What is Mindfulness?

In my opinion, it’s understanding and connecting, on all levels (soul / mind / body), with how you feel at the present moment.

Whilst mindfulness is a popular term, I prefer the term ‘being present’ as to me this seems more accurate.

Being present means focusing on your current self, to therefore be more, you.

Instead of your mind living in the past, or the future, you are in the present moment. To a certain extent, the more your concentration is in the moment, the more it opens up. Also, by giving yourself the intention of focusing on the task (say to yourself, “I’m going to concentrate on this to nth degree”), you effectively allow your whole self to be immersed in that thing.

By immersing yourself in something, you essentially ‘open the gates’ to allow for a greater bandwidth of concentration. When your senses are heightened, and open, you are capable of taking on more of those senses.

In essence, through the power of concentration, and commitment to that concentration, your experience is of a higher definition.

Whilst there are some core meditations that you can partake in, which will enable you to uncover things from the past, and reflect on those past experiences, these run on a slightly different wavelength, as you are engaging different parts of your brain, to recall those events.

Unless you dedicate significant energy to the meditation, your current experience, of both the past and the future could be distorted.

In short, observing the past / future can often have some kind of additional ego attached to it.

The present, is always true, to your current reality.

In terms of your inner wirings, when your being present, you have a direct feed from your senses, to your general being, in that very moment, unfiltered. When you recall information, you are not connecting with your physical senses.

There could be a hefty thesis written on this, but in short, there are a few common benefits, and some benefits to the particular task you are doing, whilst practising Mindfulness.

Limited fabrication of the past / future

Your soul / mind / body will be less ‘caught up’ with potentially fabricated versions of the past / future.

Instead, you will be ‘live and direct’ with the current state of the world.

Concentration

Concentration on the task at hand, will naturally make you better at what you are doing.

The more dangerous or skilled a task is, the more it will benefit from mindfulness.

That being said, fully enjoying a situation for what it is, is also beneficial. For instance, if you are having your favourite ice cream, why not fully take in the experience rather than surfing the internet at the same time!

Expectation vs Reality

The imagination is a fantastic thing, but it can set expectations of the future or the past, too high or low.

This can make you feel dampened, when things do not meet your expectations.

Being more present doesn’t run off the pretext of a predicted outcome, and therefore allows you to be more fluid with your environment. It also makes you more flexible to changes in plans.

When things don’t go to plan, this can bring up all kinds of feelings, such as awkwardness or rejection, which do not need to be fabricated into the equation.

Whilst we can never remove all of the preconceptions of a situation, the more we experience life, as an observer, the more fluid we let life become.

Living a ‘full bandwidth reality’

If you imagine your senses as a collection of inputs, ignoring them simply reduces your connection with the world.

Allowing yourself to focus on those senses not only increases the sensitivity of those senses, but it also increases the bandwidth / capacity of those senses for the next day.

Yes, some of our physical senses naturally deteriorate over time. That being said, it’s safe to say, an older person who is very present, is experience more, than a younger person with ‘their eyes shut’ so to speak.

In the English culture, sometimes the expression ‘be mindful of someone’ could be seen as a way of imposing cultural or social norms onto a person.

Being mindful, within this context, isn’t about adhering to other people’s belief systems or cultural norms, it’s about being present, hence I prefer the term ‘being present’.

Mindfulness also isn’t about how people perceive you. You should be worried about how people perceive you when doing mindfulness, instead, you should simply be focused on what you are focused on.