What is mindfulness?
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally”
-Jon Kabat-Zinn
Benefits
Our goal in mindfulness practice is to wake up to the present moment and in doing so, we wake up to our lives. So often we find ourselves lost in worry about the past or future, we lose sight of what is happening right now. We try to avoid what we are feeling or make it go away. Through mindfulness we can become aware of our experience in the present and find acceptance with it. A common misconception with mindfulness meditation is that it is supposed to relax us or make us feel better and while it’s great when that happens, striving for these things can actually make the opposite occur. Through acknowledging our pain and accepting it, we prevent ourselves from suffering.
Mindfulness enables us to get better acquainted with our present moment experience. We learn to focus our attention and as a result we are able to take pause, giving us the opportunity to respond versus simply reacting.
How to Practice
There are many ways to practice mindfulness—more than just sitting in traditional meditation. We can approach almost any activity with mindfulness: drinking a cup of coffee, brushing our teeth, dancing, walking, and the list goes on. A simple way to begin your practice is through focusing on the breath. Throughout our day, we are often not readily aware of our breath. It is an automatic process for our body. In taking the time to focus on just this one act, we become aware of all of the intricacies of breathing: the rise and fall of the chest, the shift in temperature on the tip of your nose as the cool air enters and warm breath leaves you, the stretching of the belly, the gentle spreading of the shoulder blades. Our mind will inevitably wander away from the breath—this is what it naturally does. The practice of mindfulness is in acknowledging that our mind has wandered and bringing it back, focusing once again on inhaling and exhaling. There are no successful and unsuccessful meditations, so long as we are bringing our intention of awareness. Sometimes our mind wanders a little and other times a lot, both are just experiences to notice.
Houston Area Resources
The Jung Center
https://junghouston.org
Houston Zen Center
https://houstonzen.org
Hines Center for Spirituality
https://www.hinescenter.org
Disclaimer: Caitlin Payne LCSW, PLLC is not responsible for the content on any of these platforms or actions of any of these organizations, including the people who engage with them. Please proceed at your own discretion.