Possibly the Most Challenging Mindfulness Exercise You’ll Ever Do

Ready for it?

Don’t disagree with anyone for an entire day. (pick a day when you don’t have to be at school or work because many of these interactions rely on you speaking up and offering new perspectives)

You might ask why this is considered a mindfulness exercise and here’s what I would say: anything that causes us to stop and really question our habitual reactions to things we encounter a lot is mindfulness in my estimation.

So can you do it? Can you spend an entire day noticing when your instinct is to rebut someone’s statement or explain why your idea/belief is better and tamp that down? Can you hear the voice in your head saying “that’s not true” and keep it from coming out of your mouth? Can you pay attention to how often it happens in any given day and dig a little deeper to discern what your body’s response is? Does your jaw tighten or your belly clench?

As the day wears on, does it get easier or harder? Are you storing up arguments to use tomorrow or are you learning something. Notice what happens to the quality of your interactions with people around you when you don’t automatically respond with a clarification or a rebuttal.

I’m not saying that you should never disagree with anyone. In fact, I think that the hallmark of good relationships is the ability to hold different viewpoints and still maintain connection, but many of our interactions with other people are more like competitions or power plays than they are about learning and exploring new ideas. Maybe at the end of a day spent agreeing with everyone around you, it will be easier to discern when it is important to speak up and disagree. Many of us have become conditioned to try and prove our point whether it really matters or not, and it is my hope that this exercise will give you some insight in to whether that is true of you.

I’d love to hear how it goes in the comments.