What is Mindfulness?
There is a lot of talk these days about mindfulness. Firstly, what is mindfulness and how do we practice mindfulness? Mindfulness is two words broken down into one – Mindful Awareness becomes mindfulness. Being mindfully aware of what is happening in the present moment without getting caught up in it. It is believed that practicing mindfulness means you have to spend your time being in the ‘now’. Being in the ‘now’ is an abstract term and in reality it is impossible to be in the ‘now’. As soon as you are in the ‘now’ it is gone. You cannot grasp and hold on to the ‘now’. It is easier to practice being present during the day rather than spending too much time thinking about the past or planning the future. Obviously we need to think about the past so that we can learn from it and we need to plan the future. We are not monks sitting on the top of hill allowing events to unfold with no input into them. We are human beings and as such we need to learn from our past so that we can change our future.
What happens when we practise Mindfulness?
Practicing mindfulness allows us to respond to events as they unfold rather than react mindlessly. Our brains are muscles and as such they are pliable which means that with practice we can become more mindful of our days. There are a lot of different ways to practice mindfulness. Becoming aware of the breath in your body is one way.
How to get started with Mindfulness?
7/11 breathing is particularly effective and easy for starters. You breathe in for the count of 7 and out for the count of 11. You breathe deep into your diaphram, your belly should rise as you breathe in and fall as you breathe out. This practice is particularly beneficial to lower emotional arousal because the out breathe sends a signal to the brain that it is time to relax which switches on the parasympathetic nervous system. By practicing this technique we can allow the thoughts running through our head to come and go without getting caught up in them, as we count in for 7 and out for 11. It is not possible to stop our thoughts, even when we have been practicing mindfulness for a long time, as we have something like 60,000 thoughts a day. Mindfulness allows us to acknowledge these thoughts but not get caught up in them. We become more aware of the thoughts that are benefitting our wellbeing and the ones that are needlessly stressing us out. Mindfulness takes us out of the fight or flight mode that we so easily end up in when we are not mindfully aware of what is going on around us. When we practice mindfulness we can take back control of our lives in a relaxed, non-judgemental way so that we can live in full awareness of the life we are living.
If you’d like to join Anne Marie and Amy `at The Power Of Me and learn to meditate or reconnect with a fallen practise, email us at thepowerofmeweekend@gmail.com