Mindfulness

What does Mindfulness mean?

Mindfulness training provides us with new skills that allow us to manage what goes on in our minds. It allows us to develop abilities that help us reduce self-criticism and negative emotions, and increase our level and control of attention. To be present. To be aware of what we do while we do it. 

As human beings we have the tendency to be more negative, to pay more attention to the bad things rather than the good things. Mindfulness can help us distribute our attention in a more balanced way between all aspects of our lives. To keep our eyes open to the ¨smaller¨ beauties and pleasures of the world. To be able to respond in a judicious and compassionate manner to the people around us as well as to ourselves. 

Through Mindfulness we discover another way of knowing. We begin to listen to a calmer and wiser voice that is normally suffocated by the screams of the (over)thinking mind. In this direct relationship with a present situation, we are simply aware of our experience in the moment: knowledge resides in our own consciousness.

Being mindful is about having an active state of mind focused on the now. This means we consciously choose to shift out of the autopilot, and instead choose to focus on the present moment.

Shifting Out of Autopilot

Autopilot is a mechanism that we develop where we can do things automatically without thinking every step of the process. The clearest example is driving. After learning how to drive, we usually do it automatically. Another example is our morning ritual or the one that we do before going to sleep: washing our face, brushing our teeth etc. Haven´t you ever not remembered whether you had just washed your teeth or not? Where you had left your keys? What you were thinking about whilst taking a shower?  With autopilot, our minds are subject to the action-oriented mode, working in the background without us being aware of it, without our consent and without us having decided so. Once we have lost control of our minds, we can easily slide into the spiral of rumination that triggers negative feelings. Worrying becomes anxiety, and the pressure of high expectations makes us feel even more stressed and exhausted. Living in autopilot mode means risking getting hooked on some of these negative mental states. It can distance us from many positive things in life.

How do we do that? By paying attention to:

• Sight
• Smell
• Sound
• Touch
• Taste
• Temperature

How Do I Meditate?

I very strongly need to communicate this information to you:

Meditation is NOT about fully clearing your mind and not thinking about anything for however long you do it. No.

Meditation is Being with what’s there. Being with the emotions that are present, the thoughts that are present. Observing them, observing your body, without having to change anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be relaxing. You can meditate and observe your anger and feel it boil inside you. That’s still meditating. It is very common, however, that when you do pay attention to these emotions or you observe your thoughts and allow them to come and go instead of hang on to them, that you end up feeling more relaxed after. Why? Because you gave them the attention they needed, so they drift away, leaving you feeling relieved and calm.

There are different ways of meditating. One of them is choosing to focus on something specific, like your breath, or a certain body sensation, or the sounds around you. When you do this, your mind will 100% wonder off, several times. It’s what it does! We need our mind to think and to be alert in order to survive. So, what we can do is practice to maintain our focus where we choose for a little bit longer every time. Your mind will wonder, so when you become aware of it, you kindly bring your attention back to what you were focusing on. Over and over again. That, is meditation. With practice it gets easier.

In our therapy sessions, I can teach you several Mindfulness exercises, that you can then continue to do on your own. It is such a powerful tool that helps us live a happier and calmer life. By focusing in the present, we reduce or get rid of feelings like guilt, fear, anxiety for what happened in the past and for what is to come in the future. It is a way of being more in tune with ourselves and more grounded, rather than constantly worrying and suffering unnecessarily.