mindfulness

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a world authority on the use of mindfulness, says that it is:

the art of conscious living

It is about waking up and connecting with ourselves so that we can truly appreciate life from moment to moment. 

Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When we are mindful we observe our thoughts and feelings, without judging them and without labeling them. Instead of letting our life pass us by, becoming mindful means that we live in the now, awakening to experience. 

Easy, right? Sadly, for most of us, it isn’t. Especially in this modern day world where we are so busy. Busy, busy, busy. We’re competitive even, who’s the busier?!? It’s like a status of importance. 

In today’s world we are so up in our heads that we tend to constantly be on high alert. Our nervous systems are tuned to the flight or fight mode, all day, everyday. They are constantly ready to protect us given how wildly tight we’ve strung them. This would be ok if we were running away from a bear but to be in this state, while catching the bus to work in the morning, is a little too much. 

We are forever thinking about the next thing, while in the current thing. It is a rare skill to sit still, afterall we’re programmed to think that all types of sitting still are lazy, and if a door slammed you’d be rather special if you didn’t jump even though your body is not in danger. 

The mind is such an incredibly powerful tool. It is so expansive and able to do so much all at once. But what effect is this having on our bodies, on our lives, on our everything. It is destroying us. Our whole sense of being is beyond overwhelmed, with a push-pull energy, that we injure ourselves daily. We don’t do it intentionally, and millions of different imbalances surface for each of us, but this natural pre-set is bringing us unstuck. It is a learnt behaviour and the common link in today’s society. 

We need to train our minds to operate otherwise, even if all we can manage to begin with are the smallest of steps. Increased awareness and becoming conscious to our own behavior, and how that affects both ourselves and others, is the starting point. From there we each do what we can and over time the muscle memory builds, harnessing the power of the mind so it becomes a gentle loving space even while we are in the middle of the crazy. 

It is here that true strength resides. By practicing mindfulness we increase self love, enhance emotional intelligence and process challenges in an effective way. We relieve ourselves of intense stresses and we welcome more blessings into our lives. Mindfulness does not ask us to give up all that we do, afterall life is real and we are not in positions to forget this, it just asks us to view it from a different place and cradle life, and ourselves, in a softer way. 

The key things that I connected with: