The Secret of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the ability to be simply mindful. It means to grasp the present moments as it is.
Whether that’s in the sounds, our movements, breath or even slight adjustments, all of it is considered being mindful since we are truly in the present moment focusing on an aspect of it.
Generally, mindfulness is associated with meditation but it comes in different forms as well.
It can also be achieved through journaling or even walking. Meditation might be the easiest link to connect for mindfulness for most but that doesn’t mean there are no other ways to enable it.
Staring at the board for an hour is being mindful as well. Simply being self-aware is mindfulness.
That being said, mindfulness is simply observing things as they are without any judgement nor thought. It’s simply reality.
The most useful aspect however, is to ensure that we increase the duration in which we are mindful throughout the day.
These moments help us to snap back to the present moment and observe for what it is.
Engulfing in our thoughts about the past or future meaninglessly without being grateful about the present we have is unfortunate but also common.
Using mindfulness, we let go of such thoughts.
Imagine creating a scenario where you argue with your co-worker and getting angry over it. It’s utterly pointless and a waste of your health, time and resources.
And yet, we unconsciously live in this all time. Even realistic fears such as thinking about your exam tomorrow.
But on a fundamental level, we do not know if we exist in a future nor if our past did occur at all but we truly know that this consciousness is real and thus, the present moment is all we have.
Yet we still squander the present moment for meaningless thoughts.
We focus on the tree and lose sight of the forest.
There have been many instances in our lives where the things we imagined even though they should have occurred, did not occur.
The exam should have occurred but it simply did not. So who is to answer for all the time you wasted on stressing over the exam that got postponed? None other than yourself.
In that moment, it’s important to realize that you have suffered more than what is necessary.
We often suffer before it is necessary. We suffer even before getting the results of the exam itself.
We obviously instinctively know this and a few times broke away from this trapped mindset but we are pulled back into this mediocrity again and again.
Just like Michel de Montaigne said, “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”
Most of our suffering is mental and from ourselves especially in the modern era we live in.
All this said, there are a few more problems that mindfulness helps us identify.
We are not our thoughts
The first step is to stop identifying with our thoughts.
While it’s nice to identify our thoughts as voices which means our rational self, this could not be further from the truth.
Thinking has largely been praised and rightfully so since every achievement of mankind is essentially from a thought that eventually was brought into action but there’s a trade-off.
Our thoughts are never us, not to mention that they appear randomly from our consciousness.
How and why they appear is debatable but the fact of the matter is that they are not within our apparatus of control.
This means that we are simply engaging in random thoughts which is not only utterly foolish but a complete waste of time as well.
To put some context, this is as absurd as walking up to strangers on the street and simply conversing with them and later getting disappointed that some reacted in ways we were displeased or offended with.
Things are even worse with the modern-day gadgets which are intentionally targeted to make us feel in certain ways to engage with their product further.
In the scenario of the earlier example, this means that social media rage baits us to converse with angry strangers.
In thought process, this simply means to dive into the imagery scenario or thought and dwell onto it with hatred despite it having no relation to us.
This is one of the key reasons to quit social media. It only provides the extremes of life which our mind loves to feed on.
Coming back to the topic, the best way to defuse such a situation is obvious.
Simply let go of thoughts or rather that impulse to spirale and ruminate on the thought.
If there are questions on a paper, this is basically leaving out the questions you don’t know and writing what you know.
Sometimes the answer is simply to ignore, we don’t have to engage in a situation always. There's another option than to either do or die.
We can often walk away from the fight, especially mental fights.
This increasingly means that developing techniques to either avoid or face such hardships are far more important than they ever were.
Common patterns
Mindfulness is quite useful in finding out the key areas you are often lacking in or go back to.
For example, if you are prone to easily indulge in thoughts regarding sorrow, mindfulness can make you self-aware of this fact.
Or maybe you quickly judge and apply a label for things such as calling.
You would normally think negatively even though there’s no evidence that he didn’t answer because he’s not a friend but if you’re mindful enough, you let go of such thoughts.
The correct answer is to be patient and see what things are for what it’s worth.
These parts of yourself can be focused and isolated to deal with it well.
These impulsive or proclivities can often mean certain patterns we engage with.
It helps us realize the trigger points or problems that lead us to the problem we encounter and these problems are rather more common than we think as well.