What is Mindfulness?

In essence mindfulness is being consciously and acceptingly present in the moment. Mindfulness is your own choice to be present right here right now. At the same time is being aware of what is around you and inside your body, and in other people right here and now. Mindfulness is the ability to perceive things that are going on around you and inside you, in your body and in your mind.

The human mind moves uncontrollably from the past, to the present and into the future. Often through learnt patterns, that make one act almost like being driven on autopilot. To become aware of the thought patterns, mindfulness trains the mind to be in the now, without judgement, whilst relieving stress and increasing your well being. When your mind gets stuck on how things should and not on how they are, there can be a great deal stress, that can be relieved through mindfulness practice.

Through practice mindfulness becomes an attitude towards life and a state of mind. By continually bringing your mind to a state of non-judgemental mindfulness, the workings of your mind are changed.

In our everyday life, we are used to a high level stimulation coming from every angle. Rarely there is time for reflection. Through practicing mindfulness, you are able to give your mind a break from working too hard all the time.

The idea of mindfulness is to move from the state of doing to the state being. What this means is to reduce the time you are in a state of autopilot, and add more time to your life where you are in the present, knowing exactly what is going on in your body, mind and surroundings. This is not to say an autopilot mode is not necessary in life, but the idea of mindfulness is to be able to choose what mode is the best for now.

Now you can give mindfulness a try by doing the one minute of mindfulness exercise.

On your mobile, watch, or wherever, set an alarm to go off one minute from now.
During the minute all you have to do is to concentrate on and set your awareness to your breathing.
Leave your eyes open for the minute.
If your mind starts wandering, just return your awareness to your breathing.
That is it, you are practicing mindfulness!

This exercise is useful to do at anytime in your life.