Like it or not, this moment is all we really have to work with.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mindfulness is a powerful, successful, and exceedingly popular methodology and lifestyle practice purported to enhance wellbeing, productivity, emotional health and general wellness, enough to be called a ‘revolution’ by Time magazine in 2014. Though with dawn-of-civilization Buddhist origins, mindfulness was imported into the West, secularized and made scientific, as well as later popularized, by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a scientist at MIT who discovered the power of meditation to de-stress and calm the nervous system at his university in the 1970s during his intensive studies and medical training.
Mindfulness, put simply, is a kind of ‘paying attention’. It is a kind of paying attention eroding in hectic 21st century life to our disadvantage and detriment. Mindfulness might be viewed as a practical, immersive form of formal meditation to be utilized in daily life to cultivate the arts of attention, concentration, sustaining focus, remaining present, and opening to actual, unfolding life around us, a way of life that is actively being undermined by our digital age full of ceaseless distractions, the temptation to multi-task, hyperconnectivity, and increasing demands imposed by an ever-complexifying society, an increasingly competitive world, and evolving technology that surpasses our capacity to integrate change.
The ‘ultimate goal’ is ‘to simply give your attention fully to what you’re doing’. In this way, serial processing lets us give our precious resource of attention to what we are actually doing instead of dividing it and thus dividing ourselves. Sectioning off attention to excessive cognition, worry about the future, or rumination about the past prevents us from having a life experience altogether. Ever have that feeling of time slipping by, of life passing by, without ever feeling it or really letting it in? We are increasingly mindlessly busy, a culture of ‘attentional spastics’, forgetting to pause, sense, savor, and reflect upon our life experiences; to reclaim this basic awareness and commitment to being present to our limited time on earth is reinvigorating and establishes a dynamic foundation for a more intentional life.
Mindfulness, put simply, is a kind of ‘paying attention’. It is a kind of paying attention eroding in hectic 21st century life to our disadvantage and detriment. Mindfulness might be viewed as a practical, immersive form of formal meditation to be utilized in daily life to cultivate the arts of attention, concentration, sustaining focus, remaining present, and opening to actual, unfolding life around us, a way of life that is actively being undermined by our digital age full of ceaseless distractions, the temptation to multi-task, hyperconnectivity, and increasing demands imposed by an ever-complexifying society, an increasingly competitive world, and evolving technology that surpasses our capacity to integrate change.
The ‘ultimate goal’ is ‘to simply give your attention fully to what you’re doing’. In this way, serial processing lets us give our precious resource of attention to what we are actually doing instead of dividing it and thus dividing ourselves. Sectioning off attention to excessive cognition, worry about the future, or rumination about the past prevents us from having a life experience altogether. Ever have that feeling of time slipping by, of life passing by, without ever feeling it or really letting it in? We are increasingly mindlessly busy, a culture of ‘attentional spastics’, forgetting to pause, sense, savor, and reflect upon our life experiences; to reclaim this basic awareness and commitment to being present to our limited time on earth is reinvigorating and establishes a dynamic foundation for a more intentional life.
In the article I use to initially introduce mindfulness, its most widely accepted definition is ‘paying attention to the present moment deliberately and non-judgmentally’. I like this definition by the very fact of its simple operationalization of a loaded concept and because so many clients come in disconnected from the immense resources of the present, unconscious or a product of their conditioning, that is, functioning on auto-pilot, and extraordinarily judgmental of themselves and their experiences. Mindfulness can be an immediate corrective that allows people to start to explore their experience and who they are freely, compassionately, while retaining honesty.
Mindful awareness, as we therapeutically dialogue, will naturally develop and is a practice I can didactically instruct you in (see this article for further support). By simply participating in mindful dialogue and practicing self-searching and self-revelation in an open, safe space for true, uninhibited expression, you will discover more of yourself and the world around you that you are already embedded in.
Mindful awareness, as we therapeutically dialogue, will naturally develop and is a practice I can didactically instruct you in (see this article for further support). By simply participating in mindful dialogue and practicing self-searching and self-revelation in an open, safe space for true, uninhibited expression, you will discover more of yourself and the world around you that you are already embedded in.