A lot of people are talking about mindfulness these days, on the radio, in the paper. But what exactly is mindfulness?
We may have all sorts of ideas about it, and that is OK, because that is what happens when we become curious about something. If you had never seen an orange and asked me to explain what it tasted like, the same problems in understanding would happen, and it would only be once you had tasted that orange for yourself that you could begin to understand what it tasted like, for you would have experienced it for yourself. And like tasting the orange, some may like it, some may not, and some would differ in their explanation of it.
So initially mindfulness has been taken from ancient Buddhist teaching by a very clever man called Jon Kabat-Zinn, and he developed it into an eight week course to help people with pain management. From here it has had a very interesting journey, and is now recommended by NICE for the treatment for anxiety and depression. It turns out that it can help us all in so many ways.
Whether we decide to join an eight week course, to really learn and train in the practice of meditation, or just drop into meditation sessions when and where, it can offer a tool to enable us to slow down in our very fast lives; it offers a brake pedal. It can lower stress and anxiety by helping us find some peaceful times and slow our thinking self down. After all it is often our thoughts which create problems; perhaps preventing sleep, or ruminating so that we get depressed, or over think things, or just wear us out or drive us too fast. Mindfulness can be said to enable us to be in the here and now. Our lives are basically lived in the here and now, but so often we are not with the here and now, so what is happening to our lives, I ask myself? Thinking can take us back to the past and off to the future. Thinking is not necessarily bad. We all think, nearly all the time, and some thoughts are helpful and have created many good things in life. However, we need to be master of our thoughts, not the other way round. We may even access joy when we live in the moment. It may be quite small things which bring us back to the moment, such as seeing a flower, noticing a bird.
It is hard to describe exactly what mindfulness is, as demonstrated with the example of the orange, but my best effort is this. The best effort of all is to try it for yourself.
Robin Young 17th February, 2016.