With Mindfulness and wellbeing becoming the buzz in our busy and somewhat indifferent world, mindfulness can be dismissed as just another phase.
I believe that understanding things before you decide to adopt it into your life is important. Creative and critical thinking seem to be a rarity, and we rely on what we are being told, rather than doing our own research.
The following blog series is a basis to help you understand a bit about what mindfulness is, the practice of Mindfulness, and the benefits. Remember this is my opinion after doing research and practice of my own. It is up to you to make up your own mind.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a way of looking at things differently and allows a way for you to relate to all of the experiences in your life which may be causing you to suffer. This, in turn, will allow you to personally transform yourself.
We as humans are constantly looking for ways to solve the causes of our suffering and then discover how we can alleviate it.
Sooner or later you end up asking yourself questions such as: “Why don’t I feel better?” or “Is there something I can do or something that be prescribed so it makes the pain go away.”
As we suffer, Doctors, Counsellors and Psychiatrists are all here to help, however all too often, they offer medication to quickly and sometimes continuously. Not many of us are keen to be on pills the rest of their life.
Throughout your life you can struggle emotionally when you are confronted with adverse circumstances. These can range from issues at work, issues within families, relationships. It could be dealing with the death of a loved one or friend, the aftermath of an accident, or the trauma of a situation or medical condition. Our emotions have a cause and effect reaction within our bodies, and can create dis ease, either physically or mentally.
When these things happen, or you don’t get what you want in life, if you suffer from great loss or have to deal with things you don’t want to deal with you are constantly seeking ways to feel better.
Mindfulness is a 2500 year old tradition of Buddhist psychology.
Mindfulness has to be experienced directly.
Mindfulness comes from within because it is intuitive and pre-conceptual.
With practice over time you can figure out how to become more and more mindful in your everyday life.
Mindfulness can help even if you are in the middle of significant suffering.
Mindfulness has been compared to a deeply personal journey of discovery.
Mindfulness is meant to bring about awareness, attention, and remembering. Awareness means becoming aware and fully enjoying and appreciating the things around you no matter how small it is.
When you are attentive, it means that you are participating in focused awareness. That means that you are aware of what is occurring within and around you. When you participate in this “awareness” you can begin to free yourself from mental preoccupation and difficult emotions.
The true purpose of mindfulness is to rid yourself of needless suffering.
How do you do this?
You do this by becoming aware and cultivating insights into how your mind works and the meaning of everything in the material world we live in. You are looking for ways to calm your mind and bring peace to your world.
Through Mindfulness you are re-training your mind in order to manage it.
Mindfulness allows you to develop other mental qualities including concentration, loving/kindness, effort and becoming more alert.
Mindfulness is not an end-all or doorway to happiness but it can provide you with the foundation you need to build those skills.
By allowing yourself to get rid of habits in your mind that can cause you unhappiness the result will be letting go of anger, envy, greed or other harmful behaviors that serve no purpose.
Mindfulness brings about self-acceptance and self-understanding.
We bring upon ourselves unwanted emotional and behavioral problems simply by trying to avoid discomfort and throwing ourselves into some other sort of change-seeking activity.
Mindfulness is about awareness and acceptance first and changes second.
