Mindfulness exercises are transforming the world, is transforming yours?

Mindfulness exercises can change your life

In this article I will give a quick introduction into the field of mindfulness exercises and then focus on ways of practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness in plain english

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally to things as they are. Pay attention to what? To anything, especially aspects of life that we tend to take for granted. For example, we may pay attention to how we walk, what we are thinking when in the shower, or how we feel whilst browsing on the internet. Essentially this is an increased level of awareness. You can practice this briefly. Most people are not aware of their breathing for 99% of the time. So sit, close your eyes and just for one minute become aware of your breathing. Did that? Congratulations, you've just did a mindfulness exercise (and meditated!) Why does paying attention in this way help? Because it gives an opportunity to respond to stress rather than react. Mindfulness allows you to exert control and influence the flow of events when you are likely to react automatically. This is mindfulness based stress reduction. Mark Williams gives a nice introduction to the topic in this little video clip from Youtube:

We are not trying to suppress emotions when we respond to stress. We are learning to work with all our reactions, both emotional and physical, to see how we may respond more effectively. Awareness brings comfort of a certain kind. We could call this the comfort of being whole.

How do we increase this awareness?

Mindfulness exercises and mindfulness activities are becoming more and more popular. This implies certain dedicated exercises, mostly meditation based, put aside to assist with the increase of awareness and mindfulness. Some people claim they don't have time for these exercises and for them, I suggest a mindfulness clock of some sort to time the available time you DO have for these exercises. Mindfulness based stress reduction, mindfulness therapy and mindfulness based cognitive therapy and also gaining popularity. I can't help but point out what is possibly not as obvious. Like TM, Mindfulness are focusing on inducing consciousness through active dedicated exercises and practicing mindfulness during a dedicated time period (like meditation, etc.).

I am more in favor of the author Eckhart Tolle's approach as expressed in his book, The Power of Now. In essence he points out that the level of consciousness can become a permanent state. While he also has little exercises (they are more examples of awareness raisers), they are not meant to be dedicated to certain time periods. So practicing mindfulness will enhance the process of living in the NOW, one should not forget that it is so much more blissful to permanently be in the higher state of awareness or higher consciousness.

List of mindfulness exercises on video

This collection of videos start with a quick introduction videos from Youtube (you can scroll through them), Mark Williams' video (as above), 2 x 50 min lectures by Jon Kabat-Zinn and to conclude neuro-scientific analysis of the mindfulness exercises.

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