You may not even know it, but most probably you have experienced mindfulness in your life already. Remember that moment in which you were totally immersed in an activity? That moment in which you were utterly absorbed, in a state of, what Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls, “flow,” a feeling of energized focus where your worries, anxieties and stressful thoughts totally disappeared? That is what Mindfulness is.
Mindfulness is a subtle shift in the way you pay attention, a shift that will radically change your way of relating to yourself and your circumstances from the inside out.
It is a way of being with and attending to your experience just as it is, with awareness rather than judgment.
Mindfulness is a training in attention, which guides you to how to inhabit your field of awareness. It is learning to accept every moment just as it is, however pleasant or unpleasant, easy or challenging, without getting caught in emotional storms that lead to inevitable suffering.
While there are many definitions of Mindfulness, it is hard to describe what it is because more than a concept, Mindfulness is an experience, an opening, through which you can discover who you really are.
The practice of Mindfulness involves finding and recognizing that part of you is already whole, okay, and beautiful.
With Mindfulness you can access the inner power and the wisdom that we all have within just by virtue of being human. Mindfulness helps you cultivate an open perspective to transform your experience and find the freedom we are all after.
Mindfulness helps you to become more aware of the detrimental thought patterns that can trigger and perpetuate stress, anxiety and low moods.
You also learn that you have options, and you can respond wisely instead of reacting blindly to life’s hurdles.
Mindfulness is a radical act of self-compassion and kindness. It is about pausing and simply being rather than getting caught up in the endless “to do list” and forgetting who is “doing the doing,” and why.
By embracing Mindfulness, you learn about living, growing and healing in a world of instability, change and, sometimes, deep pain.
Cultivating mindfulness can lead to the discovery of serenity, clarity and insight that you did not know you had before where you find a source of boundless energy, self-understanding and self-healing.