Lovely, you say, but what does this have to do with kissing?
Just this:The regular practice of mindfulness can help lower the defensive barriers that keep us feeling alienated from ourselves and separated from others. Achieve that your kisses will have greater emotional power behind them. Believe me, your partner is likely to notice the difference.
Daily Activities as a Mindfulness Practice
As the raisin experiment above suggests, very simple activities can be used as an opportunity to practice mindfulness. Almost any task or chore, no matter how mundane, will do. For example, if you are washing dishes, instead of daydreaming or letting your mind stress over all the housework that needs to get done, focus on this one experience. Consciously tune into all five of your senses：sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. The sound of splashing water and the clink of silverware, the scent of dish detergent and the fresh smell of grass from an open window, the feel of a soapy plate in your band and the warmth of the water. Instead of being bored by a routine task, let yourself indulge in the simple animal pleasure of being alive. This full experience of our senses is a way of grounding ourselves in the reality of the moment Quite literally, coming to our senses is the goal of this exercise.
As you do this mindfulness exercise, calmly focus your attention on the activity at hand. If you find other thoughts and worries intruding, simply notice them without judging or analyzing, then bring your focus back to the activity you are engaged in. Distracting, scattered thoughts will inevitably pop up. This is no reason to get discouraged. That's the way everybody mind works, even people who have been at this a while. The value of this exercise doesn't lie in achieving perfection, but in gently bringing your attention back to your point of focus (in this case, your senses) each time your mind wanders.
Some days you'll find it easier to stay focused than others. Again, that's true of everybody no matter how much experience they have. But even on those days when it seems like your mind is constantly wandering, if you patiently bring yourself back to your immediate experience each time, you will achieve more focus than you would have otherwise and, like a muscle getting exercised, you'll be developing your ability to stay focused for longer stretches of time in the future.
How long should this exercise last? Just 5 or 10 minutes a day is enough to make a difference, as long as you commit to a regular practice. As you gain experience, you may want to increase the length of your practice to 15 or 20 minutes a day. The most important thing is to be consistent. Doing a mindfulness exercise once or twice won't have any lasting impact. To use the exercise metaphor again, you start out slow, lifting light weights or running shorter distances, and gradually build up to a greater capacity. And, like regular physical exercise, the relatively short amount of time you put in each day, provides you with benefits that you can carry into the rest of your life.
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