What is Mindfulness & How Do I Begin to Practice it?

If you’ve perused the Internet for anything relating to holistic wellness recently, you most likely have seen “mindfulness” appear as a top hit for almost any search criteria; and although mindfulness is a powerful, transformative tool, it’s become such a buzzword in the health & wellness industry, that in the process, its lost its potency.

Mindfulness, however, is just that - an extremely potent tool in not only creating the life you desire, but in healing emotionally and physically. So, in understanding, practicing, and implementing mindfulness in your day to day life, you are choosing to step into the drivers seat of your life. You are choosing to cultivate peace in your life. You are choosing to create the reality that is most aligned with your highest self.

So what exactly is mindfulness? 

Mindfulness is a moment of awareness in which you deliberately bring your attention to the present moment - without judgement. It’s a moment of curiosity. A moment in which you openly and compassionately notice the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations you are experiencing at any given moment in time. Mindfulness is the split second in which you awaken and drop back into your body; the moment of awareness in which you feel yourself inhabiting your body.

Mindfulness can be practiced at any time, in any place, with anyone around, while you are doing literally any thing by tuning into the present moment and engaging your senses to communicate to the mind and body you are here now.

Now, how does mindfulness fit into meditation? Are they the same thing?

A way to begin to differentiate the two is mindfulness is the awareness of “some-thing” while meditation is the awareness of “no-thing”. 

Meditation is a practice of observing stillness. It’s a practice of sitting in and embracing the fluidity - the impermanence - of every fleeting moment. In doing so, you gift yourself distance. Distance from your identity. Distance from past. Distance from your future. Distance from the conclusions we as humans can’t help but draw - about ourselves, our circumstances, our past, our future. 

While meditation is the practice of observing stillness, mindfulness is the practice of observing, and thus, neutralizing the chaos of the mind at any given moment. Without meditation - without the practice of gently and compassionately guiding the wandering mind back…over and over again - mindfulness is exponentially more difficult to practice. 

Mindfulness and meditation are like the power couple at the dinner party; mindfulness supports and enriches the development and depth of your mediation practice, while mediation nurtures and elevates one’s ability to exist in a mindful state outside of seated meditation. 

In other words, mindfulness is a practice in which you are there with “it”- “it” being any thought, emotion, or physical sensation you are experiencing - while meditation is a practice in which you, as the observer, are looking at “it”.

As my own meditation practice has deepened, mindfulness has become a practice I can intentionally “turn on” at any point during my day; it’s no longer a concept that feels so far from me. When I “turn it on”, I drop in. I drop into my body. I drop into my intuition. I drop into the present moment. I’m able to observe my thoughts, the corresponding emotions, and the behavior/s I feel compelled to do. Yet, the true gift of mindfulness is that in this moment of observance, I then get to choose something different. I get to see how my body is reacting in any given moment and choose- in that moment - how I, instead, want to respond.

Overtime, mindfulness becomes less of a disciplined practice and more of a state of being - a state of being while eating, working, playing, and moving. Overtime, mindfulness becomes your super power. It allows you to observe how you experience everything - in your mind and in your body - and creates a point of intersection. A point of intersection in time; an intersection of two futures. One in which you default to old behaviors - old reactions - and thus, exist in the same life, the same circumstances, the same relationships, and the same self imposed suffering. And one in which you choose to respond differently and, thus, create a new personal reality. At this point of intersection, mindfulness gives you the power to choose which path you take.

So, how do we begin to practice mindfulness?

Outside of maintaining a consistent meditation practice (which is imperative), there are several tools you can utilize to help ground you and become more mindful in your day to day.

Breathing 

First and foremost, utilize the breath. The breathe is the toll road to mindfulness. If you notice yourself spiraling and /or feeling un-grounded, come back to the breath. Begin to inhale through the nose for 4 counts and exhale through the nose for 5 or 6 counts. Elongating your exhale will turn on the parasympathetic nervous system - the feel and heal response - and communicate to the body that you are safe. Slowing down the breath will give you that space to come back to the moment, come back to your body, and respond from a place of calm and peace.

Engage your senses

Tuning into your senses is a great tool to “turn on” mindfulness. Your senses will bring you into the moment of what you are experiencing. What do you smell? What do you see around you? What does something around you feel like? What can you hear (close to you and far away)? What can you taste? If possible, you can close your eyes and move through each of your senses (except sight) while focusing on your inhale - through the nostrils - and your exhale - either through the nose or mouth. Once you’ve grounded yourself in this moment in time with everything happening outside of you, now you can more safely and gently turn your attention to what’s going on inside; begin turning your attention inward and asking yourself: 

How am I feeling in this moment?

What emotions & physical sensations am I experiencing in my body?

How would my highest self respond in this moment?

EFT Tapping 

EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and tapping is one of these techniques. Tapping is another tool to bring you out of your head, help you ground, and settle back into your body. When you notice yourself feeling stressed, overwhelmed by emotion, or ‘out of control’ in your body, begin by stating what is on your mind and naming the level of stress on a scale of 0 -10. Then begin tapping with the index and middle finger on the heel of the hand, the area below the nose, the area below the lips, the collarbone, or the top of the head. As you are gently tapping on one, or a few, of these areas, repeat a statement you want to integrate into your body; create a statement that both acknowledges the issue / stressor AND compassionately accepts yourself despite the problem. Continue tapping and repeating this phrase until the intensity of your stress / emotion has lowered and you feel yourself coming back to calm in your body.