MINDFUL WHAT ?

Today I'm going to introduce you the concept of mindfulness.

I knew it, or at least I know what it was about because some of my mom's personal development books gave me hints.

But I really started getting it when I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (2001), at a time in my life I needed to simply live presently and enjoy.

Mindfulness is - in its simpler way - moment to moment awareness.

Jon Kabat-Zinn* says “It’s not really about sitting in the full lotus, like pretending you’re a statue in a British museum”.

He defines mindfulness as something that "is cultivated by purposefully paying attention to things we ordinarily never give a moment’s thought to. It is a systematic approach to developing new kinds of control and wisdom in our lives.” 

But why would we be more mindful ? what can we do to be more mindful ?

Well, we probably need to be more mindful because our past experiences have marked our life, our interactions with people and the events we are experiencing - even the simplest of them -  are marking our everyday life. And our future, because of its uncertainty - can scare us or stress us out.
Our mind is caught up by all those things.
We do not always know how to deal with these feelings, and to feel good anyway. Because we are stuck into the past (whether it's far away or pretty close) or anticipating the future. Caught up with our emotions and feelings.
It's like we had a bunch of keys to open a door but we have no idea which one is the right one.
Well we can say Mindfulness is one of them.

January 2015, Sri Lanka

So we can start taking a very deep breath, and then to focus on something.
The aim is to concentrate on the here and now, when our body and mind are here together.

To do so, we can focus on our breath. Be mindful that our breathing in is an in-breath and that our breathing out is an out-breath. It might seem silly, but let's try it.
We'll realize our mental discourse will just stop while we are doing those things. Of course, some thoughts come to our mind, we don't have to chase them or get interested, we just have to let them pass and go, and feel that we're here and now.
That's being mindful.
Plus, breathing is very good for relaxing tensions (in our body and mind) and to think clearly and keep calm in lousy/overwhelming/stressful situations.

I hope you'll give it a try because it's a very easy and funny exercice, and the result is just feeling good so that's pretty cool !
I'll give other tips and practices within the next days/weeks.

Have fun !