Hello, welcome to the Feelings Pod. My name is Sabrina Amina. I'm a holistic
health coach and an educator and this is a podcast where I talk a little bit about
feelings and share a mindfulness practice at the end of each episode.
Today's topic is boredom. And ironically I'm very excited about this topic
because I really think there's magic in boredom and I've set an intention to
embrace boredom. So you may be wondering where did you get the idea to
embrace boredom? Where did this come from? So in my classes with my students I
teach high school and I like to start my classes with a daily mindfulness
practice and one of my students was like, so I give the invitation and I ask are
there any objections? I never want to have it. I never want anyone to feel like
pressured to practice and I always want to give space for anyone to opt out who
who doesn't wish to practice. And I have one student who very much I mean just is
not super into it and that's totally fine. It's not everybody's thing. She said
she said to me I just get bored and I so that kind of sparked my inspiration.
She inspired this podcast and yeah if you're listening you know who you are.
So boredom. Yeah boredom is an interesting topic because generally I
think we live in a society that avoids boredom at all costs and like boredom
is this terrible thing that cannot be tolerated and I think it's just because
we're all overstimulated and we can't handle a bit of like unexpected
downtime. It's okay for things to be boring. I think when we allow for boredom
first of all it's an opportunity to let the brain rest. Our brains don't have
to be working all the time. We can like just be with boredom which is exactly
what I said to this student. I was like okay maybe you can be with the boredom.
I'm not sure how that landed but and here's what I mean by that is just
getting curious about being bored and noticing your breath when you're bored.
Noticing the colors in the room when you're bored. Noticing body sensation
really create like any time you're bored it's an opportunity to
explore with mindful curiosity and I love curiosity. In fact I have a whole
episode about it and you want to check that out. Yeah so I've set an intention
to create more boredom bubbles and like not I do I notice I have this need to
fill my time and actually there's a lot of magic in the void. Like not everything
has to be filled. It's almost as if if I have some some free time or some downtime
I'm excited to schedule a meeting with a friend or getting a massage or I don't
know mani-pedi like or just grocery shopping or doing things on my to-do list.
I was curious about some of the research behind boredom and so I did a
quick Google search about like boredom and the brain I think. I don't remember
what my exact search terms were but I came across an article in Forbes
about that really spoke to the idea of well actually I think I must have heard
this before but there's basically research saying that the brain needs that
boredom and we can also reframe boredom and I'm actually I have a very busy full
life and I think I don't get bored a lot because it's almost as if my life is
too full and the moments that I do feel bored or like that might seem boring are
it's I actually feel like I get uncomfortable in those moments so being
bored I think at least for me is I think I maybe avoid it because in the boredom
bubble that's where I have to face myself and be with myself and who knows
what could bubble up when you're bored. Oh could be some scary stuff that you've
been like avoiding in all your busyness so yeah I I I really do like this idea
of just creating more boredom bubbles not just for me but for my child as well
because I think it's important for kids to be bored sometimes sometimes when my
daughter tells me that's boring or I'm bored I tell her sometimes it's good to
be bored sometimes it's okay to be bored let's just be bored together and for us
what boredom looks like or for her it's interesting when I do create these
boredom bubbles I and by that I just mean a period of time where we're not
doing things like we're not doing anything we're just the TV is off the
phones away and I just you know my child is left to her own devices under
supervision so and it's interesting it's really fascinating to see what she
comes up with when I've established a boredom bubble yeah she comes up with
strange and creative ideas another another thing that they did mention in
the article I don't know why I'm talking about an article today I feel I guess I
feel this need to like validate my thoughts on boredom that yeah I mean if
you want to read more about it I'll post the link to the article in the show
notes and you can also just Google boredom in the brain and see what pops up
for you yeah I'm gonna take a little pause for a breath and perhaps you can
join me
sometimes I get I get really excited and then I want to talk a million miles an
hour and I just I'm so tickled that I'm so revved up about the topic of boredom
and I'm I'm really going to I think I'm gonna journal about it even I'm really
gonna go for it this week and just like I am gonna be bored this week and that's
okay I am going to under schedule I I work full time as an educator so a lot of
my time during the week is scheduled for me but also sometimes there are just
boring mundane tasks that we have to do and that's also something that you can
tune into with mindfulness and just notice something like a moment of you
know like kind of a moment of pause I suppose where there's really nothing of
note going on but there's always something to notice there is always
something to notice there's always something to wonder about and there's
always an opportunity to just tune in and be with the breath and body and you
can do that anytime beautiful thing about mindfulness is like you can do it
anytime anywhere it's totally free you don't need anybody or anything to
practice except for yourself
yeah so my invitation for you this week is to notice your boredom bubbles notice
if you're like oh can't handle the boredom gotta pop this bubble or notice
if you can tolerate like allowing for your boredom and and maybe in in the
midst of our busyness we're not noticing the moments where we're bored and like
okay I have to do something notice or or you know remember that you you don't
have to be doing all the time oh there was an another really great part of this
article I really I really enjoyed reading it there's an Italian expression
about more being I wish I could remember what it was but basically the idea was
just allowing for the time to allowing for the time to to to be rather than do
and I thought it was pretty interesting in in the article they they talk about
how in America we we don't have any kind of expressions like that and the closest
translation they could come up with was killing time and the oh the I'm not an
Italian speaker but I did my best and it translates to the sweetness of doing
nothing I love that the sweetness of doing nothing I mean as a
opposed to killing time like just do nothing be bored like the sweetness of
doing nothing can you find the sweetness in your boredom can you be
intentional with that void and let go of doing so that you can be I'm gonna read
a quote directly from the article and from the from the from the paragraph
where they talk about doing nothing has been compared to the pauses into
girl to a beautiful piece of music without the absences of sound the music
would be just noise it'll dole check on nt provides the brain the breaks it
needs to recharge so that it can be more productive alright so yes putting the
breaks on the brain is great recharging the brain is wonderful I take issue with
the idea that you need to recharge your brain so you can be more productive I
know the purpose of I think well okay yes perhaps and a side effect of
allowing for boredom is that yeah you can be more productive at other times
but I reject this idea that you need to take a break so you can be more
productive just take a break for the sake of taking a break be bored for the
sake of being bored but also if boredom is inaccessible to you unless you can
justify it I get that too but for me I'm just gonna enjoy my boredom bubbles
get curious and see what emerges from them today I feel called to just do a
slow box breath with all of you I'm really into the b words today boredom
bubble box brain break beauty and so yeah we'll get into a beautiful box
breath so find a comfortable position allow yourself to settle wherever you
are and if that's not possible in this moment go ahead and pause this episode
and know that you can always come back to it anytime you like as you settle
take a deep breath in let it go
notice the pause between each inhale and each exhale I invite you to really
luxuriate in the pause take a deep breath in pause let it go pause take a
deep breath in pause and exhale and pause take a deep breath in and pause
exhale and pause
notice how the body feels after just a couple of deep breaths after a few
purposeful pauses do you feel an urge to continue or to abandon the practice and
see if you're feeling a bit of that flight response feel into it a bit see
if you could sit with the discomfort of sitting still or perhaps sitting still
is easeful for you notice what's present for you allow yourself to be with it
take a deep breath in as you count to four pause at the top of the breath and
take a deep breath out for a count of four pause take a deep breath in
exhale
and pause if you'd like to continue feel free to continue that pattern of inhale
pause exhale pause at a pace that feels good for you and if you're ready to come
back to the room feel free to open the eyes notice this moment of stillness
and offer yourself a bit of love and gratitude for setting aside some time
for yourself thank you so much for practicing with me thank you so much for
listening if this episode on boredom resonated with you feel free to share
with someone who needs a little bit more boredom in their life have a great day