Mindfulness can be described as moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness. It is the awareness of what’s happening within and around us as it happens.
Mindfulness allows us to have a greater sense of when we are dwelling in the past or desiring a particular future. It’s about knowing when we are wishing things were different or imagining how things ‘should’ be. Mindfulness is about being attentive to what is happening right now – even when that ‘right now’ includes unpleasant or unhelpful perceptions, thoughts and emotions.
The state of mindfulness is characterized by a deeply felt sense of peace, contentment and fulfillment; by a feeling that despite how the world within and around us feels or appears to be, everything is somehow still perfect; as it ‘needs to be’. Mindfulness brings the ability to see things in a clearer light, rather than being habitually distracted by trivialities or wants.
A mindful person has a greater capacity to hold their beliefs lightly, to not ‘sweat the small stuff,’ and more easily sit with the ups and downs of life. And the more mindful we are, the more we get out of life; the richer and more satisfying life becomes. Why? Because we’re more able to allow the events of life (including our own thoughts, emotions and reactions) to come and go rather than constantly attempting to get rid of the bits we don’t like. We begin to let life happen, rather than struggling to manipulate life to be a particular way (which, by the way, is both futile and exhausting!). We simply allow life to occur and, at the same time, be there for the experience. We experience life more fully and respond to life’s challenges in a more immediate, complete and constructive way.
Mindfulness supports us to see the world through our observer mind as well as our thinking mind. It allows us to be more aware of the abundance and opportunities that exist all around us. Mindfulness allows us to stand behind the ‘thought waterfall,’ and gives us the opportunity to decide whether paying attention to any particular pattern of thought (or emotion) will move us further away from (or closer to) our goals in any moment.
Mindfulness is the key to high performance at work and in enriching every aspect of our lives. It is the antidote to presenteeism, and the fundamental skill required to build our emotional intelligence.
There are three steps required to practice mindfulness:
Sound familiar? The practice of mindfulness is incredibly similar to the practice of activating our relaxation response!! This is good news: by training ourselves to be more mindful we’re also training ourselves to switch off our stress response whenever we need. This is why all the workshop techniques create a calm, balanced AND focused mind!
The skill we are really building through the practice of mindfulness is to realise that we’ve become caught up in our thoughts. As soon as we make this realization, we are no longer caught up in our heads: we are present. When we’re present we’re able to make a relatively conscious decision about whether we pursue that particular thought pattern or focus our attention elsewhere.
Through this skill we can practice allowing our thoughts and emotions to arise and pass away without trying to control them or get rid of them. This is commonly referred to as self-acceptance, a phenomenon which simply happens as the natural outcome of increased self-awareness.
Here we’re also enhancing our emotional intelligence: we’re reducing our tendency to project the way we feel onto someone or something else and owning (taking responsibility for) the way we feel. Through increased self-awareness we’re enhancing our ability to experience life (our internal happenings and processes) directly.
Self Awareness recharge technique