DIY Hand embroidery kit for mindful meditation

Hand embroidery is a timeless handicraft, it has been used for centuries by humans to decorate and embellish garments and home decoration objects.

One might be wondering why and how can hand embroidery help with meditation?

Have you heard about mindful lifestyle? What that means is being conscious of one's choices and leaving as minimal carbon footprint as possible.

Meditation can be practiced in many different ways. Mindful meditation is one type of meditation and one way to do it is to focus on breathing so that our minds can stop the worrying and overthinking. There are many ways to do mindful meditation and the main idea is to focus on the present to stop overthinking. One traditional way is to sit in silence for some time but it is easier to reach the ENSO or Zen state through physical medium.

Continue reading to understand why hand embroidery is helpful in meditation:   

How and why does hand embroidery help with mindful meditation?

Today we are living our lives at hyper fast speeds, scrolling through videos and posts, not stopping for even 2 seconds to really absorb content, just doom scrolling, living at the speed of fiber-optic cables. When we pause to do something slow, with deliberation and with full attentiveness, like the act of pushing a needle & thread down, the action feels like a radical act of slowing down. 

When you do hand embroidery, you are using your hands to create something and this means that you focus your attention on the task at hand, it makes you give your full attention to it. You will be stepping away from screens and looking at a soothing piece of work. 

It may seem to the onlooker that it's just an act of "making something pretty" while the person involved in the activity knows that it is essentially active meditation. In the act when you are deeply immersed, you will feel your sense of time disappear.

Here are 5 reasons how hand embroidery is one of the best activities for mindfulness: 

1. It helps build focus habits:
   While doing this activity with your hands you get focused on stitches, on not poking your fingers with the sharp needle, so even when you are focused it is not so much straining that you will feel stressed and at the same time you build the habit of being focused. This micro focus pulls your mind away from the multi-tasking mode that your brain is so much used to and which drains you mentally.
   
   
   
2. Helps with physical grounding or anchor: 
   Holding the embroidery thread, needle, feeling them in your hands, the sensory inputs is like a feast for the body and mind both. This helps the worrying mind to feel grounded and stops it from running haywire. After completing touch and feel your work.
   
   
3. The rhythmic movements: 
   This activity has a rhythmic flow and repetitive nature. This engages your mind on both sides (right brain and left brain) which reduces anxiety and helps process emotions better. Breathe with each movement and center yourself. You will find yourself to feel so much more relaxed and calm in your heartbeat and body.
   
   
4. Slowing down:
   Our lives are revolving around speed, from instant playing and downloads, to speedy deliveries and instant gratification, this leads to burnout and mental fuzziness. This activity forces you to take things slow, you have to deliberately be slow in order to achieve the results. 
   
   
5. Patience and control your anger:
   Accept small mistakes, you need not be perfect, give space for self-compassion and let go that perfectionist in you. There will be times when you will make mistakes by pulling your needle and thread too tight or forgetting some step in between, you get to learn patience, to not be angry at yourself, you may either redo it or accept the mistake. This builds tolerance for frustration and in real life you take things in your stride, become more calm and adopt a bit relaxed attitude.
   
   
6. Go with the flow: 
   When embroidering by hands, you will find that your hands are involved in a coordinated dance making the repetitive movements to make the stitches and one often enters the state of being deeply immersed in the activity  

These are the ways in which doing embroidery by hand is a power source for getting clarity in your minds and practicing mindful meditation.  

Currently we are working on such DIY kits where all supplies are included in the box, with the instructions in written and video formats, you may choose which type you like, one or both and order accordingly. Would you be interested in trying out this activity under full guidance? Leave your reply below, it really keeps us motivated :)