Mindfulness is total awareness.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the renowned meditation teacher, says, “Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally.”
Intentionally bringing the mind to the present moment, over and over, takes patience and commitment.
Mindfulness is not the absence of thought. Instead, it is the quieting of thoughts through specific internal action, sometimes utilizing the partnership of external action, for instance, touching a soft blanket and noticing the sensation.
Becoming more aware is a journey that requires continuous action.
No one ever truly arrives at the present and remains there. It’s a unique journey that requires practicing awareness.
Mindfulness is the journey from past to present or the future to the present. Mindfulness is an awareness of worry and stresses, teetering into anxiety, sadness, and isolation, moving toward depression, and an awareness of thoughts and simultaneously allowing them to drift onward.
Mindfulness can be abrupt or slow-moving, but mindfulness is never judgmental and always accepting. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at it, and the more aware you’ll be of the mind and the body.
What makes mindfulness useful?
Research has shown that mindfulness can increase gratitude, bring someone out of intense depression or anxiety, connect a person to their most essential self, and even move them into self-actualization.
Arguably so, practice in a quiet place with little distraction might make mindfulness easier, especially at first. However, one of the most effective mindfulness traits is the person’s ability to practice at any time. There is not anything specific that needs to happen to practice.
Working with a trained practitioner who practices mindfulness is a partnership in finding what works best for you as an individual.
In our practice together, you will receive options and be able to discuss your internal and external responses to mindfulness techniques candidly.
Try a mindfulness technique now.
If you’d like to try a simple mindfulness technique now, I invite you to tune into the senses.
First, try closing your eyes and listening to the sounds surrounding you, starting with sounds closest to you and then outward. Name each sound one at a time, isolating each sound in your mind’s eye.
As thoughts begin to wander off, bring the mind back to your focus on listening to distinct sounds. Now, try opening your eyes and noticing objects closest to you; name each one, color, and shape, breaking down each aspect as much as possible. Again, as thoughts wander, notice and bring them back to the objects around you.
Now, notice that your thoughts become focused on what you hear and see around you. These sounds and sights represent the present moment, and this is mindfulness. When the mind focuses on the present moment, it is impossible to be thinking of past regrets or worried about possible future events. Thoughts begin to dissipate completely.
However, if the mind becomes judgmental during your practice, you are no longer practicing mindfulness. You are practicing judgment.
Mindfulness takes practice.
Suppose you got a little frustrated doing the exercise, no worries. It’s normal. Trying something new often generates frustration due to challenges.
The more you practice, the more effortless mindfulness gets.
It’s just like when you go to the gym. You cannot expect to be able to lift the heaviest weight on the first day. Or, if you stop going to the gym for a month and return to doing the same gym routine later, your muscles will have loosened and lost some strength.
Practice makes progress.