Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a state of awareness characterized by nonjudgmental observation of and interaction with the present moment. Mindful awareness involves an open, curious, and accepting attitude toward your internal experience (bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions) and your external experience (interactions with other people and the environment). Mindfulness may be cultivated and strengthened through regular meditative practices. In fact, research has found that engaging in daily meditative practices for as little as 20 minutes a day over the course of eight weeks significantly reduces self-reported depression, anxiety, negative affect (mood), and rumination (engaging in repetitive negative thoughts or excessively focusing on real or perceived negative experiences / failures).

Mindfulness is a state of being that facilitates freedom from attachment to the need for people, things, or events to be a certain way… tranquility comes with mindful awareness and acceptance of the way people, things, and events actually are. Mindful acceptance does not require your approval. Many events in life will occur, and even persist, with or without your approval. Mindfulness enables you to take a step back from your experience, take the blinders off your eyes, and see the present moment in the light of day… just as it is. The concepts of “good” and “bad” take on new meanings when these labels are no longer hurriedly applied to people, things, and events out of knee-jerk emotional responses or behavioral impulses. Mindfulness provides a quiet space from which you have the opportunity to view any situation, encounter, or experience from all angles. Within this mindful state is psychological flexibility, lessened emotional reactivity, and greater tolerance of distress.

An attitude of mindfulness means that you are aware of the present moment in an entirely new way… with this freedom comes inherent responsibility. You are now responsible for making the choice to respond to internal and external cues rather than react to them. When you welcome and accept all things, the mental and emotional strain of resistance to “what is” dissipates. Mindfulness is one road toward freedom from the unnecessary suffering that persists from denying, ignoring, or raging against the moment. Recognition of the possibility to be freed from unnecessary suffering and engage with your life in a deliberate, nonjudgmental, and accepting manner is part of becoming more mindful. Mindfulness is a tool that can increase your connectedness, acceptance, and awareness with yourself, others, and the world.