The concept of Mindfulness encompasses 3 parts:
* Conscience: it is the dimension of the human being that makes him aware of his experiences. Without consciousness, nothing would exist for the human being.
* Attention. Attention is awareness focused on something. If you train your attention, you will improve your ability to effectively perform activities without any distraction.
* Remember. Mindfulness tries to remind you that you have to pay your full attention to the experience of the moment. Trying to be fully aware of everything you do at any time of the day is difficult. Your brain tends to forget this need to be aware.
Let's say you want to practice Mindfulness to help you deal with stress. While you are working you think about the next important task that you have to do and you begin to feel stressed. By becoming aware of this stress, you remind yourself to focus your conscious attention on your own breathing instead of constantly worrying about the activity you are going to do.
When you breathe deeply you begin to notice a feeling of well-being that helps you calm down. See Chapter X for more information on mindful breathing.
Mindfulness must be cultivated in the present moment, without making judgments and must contribute a series of positive values. This means that we can further break down the concept of Mindfulness:
* Pay attention in the present moment. Reality is in the here and now. You just have to be aware of feeling things as they are now.
* Without making judgments. Normally, when you notice something, you automatically react to the experience according to your past conditioning. Mindfulness seeks an aseptic reaction, feeling the experience as it is without going to value it.
* Provide positive values. Mindfulness should provide values such as kindness,
compassion and kindness. In Chapter 4 we will see more information on how to cultivate values through the practice of mindfulness.
Mindfulness meditation can be aimed at:
1) Your breath.
2) To any of your 5 senses.
3) To your body.
4) To your thoughts or emotions.
5) To an activity that you are going to do.
2 ways to practice Mindfulness.
1) In a formal way.
Practicing Mindfulness in a formal way means that we are going to reserve a moment of the day to dedicate ourselves exclusively to doing a Mindfulness meditation session. Through this session we will train our attention and learn to deal with intrusive thoughts. We will foster a sense of kindness and curiosity towards everything that surrounds us. In a future post I will talk in more detail about formal meditation.
2) In an informal way.
This is about try to establish a certain state of mind which includes a high degree of concentration in any of your daily activities such as cooking, cleaning the house, walking to your workplace, talking with a friend, driving, etc.
In this way we deepen our ability to be aware and we train our mind to stay in the present moment instead of directing it to the past or the future. In a future post I will talk in more detail about this informal way of practicing Mindfulness.
The help that Mindfulness brings in your daily life.
We waste a lot of time thinking about things that do not contribute anything in our life.
These kinds of daily thoughts intrude on our minds as we go about our daily activities. This means that, for example, if we decide to go for a walk to relax, our mind may start to think about what we are going to do tomorrow at our workplace. We, therefore, would not be living in the present moment and on top of that we would be promoting our stress, anxiety or depression because of this thought.
Mindfulness does not focus on problem solving.
Mindfulness emphasizes, first of all, acceptance of the problem. Later, the resolution of the problem may or may not come. For example, if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, Mindfulness shows you how to accept that feeling of anxiety instead of denying it or fighting against that feeling. With this new approach to the problem, change or resolution often occurs naturally.
Mindfulness says that if you accept the problem, it is transformed. Acceptance means acknowledging your present experience, but this does not mean giving up your solution or giving up.
A gift for the mind