Used to refer to a psychological state of awareness
practices that promote this awareness
mode of processing information
character trait
Mindfulness is a moment-to-moment awareness of one's experience without judgment. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait.
Mindset
Mindfulness requires the mind to be consciously focused upon the present moment While calmly acknowledging:
thoughts
feelings
body sensations
Mindfulness is a complex word, definable as a lifestyle, activity, trait or other term.
To learn about the entire essence of mindfulness, it's important to differentiate between the forms of the term.
The mindful mindset is one that doesn't intrude on other categories of thought or active functioning, but serves as a trusted inner comfort and melded combination of moral, emotional and compassionate feeling. The inner eye is responsible for its guidance through an individual's mind and externally to those around. To be mindful isn't to focus soley on one's own mind, but those of others. A true mindful mindset is one that constantly maintains mindful reflections of the world and develops subliminal messages that translate into whole body and mind meaning. Once an individual feels true meaning in their thoughts and interactions, that person has the epitome of a mindful mindset.
Being mindful means an absence of judgement and negativity, and replaces them with compassion and gratitude.
Gratitude Journal Set a goal to write in a journal 3-5 or 7 nights a week before bed and spend a few minutes reflecting on the day and what events, people, wildlife, or anything made you happy and thankful. Pick 2-3 and address the journal composition to that specific entity or just scribble in some notes of gratitude. This practice will cause you to start noticing gratuitous events in the moment and compel you to acknowledge the deep contentment of events or thank people for their actions
Mindful Moments The focus of Mindful Moments is to slow the mind down to the speed of the body and concentrate on the sensations, processes and physical deliberations. These can be done at anywhere at any time:
Walking
Focus your attention on the rhythmic vibrations of each thudding footstep Feel the toe curl under the ball of your foot as it lifts you up off the ground and wiggle your concentration to the quiet snap of the shoelaces. Do you walk hard or soft? Do your shoulders dip with each step? Feel the motion as it occurs throughout the entire body and link together the valuable connection of mind and body.
Sitting
Feel the base of the chair support your weight Acknowledge the rigidity of the wooden desk chair and press your back against it to feel your spine and muscles meet the wood. Do you feel the chair supporting you? Are you appreciative?
Concentrated gaze
From either a seated or standing position, find an item in the near or far distance to look at. Once you find something either interesting or peculiar, beautiful or hideous, concentrate your thoughts on the object. Why is the object there? What are the colors that welcome your eye? How do you feel when you're observing it? Are you mad? Curious?
You can create a Mindful Moment out of anything that involves the mind. Your ability to sync the mind and body holds a deeper spiritual wealth over the simplicity the exercise leads on.
Meditation
Mindfulness requires the mind and body to function as one. Meditation involves the mind's ability to control itself. This is possible by:
diverting the mind's focus from the body back unto itself
utilizing patience
controlled breathing
strong and steady posture:
shoulders back
chest out
chin up
legs crossed
hands in air, resting on legs or cupping each other
The objective of the proper meditative posture is to situate the body with intention and maintain a firm core so that the body is in its healthy and comfortable state to breathe, and not require additional subliminal thoughts regarding poor posture and strains.
You don't need a book, help guide, money or a Buddhist Monk to teach you how to begin meditating. The most important requirement is an intention to guide your thoughts in a peaceful state of mind with eyes closed, body aligned and thoughts controlled. Beyond that, advice is valuable and any obstacles you may face, there are numerous resources at your disposal.
My tips:
convince your mind to accept the thought of meditation
provide warmth to the idea by imagining an absence of stress and abundance of inner-sight
prepare your environment to prevent loud distractions
begin by listening and then feeling your breaths enter and exit your mouth and lungs
find a spot on the floor and sit cross legged
inhale deeply until your lungs cannot fill any further and hold it in
feel the alignment of your body from hips to shoulders and retain the muscle memory
exhale slowly
close your eyes
listen to your heart beat
slow your breathing and focus on the rhythm
attempt to limit your thoughts
focus on the void
You can: -meditate in silence and exit once your set timer beeps -softly play relaxing music and exit meditation once it ends -follow a guided meditation program and end when they instruct it so
Most Important Advice: Start with 2-5 minute (short!) meditation sessions and incrementally increase time.
Meditation is guided concentration and 3 minutes of complete focus is more valuable than 15 minutes of squirming (a bad experience that you'll remember, possibly causing you to stop your meditation goals) (it's like the way one feels if they spend four hours at the gym lifting heavy and overdoing after not working out for ages. The body will ache and churn from the various masses of lactic acid buildup and an entire week will be spent grimacing over every tiny movement)
Practice
Frequency becomes habitual and practice improves the ongoing state of mindfulness
Mindfulness
used as a term to refer to a psychological state of awareness
includes practices that promote this awareness
mode of processing information
character trait
Mindfulness is a complex word, definable as a lifestyle, activity, or trait. Unfortunately, In order to be mindful, one must devote time, concentration and patience. Just like any other hobby or ambition, Mindfulness must be nurtured as a conscious practice, not simply a belief system to preach and understand. Mindful activities are less taxing on the mind's patience than a deep hour long meditation session, but the key to success is to be... mindful while practicing. Spending time practicing mindfulness will improve your patience through time. It isn't a simple, mindless activity because you must focus on guiding your mind and eliminating impatience.
Begin with concentrated short bouts and progressively increase the time and frequency of practice.
Benefits
Below is a short list of impactful categories improved by mindfulness
self-control
objectivity
affect tolerance
enhanced flexibility
equanimity
improved concentration and mental clarity
emotional intelligence
(ability to relate to others and one's self with kindness, acceptance and compassion.)
Think about the last time you let out an exploding belly laugh that ended with a slightly sore chest. The physical nature of the event included your lungs up to your throat, mouth and tearful eyes. The emotional and intangible event was happiness. A belly laugh is pure joy and invokes an inexplainable feeling of content and bodily warmth. That feeling occurred from an event external from the intangible mind, but greatly affected the spiritual entity. That warm sense of content is what real mindfulness provides.
Unfortunately, mindfulness isn't a subject that has been researched incessantly.
That being said, mindfulness is a 2600 year old practice that is becoming more popular with each day, existing as a construction of the mind to improve itself and studied more frequently for its self-improving benefits.
Because mindfulness includes only the person and their mind, everything outside that realm is available to become a criteria to compare against potential effectiveness. Results breach subjectivity and conclusive empirical data is difficult to reach.
The individual creates a goal to reach in Mindfulness that is specific to them; however, the broad theme of mindfulness is to improve awareness, eliminate judgement and relieve stress by controlling it. All these lead to happiness and positivity as a goal. Because this goal is incredibly enticing and welcoming, the research that has been done is valuable because it scientifically analyzes the nature of mindfulness and is able to persuade people with evidence.