What is Mindfulness?

 

It’s a question that comes up quite often & not easy to answer with words alone...

 

Why Mindfulness & what is it...?

 

Mindfulness is the practice of becoming fully aware of the present moment, your experience in the now - be that thoughts, emotions, body sensations, behaviours or the stories that chatter in out heads, in a non-judgemental, kind and curious way - helping us to put aside our habitual ways of behaving and thinking such as ruminating, replaying the past or rehearsing the future, and adopting a new way of being with our experience.

 

Mindfulness can be practised through meditation as well as through daily activities and is an effective tool for dealing with daily stress, anxiety, depression, pain and has many more proven and researched health benefits.

 

Regular practice enables individuals to lead more enjoyable and fulfilling lives, approach life’s difficulties in a different way, improve relationships, optimise wellbeing plus countless other benefits....

 

I overheard a fellow Mindfulness teacher once say that trying to describe what Mindfulness is would be asking to describing what love is or what art is. Sure, you could write a succinct explanation, a sentence or a catchy quote, or you could write a thousand words to describe it & you’d get an idea or a feel for it but Mindfulness really has to be experienced first hand to start gaining some understanding of what it is & the effects it can have.

 

It has been said that Mindfulness is so simple that even a toddler can understand it but so complex that a zen master still has to practice.

 

Please do have a look at what hellomindful offers & start or refresh your Mindfulness journey.

 

Here at Hello Mindful we know how pain, difficulty and struggles can be transformed into something new and we would like to share these tools with you.

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Where does Mindfulness originate?

 

Although the words ‘Mindfulness‘ & ‘Mindful’ have, over recent years become quite popular & are now part of our every day vocabulary, the term & practice has been around for over 2,400 years. It is believed to be the type of Meditation that the Buddha was practicing when he gained enlightenment whilst sat under the Bodhi tree searching for the answers to life’s big questions. Even though the Buddha coined the term ‘mindfulness’ ( sati, meaning ‘awareness’ in Sanskrit, the ancient language the Buddha would have used) it is considered a universal term & meditation practice & over the years has found its way into western culture.

 

The Mindfulness practices & courses that are now used in modern culture are available to anyone & everyone who has an interest whether you follow a Buddhist/spiritual path or not. How can Mindfulness help me...? There are a wealth of benefits that a regular Mindfulness practice can bring into your life & over recent years there have been 1000’s of research papers to prove the benefits (you can find some of these in the resources page in this website).

 

There are even brain scans to show how meditation can actually change our neural pathways...for the better. Mindfulness has been shown to reduce depression help soothe anxiety help manage & calm stress, promote better sleep, increase creativity & focus improve relationships help with addiction help reduce chronic pain. Mindfulness has been recognised by the national institute of clinical excellence as a first line treatment for those at risk of relapse of depression & has shown to be equally as effective as anti depressants, without the side effects...

 

 

There’s never a better moment than this very one to start your mindfulness journey toward better wellbeing. Please have a look at what we offer here & say hello to a new Mindful way of being.