What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a way to bring health, wellbeing and vibrancy to our lives. Through mindfulness we are wholeheartedly present and fully alive in each moment. It is a practical skill which involves consciously slowing down and being present in each moment, allowing us to accept our experience without judgement. We deliberately pay attention to our thoughts, emotions or physical sensations in a way that is friendly and non-judgmental.
Mindfulness means coming home to an awareness of our senses (sight, sound, taste, touch). We find ways to anchor into the present moment through our breath, body, physical sensations, or by noticing the world around us and what we are doing right now. This is the key to present moment awareness.
Through becoming fully aware and anchored into the present moment we can learn to step back and be the friendly observer of our thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations. We learn to let all of these inner experiences come and go in their own way. When we notice that our minds we are caught up in past regrets or worrying about the future we can learn through mindfulness to become less identified with these thoughts. We realize that they don’t need to overwhelm or define us in any way. Thoughts come and go and we can learn to let them come and go moment by moment.
Benefits of Mindfulness
Practicing mindfulness helps us to engage more wholeheartedly in our daily lives. Often, we are so busy making plans, thinking about the future or getting stuck in the past that we are everywhere else except for the present moment.
When we slow down and find ways to anchor into the here and now. It helps us to open up to the simple pleasures of life, whether that is a warm cup of tea in the belly, the sounds of nature, or connecting with someone that matters to us. This allows us to open to experiences of contentment, wellbeing, and happiness in our lives.
Mindfulness helps us to access an inner stillness and peace in a busy world. Often we rush through life without paying much attention to what is going on around us. Our minds are busy with thoughts about making plans, worrying about the future, getting caught up in self-judgments, or regretting the past.
Have you ever driven to work only to arrive without quite knowing how you got there, only to realise that your mind was so busy you did not notice the road before you? We call this being on ‘automatic pilot’, where our mind is everywhere except for the present moment. It is continuously wandering off into autopilot and stress increasing thought patterns such as worrying, judging, regretting and planning and this is mostly without our awareness of it.
Mindfulness is the exact opposite to autopilot. When we are mindful we are aware of our thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, the world around us and what we are doing. When we are in autopilot, we are not really aware of our experience.
Benefits of Mindfulness include:
- Reduced stress, worry, and anxiety.
- Increased inner stability, wellbeing and resilience to life’s challenges.
- Greater ability to relax and maintain present moment awareness.
- Improves mood and emotional wellbeing.
- Strengthens decision making, memory, information processing and problem solving abilities.
- Can improve interpersonal relationships with others.
- Greater appreciation of simple things in life.
- Increased immunity and physical wellbeing.
- Assists with our relationship to physical and emotional pain.
If you would like to learn more about types of therapy I provide at Suaimhneas Cork CBT Therapy and Mindfulness please click on the links below:
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
