Reset Day 1 What are you Looking At?

As soon as you wake up in the morning and open your eyes, see if you can remember to look with purpose.

What do you see straight away?

Focus on what’s immediately before you and then, without moving your head, notice what you can see above, below and to the sides of you.

Avoid labelling what you see; instead notice colours, textures and shapes. The effect of the light? Spend a few minutes taking in the scene.

Then set your intention to become more aware of the gift of sight throughout the day, using, as far as you can, an open beginner’s mind.

Find a quiet space on your own and have your notebook at the ready.

Spend a full 2 minutes looking at your hand or an object directly in front of you

Look very carefully, as if for the first time, noticing its overall shape, shapes within shapes, textures, colours and the effects of light.

For the next 3 minutes either write a description of your subject in as much detail as possible or sketch it.

Washing or showering – look at the water, perhaps as it moves through your fingers or over your body. Colour? Changing shapes and movement.

Meal times - when preparing or unpacking food, pause to look at shapes, colours and textures. Stop and notice the look of it before you put it in your mouth. If you have a plate of food, notice how the look of it changes radically as you eat!

If you drive somewhere, take a moment before you start, and at the end of your journey, to look at your surroundings. Try to pick out 5 things you wouldn’t normally notice.

Take a walk and focus on a particular colour for the first 5 minutes. Pick out everything in that colour, noticing different shades and hues.
Then you might spend some minutes looking at shapes, spotting curves and straight lines, finding patterns. Just walk normally as you’re doing this. Avoid lamp posts!
For the rest of your walk allow yourself to be aware of colours, shapes and textures without the need to label anything.

If you’re in an office environment or the same space for the whole day, from time to time look up and notice 5 new things that you can see.

You might be able to find time to look at the view from a window. Spot 5 things, close your eyes and try to see them in your mind’s eye, then look again and find 5 things you didn’t see before. You could try seeing what’s furthest away from you and then the objects closest to you.

If you like the idea of drawing, set yourself a sketching challenge – a simple object like the one you chose at the beginning of the day. Spend 5 or 10 minutes really observing and recoding the detail. You could write instead of drawing.

Write down 10 things that you saw today that are memorable to you. They don’t have to be big or beautiful. For example, you might have seen a cloud shape that caught your eye or an arresting shape on a building or a flash of light on water.
What has today’s focus on sight revealed to you? Interpret this question as you wish.