Danger makes you more Mindful
Increase concentration as you move about your environment
Welcome to the first ‘Off the Cushion’ newsletter.
What we aim to do with each newsletter is to present a short story or article
related to mindfulness, and then an exercise connected to the story to help you
practice in your daily life. Sometimes we will look at the opposite of mindfulness -
mindlessness - and what we can help do to reduce it as much as possible.
The town of Nieder-Erlenbach in Germany embarked on a radical experiment in
road safety by removing all the traffic signs and went even further by erasing
marked crosswalks. The only sign that was left was marked ‘common street’,
leaving a shared-spaced to be used by all. Removing the traffic signs has resulted
in all road users, whether motorized or not, behaving more responsibly, although
it is too early as yet to see the effect on traffic accidents.
One resident said that, ‘We now have to be careful all the time.’
The idea was the brainchild of Hans Monderman, a Dutch engineer who thought
that streets and towns would be safer with fewer rules, and instead both motorists
and pedestrians would have to ‘negotiate’ with each other with greater attention,
eye contact and other signals. Monderman has also put into place over 100
shared-shared schemes in the Netherlands.
Widening Attention
Bring attention to your commute.
The following exercise was inspired by the story about
Nieder-Erlenbach and it’s traffic experiment.
For this exercise, we are going to consciously try to
widen our field of vision. Instead of being foxed on a
point in the distance, or your phone in front of you, try
to be more aware of your peripheral vision.
All too often, we adopt a ‘tunnel vision’ when we are out
walking on the street. Not only can this potentially
create problems for us, such as failing to notice an
avoidable accident before it happens, but it also means
that we are missing out on so much of life going on
around us. Who knows what interesting things or
people we might have walked right on past, oblivious to
their existence.
It is probably best to first practice this in a quieter area
and not immediately plunge down a busy high street.
Choose a quieter street and walk down it, walk a little
slower than usual as this will help you take in the
surroundings more. At first it may help to notice more
obvious features such as lamp posts, trees, etc., that are
in your side-vision. As you slowly become more used to
doing this then notice less obvious details as well. The
idea is to slowly keep expanding your vision to take in
as much of surroundings at the same time as possible.
How do you feel when you do this?
Pause for a few moments to reflect and then try again
on another street.
Does it somehow feel as though the attention is now
less on you and your thoughts, and now more in the
“Expanding your field
of vision.”
whole around you as a whole?
Try it and see.
One quick way of making this exercise easier to do is to
walk down an unfamiliar street. When we are in a new
environment, we automatically become more mindful of
our new surrounding. So try this exercise on a less
familiar street first, before applying it to your usual
route.