What Do the Covid Pandemic, My 8-month-old Baby, and Mindfulness Have in Common?
I took 4 months off in long service leave (LSL) early this year during the height of Melbourne’s Covid lockdowns to be the primary carer for our 8-month-old baby J.
We had other plans for J but the prolonged Covid-19 lockdowns and border closures meant we had to constantly improvise and that’s how my LSL came into play. Shout out to my employer for the support!
Prior to the pandemic, I had always planned to use my LSL for overseas traveling or experimenting with new business ideas but here I was stuck at home changing nappies and cleaning up all sorts of baby messes.
Further, the draconian measures of endless lockdowns made sure all previously organized baby activities/programs were canceled and the only remaining public venue that we were allowed to visit was the local supermarket. The whole thing seemed very uninspiring to say the least!
However, I did recognize the fact that we were in the middle of a global pandemic and quickly came to appreciate the rare opportunity for me and baby J to spend such a unique and extended period of time together.
Aside from the physical limitations of lockdowns, the real challenge I find in caring for a young baby is not those repetitive daily routines such as feeding, cleaning, etc, but how to deal with an unsettling/crying baby particularly when she just had a good sleep followed with a good feed. I mean what else could she want other than food, sleep, and cuddling?
It turns out she wanted my undivided attention!
I came to this conclusion after I noticed something odd when I was trying to calm her down. I would normally hold her in my arms and sing a soft tune to her which is in general helpful, but whenever I look away from her to my phone (guilty!) she would go off again. The same kept happening until I decided to leave my phone in a separate room and be fully present in the moment with her. And it worked beautifully since.
Less effort, happier baby, and better focus for me.
Looking back I was kind of unwittingly brought into a form of joint mindfulness practice with baby J in which I was the trying student and the baby was the effortless master.
I didn’t know at the time, but apparently, babies are in fact great practitioners of mindfulness because they essentially have little to no distractions/worries and they always live in the moment!
I’m now back to work, but the mindfulness practice I accidentally picked up during my long service leave has since become part of my daily routine. I find it very helpful in decluttering and sharpening my mind and what’s left as a result is more focus and clarity.
Then about a month ago I came across the works of Sam Harris and really liked his Dzogchen style mindfulness practice which is backward compatible with what I had been practicing but also represents a step upgrade in the sense that you pay attention to not only things around you but also your attention itself.
It is a fascinating and powerful exercise once you get the hang of it. I highly recommend the Wake Up app by Sam Harris to those who are into mindfulness/meditation or simply want a clearer mind.
So, back to our starting question: what do the covid-19 pandemic, my 8-month-old baby, and mindfulness practices have in common?
For me, they all in their own ways serve to reduce distractions and refocus my mind on what truly matters. In a sense it almost took the global pandemic and my protesting 8-month-old daughter to wake me up and pull me back from my illusory busyness: busy being distracted. I believe I’m not alone.
In the age of information explosion and hyper-connectedness, it seems most people are playing the ever-losing catch-up games on the latest news, Twitter feeds, YouTube updates, Clubhouse, etc. I believe this represents a serious challenge for people’s mental health among other things.
But I also believe technologies are here to stay and they shouldn’t be to blame for the sad reality that we have lost our minds to them. It seems to me the only sensible way to reclaim our minds is through mind works such as mindfulness practice.
If you’ve read this far, I guess there are a couple of takeaways for you to experiment with if you are not doing so already:
1, leave your phone behind the next time when you meet someone, give him/her your undivided attention and see what happens.
2, pay close attention to babies/young kids, they are great models for adults to un-learn bad habits and regain the natural way.
3, start to train your mind by paying attention and noticing what you are noticing. With time and practice, freedom and peace will ensue!
