Mindfulness

What is Mindfulness?

Imagine buying a health-food snack. Later you sit in front of the TV and eat it. Afterwards you realise that you barely tasted the snack because your attention was on the TV. You check the packet and see that the supposedly healthy snack was actually full of sugar and additives.

Like the snack, we often make choices based on assumptions – it looks healthy on the surface so it’s healthy inside. We eat, work, talk, all the day to day activities – while never fully experiencing them.

Without real focus we make judgments and decisions based on mistaken assumptions, we eat health foods that are not healthy, end up in jobs we don’t enjoy, or in relationship with people we don’t truly connect with.

Mindfulness is about bringing us more fully into the present, experiencing things more deeply and directly. This leads to a better understanding of ourselves and our lives, the ability to make more authentic choices, and act in ways that draw us closer to the life we truly wish to lead.

Modern culture is increasingly fast-paced and superficial. Most films are just a series of explosions or set-pieces, we react to headlines, everything is TL/DR, our jobs are about producing more, faster, for less, with no art or substance, we click from post to comment to video to chat, barely registering what we read or see.

It’s impossible to make a well-informed choice in this information blizzard, so we end up with unsatisfying results wondering how we got there. Mindfulness and a rest from the frantic pace of life is essential in maintaining balance, a quiet mind and real emotional well-being.