Mindfulness

"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment and non- judgementally." 
Jon Kabat- Zinn

Our mind experiences a continual barrage of thoughts and feelings, our reactions happen automatically- whether it’s what we want or not, and the pattern of the way we do things becomes habit. Can we take more control?

We have about 50-70,000 thoughts a day- there's a constant stream of thoughts that move through our minds and a lot of the time our mind is not actually focused on what we're doing.

Maybe you can relate to sitting down to work, and catching yourself jumping between tasks and feeling like you’re not really doing anything properly? Or you find yourself worrying about the future or dwelling on painful memories… why did I say that? why didn’t I do …. We do a lot of thinking! Is it always helpful even necessary?

Often it can be difficult to switch off at night and go to sleep, our minds are busy going through all the things we have to do and haven’t done…

It can seem like our mind has a mind of its own. Sometimes the mind is referred to as a “monkey mind” because just like a monkey jumps from branch to branch the untrained mind jumps from thought to thought, very rarely able to stay in one place. 

Teach a dog new tricks?  

There's a saying 'you can't teach a dog new tricks' but can our brain learn new ways of responding and reacting ? 

Scientific studies have now identified something called 'neuroplasticity'- a buzz word that refers to the ability of the brain to reorganise itself, both physically and functionally. This means that those automatic thoughts, feelings and reactions can be changed- we’re not trapped, or locked into old ways and patterns of thinking and responding. The good news is that our brain can be rewired! I sometimes think that practising mindfulness, 'defrags' my brain like you 'defrag' your computer to get it to run more effectively.

Mindfulness 

Mindfulness is a way of training our minds so that we can choose where we want to focus our attention and keep it there.

It can seem as brain hygiene or brain fitness training. So, just like you brush your teeth everyday, you brush your brain every day with mindfulness. By exercising the attention "muscle" of the mind you strengthen the mind to be more focussed, and calm and you become mentally fitter. By taking more control over our focus of attention and making choices as to what we want to focus on we start to train and control our mind.
The power is with us- we can rewire our brain!

Practicing mindfulness

There’s a wide variety of ways to practice mindfulness- meditation, breathing, walking, doing the dishes, eating…

Mindfulness of the breath can be a good way to start. It's where you focus on your breath and when you find that your attention has wandered, you lovingly return your attention back to the breath. You continue to just sense the in breath and the out breath. It's like you're riding the wave of your breath. Again and again you return your attention back to the breath- whenever you notice that your focus has strayed from the breath.

"You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." Jon Kabat- Zinn

I invite you to allow yourself  3 minutes to follow this mindfulness exercise lead by Jon Kabat- Zinn