Mindfulness- How it affects the quality of your life.

by Pivot Holistic Health / Tuesday, 10 January 2017 / Published in Mindfulness Training, Public Blog

Have you every been spending time with someone and they seem so wrapped up in their own thoughts, as if they are physically here but mentally they are a million miles away. You know from experience that the quality of your time is not the same as if they were fully here and engaged with you and your interactions. This is an observable quality of someone who is not practicing mindfulness. Our society has so much input- TV, internet, phone, radio, work- there are millions of other places for our mind to be other than where we physically are. For someone raising children or trying to build a meaningful relationship with someone, this distracted mind may actually prevent us from connecting and bonding in the way we want to with the people that mean the most to us.

Often we are mainly unaware of our mind running wild, going wherever it wants to wander. Just like a child, they see something over there that looks interesting and off they go to explore. Many times where we allow our mind to wander is not a thought that is going to benefit us- it is not a constructive thought. There is a point where worry is beneficial, it helps us plan our future actions and explore options to outcomes. However, there is a point where we cross a threshold and we have started obsessing over something we just can not change, no matter how much we think about it. This increases our stress, our distraction and can prevent us from enjoying the things we should.

Mindfulness has been around for thousands of years, it is not new. It is relatively new to the United States however. We are just now realizing all the benefits of practicing mindfulness, I have included an article that highlights these many benefits below.

When we start to practice mindfulness, we become aware of our thoughts on a whole other level. For instance, if I said to you today: I want you to become aware of everything you came across today that is red. Make a list write it down and turn it in at the end of the day. You would probably see all kinds of things, many things that you see everyday that you may not have even noticed before. This is because we are bringing attention to it, when normally we don’t- this is exactly how mindfulness works.

We practice exercises that help lasso our mind and pull it back in when it gets distracted. Just by having the realization that you are having a thought that is not constructive, you can refocus your mind on something that is more constructive or even just be there in the moment. Being in the moment can be great when spending time with loved ones, or working on a project, or when you are on a hike or walk. We get to fully experience all that moment has to offer. Believe it or not even when we are experiencing something not so pleasant, such as an annoying co-worker, we can lessen the discomfort by becoming aware of it and using the tools we gained in mindfulness training to help us deal with these uncomfortable experiences. Even how we experience anger becomes transformed when we implement mindfulness.

You are in control, don’t forget that. When you get the tools through mindfulness training you open all kinds of doors to help you have the most constructive, fulfilling and enjoyable experiences possible throughout your normal day to day experiences.