What’s this, you ask?
La pleine conscience – French for “mindfulness” – is something that many of us became more familiar with last year. Merriam-Webster defines mindfulness as “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis” (Merriam-Webster, 2021).
It’s something that I think can bring about a lot of healing, judging from what we all had to experience in 2021. As many of us remain at home, I feel is it important to look after our mental health as much as our physical health. One thing my assistant Kate and I started doing is keeping mindfulness journals – each day, we write about something that we experienced that we felt grateful for – whether it was a certain thing we felt, tasted, or appreciated. It could even be a new French expression we learned!
Below is a picture that always helps me to feel mindful – from the week I spent in Nice a few years ago. I hope you all can find something that connects you to la pleine conscience as well 🙂
“On ne peut pas arrêter les vagues, mais on peut apprendre à les surfer”, Jon Kabat-Zinn