What actually is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a term that gets thrown around a lot, and there can be a lot of confusion around what it actually is.
Mindfulness is the ability to notice your thoughts and feelings, in the present moment, without judgement.
To further understand mindfulness it’s useful to understand what mindfulness is not:
Often we are mindlessness. We are operating in our daily lives in autopilot . We have over 100,0000 thoughts a day, and often walk around in a psychological smog of our own thoughts. Imagine if you had to write down all your thoughts for the past 24 hours…what percentage of them do you think would be useful or kind?
When we think too much about the future or past, we are mindless. Often, we end up feeling depressed or anxious. Our body is in the present, but our mind isn’t.
There is a lot of wonderful research that shows mindfulness can reduce anxiety, chronic pain and depression.
Here are two ways to be more mindful:
1) Try formal meditation practice
This is a deliberate practice where you set aside time to practice mindfulness, without distraction. This involves observing your thoughts, without trying to change them.
Often we are in the river of our thoughts being tossed around and held hostage to whatever story our brain wants to tell us…sometimes there can be a grain of truth in our thoughts. For instance, if you didn’t get a job interview you may think about that rejection (which did occur), but your brain may tell you stories about why you didn’t get that job e.g. that you aren’t smart, are useless and that things won’t get better. Mindfulness gives you the ability to stand on the riverbank (even if just for one nanosecond to start with) and notice your thoughts instead of being caught up in them.
There are many meditation apps out there like : Calm, Headspace and Smiling Minds
2) Mindfulness of everyday activities
Most of the day we walk around in our own thoughts, barely aware of what’s happening around us. Practice being less on autopilot with one task of daily living…. this could be having a coffee in the morning, brushing your teeth or walking between your home and your car. Try to focus on your senses and being present. You might go from being 90% on autopilot to 85%, and that’s wonderful! It’s just about becoming a bit more present; your attention is a muscle.
Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash