MINDFULNESS by Beth Mackay

If you are rushing into the next moment, what happens to the one that you are in? 

Life is so busy and rushed, from the moment you get up until the moment you lay your head down at night. Then even, your mind will most probably be in a million places thinking of everything that has to be done the next day. So let’s pause here for a minute and ask the question again: If you are rushing into the next moment, what happens to the one that you are in?

According to Kobat-Zinn (2003) mindfulness can be defined as the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. It’s about knowing what is on your mind. According to James Baraz mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now, without wishing it were different.

Originally an ancient Buddhist meditation technique, in recent years mindfulness has evolved into a range of secular therapies and courses, most of them focusing on being aware of the present moment and simply noticing feelings and thoughts as they come and go. The recent popularity of mindfulness is generally considered to have been initiated by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn. In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn recruited chronically ill patients not responding well to traditional treatments to participate in his newly formed eight-week stress-reduction program, which we now call Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Since then, substantial research has been done demonstrating how mindfulness-based interventions improve mental and physical health, comparably so to other psychological interventions.

According to Viktor Frankl, “Between stimulus and response there’s a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, in our response lies our growth and our freedom.” 

In other words there is always a moment of choice where we decide how we are going to react to stress and pain on our lives. However for most of us we are unaware of this space as we get caught up in habitual patterns of reacting to life. The MBSR program helps the patient become aware of these habitual reactions and helps them relate to themselves in a new way to interrupt this cycle and create more choices in their lives.

Mindfulness is observing your life as it is happening and accepting the current situation without judgment or struggle. It is about allowing your feelings to exist (instead of trying to suppress them) without letting them drive your actions. It is about noticing your thoughts as they arise without the need to buy into them – as you cannot always believe what you are thinking. I am not my thoughts, as thoughts are not facts. Mindfulness is the shift from the constant ‘doing mode’ to the “being mode” – where you stop trying to fix everything.

Brain imaging techniques are revealing that this ancient practice can profoundly change the way different regions of the brain communicate with each other permanently. It seems through mindfulness practice our more primal responses to stress seem to be superseded by more thoughtful ones. With the amount of research being done on the positive effects of this practice it seems that ten minutes of mindfulness could soon become an accepted, stress-busting part of our daily health regimen, being just as important as going to the gym or brushing our teeth.

Mindfulness gives you time. Time give you choices. Choices, skillfully made, leads to freedom. You don’t have to be swept away by your feelings. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity 

(Bhante Henepola Gunaratana).