So you’ve heard all about this thing called mindfulness. You’ve downloaded your headspace app to start meditating, but still you have the questions: “What exactly is it?
As someone who has been practicing mindfulness for 10 years and who has had a dedicated daily meditation practice for the past 3 years, I am a firm believer in the power of the practice not only for my own benefit but for others as well. There is also a ton of scientific research that backs the benefits of mindfulness as well as thousands of years of vetting from Desi cultures that created the practice in the first place.
But the question still remains, what exactly is it? The following definition contains 4 essential aspects of mindfulness that will help you get the most out of your practice.
What is Mindfulness?
Condensing a lot of definitions together, at its core, mindfulness is the practice of non-judgmental (aka loving) awareness of your present moment by moment experience. This definition can be broken down into four parts:
1) Mindfulness as a practice
2) Mindfulness as non-judgmental awareness
3) Mindfulness as awareness of the present moment by moment experience
4) Mindfulness is a tool for action
We will explore each of these definitions below.
Mindfulness is a practice
Mindfulness is a practice in that it is an action. It is something you do everyday or almost every day or as often as possible. Because it is a practice, it is also a process of inherently imperfect baby steps.
I often see a lot of people give up on meditation or breathwork or mindfulness as a whole because they think they are doing it wrong. You can’t do it “wrong,” but you can do it with more or less focus.
Some days we try to be with our experience and we are distracted, over attached and really immersed in the mess of ourselves. Other days, we can easily find calm and a greater sense of stillness. Both are okay. It’s the curiosity and subsequent insight you gain that informs how you show up next time.
Mindfulness is non-judgmental awareness
Non-judgment is a sense of objectivity, which in my experience trends towards unconditional love. Non-judgment is acceptance and compassion for the human-ness of what you are experiencing. It isn’t right or wrong, it simply is. What you are experiencing might be uncomfortable or even painful but it isn’t the whole of yourself.
This is to say, awareness can move from being mixed up with the experience, to looking at that same experience from a distant vantage point. Non-judgmental awareness promotes space, which promotes response rather than reaction. In this way, you can act with intention, attuned to the thoughts and feelings moving through you without necessarily buying into the story they are telling you.
These two videos offer great explanations of awareness:
Mindfulness is awareness of your present moment by moment experience
Your experience is fluid. It is the sea of yourself. It is the water of thought and feeling moving through you. In that, your experience is your brain’s interpretation of context which is based off of things like your schema (how you have learned the world works), interworking model (how you have learned relationships work), trauma (what is safe/ overwhelming to you) and prediction (how emotions guide your actions). These mechanisms are working within your body and mind in a variety of ways, which tangibly affects your experience of the present.
These experiences can sometimes be like an unruly staccato with the past surging into the present and a lot of discomfort and even pain as a result. The goal of a mindfulness practice is to bring awareness to this ever changing sea in a loving, nonjudgmental way. This allows you to let go of the experience, which is sometimes easier said than done, making way for a new experience in the next moment, so on and so forth.
Mindfulness practice is this way of being with yourself where you are learning to be more and more intune with what is happening in the body and the mind in ways that cultivate space. This is to say, you are sinking beneath the waves and on the seafloor you look up. You are allowing what is within you to move, while observing it with gentleness and acceptance.
Mindfulness is a tool for action
As someone who has used mindfulness to change my life and show up in a more authentic, joyful and fully alive way and as someone who wants to honor the origins of this practice, I cannot stop with the basic definition of mindfulness because what then is the point?
Yes, simply being with yourself can have immense benefits to your well-being, but we do not live in isolation. We live as a community. In fact, there is a whole component of our nervous system called the ventral vagal complex, dedicated to social engagement and thus connection with the tangible ecosystem we are a part of.
As in the 8 Limbed Path of Yoga or the Noble Eight Fold Path of Buddhism, mindfulness is a part of a larger system in which speaks to how we as individuals are showing up in the world we are a part of. Our actions affect other people. Our ability to understand and accept the nuance of our experience enables us to commune with greater intimacy with ourselves and each other. We can handle conflict. We can explore complexity. We can respond with intention rather than reaction. We can approach life fully feeling and in that act with conscious awareness. This conscious awareness is how we mold the magic, directing our actions to be inline with our values and the person we want to be for our own benefit AND the benefit of others.
The question now becomes, are you ready to find that presence? Are you ready to open yourself to the depths of who you are and your experience? And better yet, in doing so are you ready to cultivate greater capacity to show up in your life in relationship to yourself and others, inherently, always, imperfectly, enough?
You might also like:
10 Mindfulness Tips to Stop a Shame Spiral and Super Charge your Self Compassion
7 Useful Tips to Start and Sustain your Meditation Practice
How to Start Healing from the Past and Step into More Self Love