When we hear of mindfulness, we often think of meditation or new-age alternative therapy. Still, mindfulness at its heart is simple, and an essential human skill, and being mindful is simply about paying attention to what is happening around us. Something that we often forget to do when we’re rushing around in our daily lives.
Yes, an outcome of being mindful can be feelings of calm, relaxation and happiness, and also, yes, meditation can be a helpful tool to help some people achieve it. But it’s important to understand that the main aim of mindfulness is to:
- Recognise what is going on around you without attachment and judgement
- Be awoken from our unawareness so we can react, change direction, be more conscious and switch off auto-pilot
- Regain a sense of control and help us navigate our thoughts and feelings
- Stay in the present and let go of things that we don’t have complete control over, like the future, or no control, the past.
Of course, as we become more mindful, we are just as likely to experience challenging and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings as we are feelings of happiness, relaxation and calm. We’ll go into more detail on this in other Peps.