“Mindfulness” and “meditation” are the buzzwords of the 21st century and are quickly catching up with “hipster” and “raw”.
“I start each day with a five minute meditation,” a famous model.
OK, girl… you are my guru because it takes me five minutes to align my back and calm down my mind and breath.
The last thing I want is to offend or discourage anyone. However the truth is that the real deep meditation that has all these amazing, scientifically proved benefits (article about that coming soon) comes easy to few. To sit calmly for 5 minutes, disconnected from the outer world, certainly is better than nothing though and in this hyper-fast, hyper-connected age you’d find more people that are not capable of doing so than those who are.
Therefore it is better to start with something easy and continue slowly step by step because then there’s a good chance that you won’t give up.
Also you might really want to relax but when you already are stressed it might be hard for you to sit down, you feel like you need to move, your mind is just racing and most of us when in such situation need something to do with their hands… and here comes my today’s tip to rescue.
I have been doing origami since I was a small child and love them until now. One of the most basic but also most beautiful shapes is “The Crane” which I am going to teach you today. Doing origami will help you relax. Well, unless you are the type of person that gets really angry when they are trying something new and it’s not going well. In that case it might teach you persistence 🙂 But mainly it will help you train focusing on just one thing which is the cornerstone for meditation.
The video tutorial can be found at the beginning of the article, here are a few pointers if you were not yet sure that this is your new hobby.
https://youtu.be/sERMZMRjzqE
5 benefits of doing origami (based on my experience)
- Trains the fine motor skills. This has further positive effects on your brain.
- A great way to start learning to focus.
- A fun way of relaxation.
- A fun activity to do with your own kids or when you have small visitors.
- You can create hand made beautiful decorations.
5 ways how to put origami into a good use
- Adorn your home with a light chain – see the photo from my balcony 😉
- You can decorate a nice branch with them and place into a vase.
- You can hang them from a ceiling.
- Place into a pot-pourri bowl.
- You can use them to decorate gift wrapping or gift cards.
And a huge bonus:
There’s a Japanese belief that if you fold a thousand of these guys, you can make a wish and it will come true!
So this was out first lesson on the way to real mindfulness and meditation. Soon we will continue and go a bit deeper together.
PS: Note that my crane in the video isn’t perfect so no harm if you don’t get it right 😉 You’ll reach perfection over time.
Neither my video is perfect but you need to excuse me itś my first tutorial ever :)) And I forgot to wear glasses…
And don’t forget to send me photos of your cranes!
Here are a few nice inspiring posts I found for you on instagram:
Very cool! I haven’t gotten into origami, but maybe one day!
What about today? 😀
Not today lol. But maybe one day!