our met them. Personally, we feel the days go by faster and faster and in the end, we forgot how we got there and if we were successful in our goals and plans. We plan to use 5 mins a day to self-reflect and really understand ourselves.
3. Journaling
If you have been reading our posts for a while, then you know how much we love journaling. Our form of journaling has been this blog. However, we are recognizing that we need a faster and easier outlet. So we are planning on doing minute journaling using our reflection and gratitude time as our daily prompt.
We hope writing down our thoughts and experiences will help us gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our emotions. Before bed each day we plan to reflect on our day, our feelings, and our goals. We hope this helps us more actively be aware of the moments we are in as we challenge ourselves to really think and process our day.
4. Mindful Reactions
We feel that a key to building awareness is through better learning to control our emotions and reactions. We recognize that we have become “now” people. For example, when we are faced with a problem or even a “perceived” problem, our immediate reaction becomes our first action. Basically, we use our flight or fight response to try and solve the issue as fast as possible, or in other words solve it now.
However, so many times upon self-reflection, we recognize that had we just waited and calmed ourselves down, that a better solution would have presented itself. We’ve come to recognize that very rarely is anything so important that it needs to be solved now.
Going forward, we plan to take our time, breathe and calm ourselves and then assess the situation and think of all the different solutions available. Use what you have and take in everything around you and make the best most logical decision!
5. Seeking Feedback
In conjunction with all the above we feel seeking feedback from others can be a valuable way to build awareness. We plan to ask for feedback from trusted friends, family members, or colleagues, and be open to their perspectives. We hope this can create a more objective view of ourselves and help identify areas for growth and improvement.
Akin to feedback from others, we feel another key aspect of awareness is to understand the feelings and emotions of others. Understanding how others feel can help you build your own awareness of a moment or just help build better perspective of the world.
Related to this, something that always stuck with us, was our teacher once said, for some people this may be the best moment of their lives and we all play a part in that. Having that perspective to know how great our impact could be has really helped us to always seek to do the best we can and be a part of the little moments.
Wrapping It Up / TLDR;
To wrap things up, we plan on really focusing on the moment we are in and recognizing ourselves and our emotions in those moments. We also want to better understand others and how they perceive us and themselves in those moments. We feel this will help us be grounded in the future and just to be aware of the things we have and the good times around us. It will be hard and we won’t be perfect, but we hope you join us in trying to be in the moment!
Love,
Tomodotchi
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As an added bonus for our readers, we like to include a game of where are the Tomodotchi Pets. They’ve been hidden in 2 of the pictures within this post. Can you find them all? See below for what they look like!
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