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Intro To Mindfulness

You may have heard the term “mindful” or “mindfulness” being tossed around a lot in your meditative practices, but what does mindfulness really mean? On a basic level, mindfulness means being aware of your existence and what you’re doing at any given moment.

What Is Mindfulness?

Being aware of your thoughts might sound simple, but can be difficult given the fast-paced, get-things-done type of lifestyle many of us lead. This isn’t out faults, of course, just the way society expects us to be. So, how exactly do we become more mindful?

Taking Notice of Your Surroundings

One way many meditation teachers recommend is to focus on your breathing. When you do this, you can just take a mental inventory on what you hear, see, smell, and think. It’s important to note that you are not your thoughts; rather, your thoughts are something of outside parties. We’ll talk about this more in-depth in later posts.
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If you’re interested in learning more about mindfulness and improving the quality of your meditation sessions, you can check out my short eBook on Amazon here.
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What Can Being Mindful Do For Me?

Breathing in and out is something we often take for granted. I once read an article which argued that controlling one’s breathing patterns is essential in controlling your emotions. Being mindful can help with this area and so many others.

This makes sense if you think about it. When we’re angry, we might huff and puff and storm off. If we’re very happy, we tend to gasp in excitement. If you try to control your breath when angry, for example, you might not huff and puff. If you don’t huff and puff, you will feel less irritated. This is one of the many benefits of being mindful.

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Activities Related To Mindfulness

As my old meditation teacher taught me, anytime you’re aware of what you’re doing, you are meditating. She showed our class how to do “meditation” activities that had never crossed my mind. For example, we would eat a candy while being aware of its taste and then had to describe the flavor back to our teacher. She also had us walk around while being mindful of every step. As with other activities, mindfulness can help us slow things down so we are more appreciative of them.

Stability vs. Lacking Emotions

There are other, less tangible advantages to mindfulness as well. When you are aware of your emotions, you can deal with them as they come up and keep them in check. This doesn’t mean you need to become emotionally dead inside or unable to feel anything; it just means you’re in control. An example can help to illustrate this.

Uses of Mindful Practice

Let’s say there is someone in your life who makes you angry for whatever reason. This could be a co-worker, family member, boyfriend or girlfriend, even the guy who always gets the promotion you wanted. When they do whatever it is that makes you angry, you have two choices: you can respond with anger as you normally do, or you can choose to step back and examine why you are angry. When you take the second option, you are being mindful.

You Are Not Your Thoughts

I’ll go into some more detail. When you process emotions, you feel them because your brain tells you to. When you’re mindful, you can realize what causes your (anger, sadness, happiness, etc.) and then modify your thought patterns and emotional responses accordingly.

Changing Behaviors And Breaking Old Habits

When you recognize the root of the behavior and why it’s occurring, you’re no longer bound by impulse and can think logically in nearly any situation. In plainer words: you’re not stuck doing what you would normally do, and can consciously choose how to respond.

I’ll end the post by dropping a few resources I like to use for meditation and mindfulness:

• This Body Scan Meditation by TheHonestGuys is one of the most relaxing I’ve found. It’s perfect for resetting your body after a long day when you need to relax and restore some energy. Just be careful; you might fall asleep!
• YellowBrickCinema has a variety of different videos with relaxing music for longer meditations (generally 3 hours and up). There are also 8 hour videos that you can fall asleep to if you so desire, though some people would rather stay awake during their meditation sessions.
• Glenn Harold is a British Hypnotist whose free audios I’ve used before with some success. They are long enough that you could fall asleep to them, though I’ve found that you can still get the general idea of them even if you fall asleep. Glen has a free mobile app called Relax & Sleep Well, which you can grab for iOS and Android.  This app gives you access to a basic hypnosis session for free, and there are also more specific sessions with goals like learning Lucid Dreaming or losing weight in mind. You can preview these premium recordings for free, or purchase them right in-app.
• Though TheOneLillium’s channel is dedicated mostly to ASMR, she also has some outstanding hypnosis videos as well. Lillium’s Enchanting Hypnosis is one of my favorites, and at 13 minutes or so, it’s just long enough to relax you without being overkill. Fittingly enough, she also has a video on mindfulness, which I have not yet tried.
• I began reading Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power Of Now and thought it was really interesting. It talks about enlightenment and controlling our thoughts as well as what Tolle calls the “disease” of constant thinking.
• I hope these resources are helpful to you. Many people on Youtube and other sites have meditations that can help with everything from defeating anxiety and feelings of isolation to simple relaxation and helping you sleep at night. I expect this list to grow over time, and of course feel free to add to it with what works for you and share your own experiences.Hope your day/night is wonderful; let’s talk again soon.Namaste,KevinPS: The featured image is courtesy of BK, Flickr.com, CC-BY SA 2.0.[/sociallocker]