Reflecting on My Internship at Mindful Being

Coming into this internship, my hopes were that I would see how mindfulness can improve people’s lives. I can confidently say this hope has been fulfilled. I have seen this happen in the mindfulness sessions, at the book talks, at the retreat, and in my own life.

My Discoveries

All aspects of Mindful Being combine to create the experience of mindfulness. The various forms provided include in-person and virtual mindfulness sessions and retreats. They have many similarities, and each has its place in the whole experience.

All three forms involve meditation, but being surrounded by nature at the retreat deepens the feelings one gets from traditional meditation. The weekly virtual meditation sessions are like a weekly debrief. They give people a chance to talk about their week, whether stressful or positive experiences. The meditations seem to be very calming for the participant. Everyone seems to have let their stressors out and decompressed during the meditation. They seem much more at ease and at peace after just 15 minutes.

From a personal perspective, I have noticed improvements in my life due to mindfulness. For example, when I am stressed, I have learned to take some deep breaths, regroup, and return to what I was doing with a clearer mindset. I have also learned to give my full attention to each and every task I complete for the best results, making every task I complete more thorough.

The work Raditia does can majorly benefit everyone. Mindfulness has the ability to change everybody’s life for the better, just by teaching you how to live in the moment. Life moves so fast, so being able to take in every moment leads to a fulfilled life, and Raditia has helped me realize that.

How does this internship fit into my plans?

I want to be a psychologist. This experience with mindfulness will only help me be a better and more well-rounded psychologist in the future. The techniques I have learned can be passed along to my future patients to help them stay calm during extreme stress. I can also teach them how to be present in their everyday lives with the things I have learned during this internship.

Takeaways

One major takeaway from this internship was that discomfort should be resolved primarily with internal methods. This is because external factors are never guaranteed, while we can control our internal factors. Prior to this internship, I had firmly believed in using outside sources available to me to help in uncomfortable or stress-inducing situations. However, I now realize these are unreliable sources since we cannot control when we have access to these sources. We will always have ourselves, and if we can accept the discomfort internally, it won’t be able to affect us as significantly.

Another major takeaway from this internship is that distractions often occur in our everyday lives. One example of this is our phones. I was unaware of how much my phone distracted me until I began interning with Raditia. Every time our phone buzzes, we look at it, even if we are trying to complete a different task. This means we aren’t giving our full attention to the original task we were trying to complete.

Additionally, mindfulness as a whole can be so many different things. For example, mindfulness can involve deep and long meditations, but it can also involve noticing that you have caved to a distraction. Mindfulness has allowed me to notice how distractions affect my daily life. Furthermore, it truly does work to help people feel peace. At the mindfulness sessions, I noticed that many people left feeling much calmer than when they arrived. The meditations and discussions have a very calming effect that allows people to relax.

I loved my time interning here at Mindful Being, and I sincerely thank Raditia for this opportunity!