What is mindfulness? Why does it matter?

written by Simone on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

 Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to our inner world and the world around us.

 Here is a little exercise we sometimes give to gain an understanding of what mindfulness or meditation is and why it is vital in creating an inner world by your own design and an outer world that reflects it.

 Close your eyes and think of a time, any time you felt overwhelmed – where your mind and your thoughts were running out of control, they were no longer under your control. It may be yesterday at work, at home with the kids, last week, or last year. Visualize what you were doing, allow yourself to be overwhelmed, feel the feelings.  Remember back, what were the thoughts that came?  Was there one thought that triggered this state of being overwhelmed? Can you identify one thought, or one sentence, or the story that triggered feelings of being besieged by worry, anxiety or general feelings of “overwhelmedness?” Sit with this for a minute. Now feel how you are feeling in this moment, notice the shift created by conjuring up an unpleasant state, feel what has happened to your body, mind and being.  All brought upon by the power of thought.

 What we think of as a whole story, a whole reality, is usually one thought that triggers an avalanche of thoughts and accompanying emotions. For example, I am sitting at work and an unexpected new task or project lands on my desk. The first thought is “this is a lot of work,” the second thought is “I will never get it done on time,” the third thought is “I always have to do it alone,” “I am alone, unsupported in so many areas in my life,” “if my husband only helped more around the house,” and so the thoughts continue to spiral down ending with feelings of being irritated upset with our husband, boss, kids, and ourselves.

 What if we could stop at the thought “I have a lot of work to do” long enough to pause and then choose our next thought (and therefore feelings and emotions)? For example, “I have a lot of work to do, I will reschedule some things to get it done.” Full stop. And then started doing the work. What would our world look like if we weren’t constantly triggered into these all encompassing emotionally draining stories that we literally create for ourselves?

This is the crux of meditation: to gain some control over our thoughts, or more accurately loosen the control our thoughts have over us.  Remember our thoughts are not the problem; we are always going to think. Our relationship to our thoughts is the ‘problem.’ We so often grab onto a thought, consciously or unconsciously, and run with it as if it were ‘true,’ solid and unchanging. As we meditate, we become mindful of our thoughts, we start paying attention to our relationship to our thoughts. We start to loosen the grip our thoughts have over us. Sometimes we realize it is one thought that has been running our lives.

 By watching our thoughts, continually watching the thoughts, we gain an experiential knowing not just an intellectual understanding but a deep knowingness that we are not our thoughts. Think about this for a moment, “I am not my thoughts.” Thoughts are many and seemingly endless.  The only power they have is the power we give them when we hold on to them and create our reality with them.

It may seem paradoxical but as we practice watching our thoughts come and then go, practice not reacting to our thoughts, our thoughts slowly loose control over us. Much like training a puppy, we gently but firmly bring the puppy continually back under our control; similarly we train our mind in meditation. We gently but firmly bring our awareness and focus back to a place of our choosing away from the entanglement of thoughts and slowly our mind becomes our own. We choose where we place our attention, and therefore create a state of being by our own design, rather than the thoughts, which become stories, continually taking us and holding us in places where we do not need to reside.

There are so many success manuals teaching us how to manifest our destiny, or create our intention through the power of visualization and correct thinking. The Secret has created a whole new positive thinking revolution. But until we have some awareness of our inner thinking world, an ability to slow it down and gain some control over the process, we can’t really change or create anything.

 Give yourself an experience of meditation and mindfulness. Use days 3-6 from the free trial or click here to play: Calm Focused Mind Meditation. Practice for three minutes or 11-minutes.  The physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits from loosening up our mental and emotional entanglement to our thoughts are many and interconnected. But the number one reason I believe we all need to  practice mindfulness (or meditate) is that what you believe, meaning the thoughts that you hold to be true, is exactly what your reality looks like.  That in and of itself is worthy of mindful investigation.

Feel free to post a comment or question below.

Simone