Notes On Noticing

Photo used in pic by Eric Mclean (Pexels)

I think noticing leads to calm. And when you’re calm, you notice more.

Here’s a noticing tip for every day of the week:

1. Touch - hard, soft, warm, icy cold, pets, stroking the cat, cuddling the dog, finding a surface or a fabric to feel that brings you delight. 

2. Taste - that first salty chip, crunchy bread and butter, oily naan, juicy fruit, plain rice.

3. Smells - a spicy curry on the stove (or onions and garlic), a cake in the oven, a spicy curry on the stove (or onions and garlic frying), a baby’s head, the fur of your puppy, wood fire smoke, bbq, a whiff of your partner’s or a stranger on the street’s perfume (or unique smell) as they walk passed.

4. Look up, what do you see? Are you inside? What’s above you? A ceiling? Is it near or high above? Are there sounds above? What tones and colours do the corners and edges make? Are there shadows? Mold pattern or spider’s webs? Is the lighting bright or low? Are you outside? Is the sky a soft grey?  How many grays are there in the clouds? How many whites? Pinks? Browns? Blues?  Too bright to look at? A Skyscraper, a bird on a power line, trees against the sky in the wind, a distant plane so far up it looks like a toy?

5. Sound - who and what is up in your ears? In the background? The hum of the air conditioner, bang of a flat tyre in the distance, dog drinking from its water bowl?

6. Take 3 minutes to notice a plant. What colors do you see, what shapes are the leaves? Within the leaves? How does the plant stand in the ground or in the pot? Does it sprout out from the base or does it grow up from a stem or stems? What colour are the stems/trunk? Brown, green, black, pink?

7. Take 3 minutes and choose one area of your body to focus on. If you choose your hands, what colours do you see, what patterns? Do they feel warm, cool, hot, or cold? Do they hurt? Do they feel flexible or stiff if you move them around? How do they move?

Bonus :) Take 5-minutes to go somewhere quiet and take your mind back to thinking of something you’ve found beautiful in the past. 

Till next week,

Rachel