what is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is purposeful, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. You can bring awareness to your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviors, or to your senses (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures). Mindfulness is a skill that can be developed through practice.
You have probably experienced many moments of mindfulness, such as being completely lost in a beautiful sunset, favorite song, or task that you love. You have probably also experienced many less-than-mindful moments when you have been on “autopilot,” drifting through the day without really noticing what’s happening, or have been absorbed in thoughts about the past or worries about the future.
why is mindfulness important?
Our lives are happening right now, in the present moment, but we are often mentally “stuck” in the past or future. When this happens, we can miss out on engaging with our experiences as they happen. For example, have you ever been so lost in worries that you didn’t pay attention to or enjoy something you had been looking forward to (a meal, a hike, a vacation, a party, etc.)? Sometimes it’s as if those experiences didn’t even happen because you were mentally absent from them.
Mindfulness brings us back into the present so we can experience and engage with life as it happens.
what does mindfulness have to do with therapy?
The ability to be mindful — to step back and observe our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors from a distance — is essential to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This awareness is key to change: we can only change what we are aware of.
Further, when we can observe our thoughts and emotions as they happen, we can choose what we want to do in the moment, rather than having our emotions decide for us. Think of someone who is consumed by anger and says things they later deeply regret. Now think of how differently things might go if, instead, this person had been able to notice that they were starting to feel angry and decide what they wanted to do.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy involves becoming aware of thought and behavior patterns and working to change the patterns that aren’t serving us. Mindfulness is invaluable to this process.
Mindfulness Myths Debunked
Mindfulness is supposed to make You feel calm and relaxed. If it doesn’t, You’re doing something wrong.
Actually, being mindful means you are observing whatever you are thinking and feeling in the moment. Perhaps you had been feeling tense and anxious, but you were so distracted or busy that you didn’t even notice. If you stop to tune in and notice how you are feeling in that moment, you may not feel calm or relaxed! But over time, by being mindful, you are also learning to let in and make room for those “negative” feelings rather than trying to push them away.
If you’ve practiced mindfulness, you might be saying, “But I DO feel more calm when I practice mindfulness!” This is common. But the more attached you are to that outcome (e.g., “I MUST feel calm”), the more pressure you feel, which actually makes it less likely that you’ll feel calm.
Any time you observe your present experience, you are being mindful. There is no required outcome.
You should be able to clear Your mind of all thoughts. That’s what it means to be mindful.
Our minds are made to wander. They generate endless streams of thoughts on innumerable topics all day, every day. If you are noticing that your mind wanders a great deal when you try to practice mindfulness, great! Noticing the fact that your mind wandered means you were mindful. Mindfulness isn’t the absence of thoughts, it’s observing those thoughts and bringing your attention back to whatever it is you were focusing on.
