One of my favorite quotes: “we live in a society where people are taught not to think.” This is a statement I hear often when I speak about mindfulness and our personal lives, and I think it’s important to consider how we can bring mindfulness into our everyday life. The act of mindful attention is something that is taught in school, but I think it is especially important to practice it in our daily lives.
I think a lot of us are really interested in mindfulness because we are not in control of our thoughts and actions. We often try to do things that we think will make us happy, but we end up doing things that we don’t like or are angry with ourselves because of them. I think this idea that we can become more mindful and less reactive is something that we can use to our advantage to get better in some areas of our lives.
Well, yes. Let’s start with the easiest one: being mindful of our thoughts. If we aren’t thinking about our actions and our reaction, then we’re probably not paying attention to what we’re doing. A better way to be mindful of our thoughts is to get out of the way and let them run. If we are actually paying attention to what we’re doing and what our emotions are, then we’ll be able to say we are practicing mindfulness.
That’s what we are doing with the folks at Will’s blog. We are practicing mindfulness by not being distracted by the things that are going on around us. This is what we have been doing all along. Not only is it easy to practice, but it can be very rewarding. I have been practicing mindfulness for years, and I’ve noticed that it helps me deal with the problems that go with the practice.
I know if I had to categorize you as either a mindful or non-mindful thinker, I would just call you that. And I think that has helped you. You are a person who is thoughtful. You have been practicing mindfulness for a long time and I think that is why you have been able to see the errors in your own thinking. And when you don’t, even for a moment, you really understand the difference between your own thoughts and the thoughts of others.
The practice of mindfulness is a practice that requires us to be aware of our thoughts – our automatic thoughts and ruminations. These are the thoughts that we automatically think when we’re not actually paying attention to our senses or to our surroundings. For example, when I’m driving and I’m thinking about how the radio is playing or the weather is driving me nuts, these are automatic thoughts and I don’t have to think about them.
It’s a very old practice, but it seems that most of us have been doing it since childhood, but are doing it less and less today. There seems to be this belief that mindfulness is something that people are born with, and not something that can be learned or developed. I feel that a lot of my clients and students do not understand the value of mindfulness, and the kind of mind and body changes that come when you practice it.
I have to be honest. I have never seen a day where I have not been doing the practice of mindfulness. I am also mindful of this. I find it strange that many of my students and students that I teach at the college level are still not mindful, and the majority of my clients are. We are all too quick to think that we are, so we forget that we are not. Even when we are not mindful, we are still aware of the thought that we are.
Many of us are so focused on the moment we are in that we are unaware of the time, space, or both. We feel like we are doing something great and doing it all the time, but we are not. When we are aware of ourselves and of our thoughts and emotions, we are much better able to focus on what we want to do, how we want to act, where we want to live, and what we want to be.
The problem with focusing on the moment is that we don’t have a clear focus. Instead we are always thinking about the next thing we want to do, what we are going to do, what we are thinking about, and how we feel. We are so focused on what we want, we forget to be focused on what we are doing. We forget to be aware of how we feel, what we are doing, and what we are thinking, because we are too focused on the moment.