What exactly is Mindfulness & why is it useful to practice?

Most of us can recall moments of driving our cars and suddenly realising we don’t remember much about our journey, or eating something and suddenly realising it’s all gone! These are really common and normal moments of the mind being on auto-pilot.

We have many of these moments everyday because after a while a lot of what we do becomes automatic and we don’t have to give it that much thought anymore (not like when we’re first learning to drive a car!), and in fact it’s a pretty fantastic thing that our brains can do.  On the other hand though, if we spend a lot of our time in auto-pilot mode, or being mindless, then we may have the experience of missing a lot of our everyday lives, and that sense of time flying - with another day over, with weeks blending into one, months flying by, and another year nearly passed.  

Wonder how many of you have just had that experience with it now being 2019? and not only that, we’re now nearly at the end of the first month too!

Another trap of mindlessness is that we may feel like we’re on the “treadmill” of life, going from one thing to the next, striving for more and trying to get to the next achievement, but not really being connected to our life experiences along the way. Research is also now suggesting that unfortunately this can increase the chance of experiencing depression and anxiety.

So how can mindfulness meditation help?  Well, just like we know we need to be active and exercise so as to increase our fitness,  muscle strength, and physical well-being, mindfulness in the form of regular meditation is how we increase our capacity to choose to connect with our present moment experiences.

With more and more people now knowing about mindfulness, what is it exactly? There are many definitions of mindfulness, but the one that I like by Jon Kabat-Zinn is that it is the practice of paying attention in a certain way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally. 

So therefore, mindfulness is not relaxation, although sometimes when we do mindfulness meditations we might notice we feel calmer and more relaxed.  Some people even fall asleep! 

Mindfulness is also not about clearing your mind, or not having any thoughts.  It also doesn’t mean changing your negative thoughts to positive or peaceful ones. It is about bringing your awareness to the fact that you are thinking, and then realising that you have a choice about where you focus your attention. 

We don’t have a choice about what thoughts come and when, as these come from our unconscious, but we do have a choice about how we react to those thoughts once they are here.  

In particular the human mind can spend a lot of time in the ‘future’, which at times can be very helpful and lead to amazing things happening.  At other times though, if we spend a lot of our days worrying about what might happen and not being fully present to what is happening, then we can find ourselves feeling always slightly anxious and nervous, and not really living our lives to the fullest. 

We also have a great deal we can learn from our past experiences, and so thinking back on things can be of great value.  And yet, sometimes if we spend a lot of our time in the ‘past’, ruminating over what was said and done, by us or others, we can feel angry and anxious.

Mindfulness, and the practice of meditation, doesn’t stop us from thinking about the future or the past, but rather it helps us develop the skill of choosing when to continue to think in these time zones, and helps us see the value of choosing to connect to our present moments - where life is in fact happening. 

This may all sound very simple, and yet you may also have already worked out that it can be quite hard to do.  Usually as a result of years of letting our minds do whatever they like to, reacting to our thoughts as though they’re facts, getting swept up by our emotions, we don’t feel so well practiced in the skill of mindful paying attention, without judgement. 

Last year I signed up for Mindfulness in May, my second go at this awesome program where you practice mindfulness meditation on a daily basis for a whole month with lots of other people from all over the world.  

And despite practicing mindfulness for years, talking about it all the time, encouraging others to practice it as I know how great the benefits can be, I still noticed my mind telling me I was too busy, that it didn’t matter if I didn’t do it today, or tomorrow, or the day after!

Now this is where the “without judgement” part comes in! It’s OK that my mind, like your mind, will say these things.  It doesn’t mean anything bad about me, or anything about the practice of mindfulness. It is just my mind, and your mind, doing what it does well - so then the skill becomes to notice that I’m having those thoughts, that I’m having feelings, or that I’m having body sensations, and see if I can bring my focus of attention to that, on purpose, without judgement. 

If reading this has made you interested in how learning to be more mindful could enhance your life and well-being, or decrease your anxiety and depression for example, then please contact us and we would be more than happy to help.