You may have heard me say mindfulness a few times. You may have been in one of my meditation groups. You may have heard about mindfulness from people just talking about it, “Yea man, I’m totally mindful and stuff”. If you want a quick summary, this is the short compilation of letters for you. Let’s begin.
‘Sati’ is the Buddhist term where ‘mindfulness’ comes from. It can also be translated as ‘bare awareness’. In mindfulness we mentally bring ourselves to the present moment and become an ‘observer’. There are a few types of mindfulness.
1. Mindfulness of the body: observing the physical sensations including that of the skin, what is going on internally and the breath. You can be mindful of your body doing anything including when exercising or walking.
2. Mindfulness of feelings: observing our feelings, positive, negative and neutral. The aim is not to react to the feelings.
3. Mindfulness of consciousness: observing where our attention is taken to, noticing a different state, noticing being absorbed in thought etc.
4. Mindfulness of objects: becoming aware of our judgements or understanding of the physical world. The aim is to see the object how it is rather than the perceptions we attach to it.
Hopefully, if you are practicing mindfulness, a few of the types should be familiar.
The key concepts that the founder of mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, communicates are:
1. Awareness
2. Non-judgement
3. Living in the present
The concepts can be hard to live by due to the fast and pressure-filled lives that we lead in the western world. We often have ‘butterfly mind’ which is when we are going to the past or jumping to the future in our heads. Mindfulness stops the flitting around that is oh so unhelpful to re-establishing a peaceful state of mind. If your butterfly gets stopped in its tracks for even a second by mindfulness, that’s pretty great.
Some of the benefits of mindfulness are better attention, improved problem solving, more acceptance and a better mind body connection, AND MORE!
The ego… we all have one. This is our sense of self; we must watch it in mindfulness. Getting stuck in arguments to be ‘right’ is an example of where the ego takes over. Ask yourself if this is compassion led or ego led. You do not become a pushover if you are compassion led, you can still have mindful boundaries! Another thing that the ego loves is fear of change. The ego relies on the familiar and not the unknown, which is essentially life itself (all completely unknown and a constant stream of change!).
Judgement. Such negative connotations. From a psychological perspective we are constantly judging to ensure our safety (cave-man brain style). For example, that person over there is acting suspiciously. However, mindfulness asks us to notice our thoughts in the present. By stopping and noticing, we are much less likely to have that butterfly flitting around uncontrollably. Is that person still suspicious? Your mind is now in a better, less judgemental place to reassess.
You can use mindfulness to say no to fear, no to irrational thoughts, no to overthinking and no to controlling thoughts. Remember happiness is down to the mind, not your circumstances. While money is helpful to reduce some stressors in life (let’s not deny that), some of the richest people are the most unhappy and some of the poorest people are the happiest. Could you guess what I think the difference is?
Research has gotten hold of mindfulness and as a result, mindfulness has been incorporated into many a therapy as an evidence-based intervention. Positive eh?
If you need some ideas for being mindful – hit me up. Email me at: almaentera@outlook.com
Let me know what you struggle with understanding or doing in terms of mindfulness.