Meditation
Meditation
Practicing Mindfulness
INTRODUCTION
Mindfulness is a meditation technique designed to let you discover what is going on in your mind, of becoming aware of what is happening to you right now. People who benefit from mindfulness tend to be those who feel that the world is just too fast, whose minds are always racing and who worry about the future or dwell on the past but never seem to be in the moment. It is also good for people with depression. Mindfulness lets depressives become aware of their thoughts and how they arise. Awareness of the triggers for thoughts helps to stop rumination, the habit of going over past negative situations or imagining events and situations that make you feel bad.
Theory
The idea underlying the Mindfulness Technique is that in order to fix a problem, you first have to become aware of the problem. Many people are so busy worrying, stressing or criticising themselves that they never have time to think. People often catch themselves reacting unthinkingly in situations, they feel as if they get taken over by some kind of automatic pilot, as if they are watching their lives being run by somebody else, that they are not in control of what happens after somebody says or does something.
Often what they are reacting to is an intrusive recollection of past abuses or past mistakes or an overwhelming fear of what will happen if they are unable to cope. When that happens, people are not reacting to things as they actually are, but panicking due a memory of similar things in the past that went terribly wrong. In order to overcome this terrible fear they are automatically and blindly launched into old routines and behaviors, even though those behaviours are not appropriate any more. They feel that they are being forced to perform the whole routine from beginning to end. This is because their own unconscious has taken over in order to 'protect' them from what it thinks is a terrible immediate danger. At the end of the performance the person finds everyone looking at them, or they find themselves emotionally distraught and the new feelings of shock or shame only reinforces the original fear and makes it worse next time.
Aim
Mindfulness is a way of taking back control of what is going in your life. The basic technique is simply to become aware of what is happening in your body and in your mind from moment to moment, simply to observe, to allow what is happening to happen, without making any value judgments about whether it is good or bad. The goal is to observe, not to try to influence or alter anything. It is an attitude to life as much as is it is technique of meditation. It is very similar to the technique of Fascination, a focused, almost obsessive curiosity about what is happening in your mind, and where your thoughts come from.
Mindfulness aims to allow you to create a compassionate relationship with yourself, by eliminating self criticism and recognising persist negative thoughts. By allowing yourself to become a passive observer of your own inner events, you can become aware of automatic responses in behaviour or thinking.
The next section explains how to perform a typical Mindfulness Exercise.