English (UK)
ItalianoWhat is Mindfulness
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinn, who introduced mindfulness into mainstream medicine and western society, has defined mindfulness meditation as:
“The awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally”.
Besides a type of meditation, Mindfulness is also the human ability to focus on and be aware of the present moment experience, paying attention to what is happening in our inner world (thoughts and feelings), in the body (physical sensations), and in the outside world (sounds, visuals).
Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment.
Cultivating mindfulness can improve our mental and physical wellbeing, enabling us to become more conscious of others and ourselves. By practicing mindfulness we will have a clearer understanding about the mind and body connection, which is essential for developing a more harmonious, efficient and creative relationship with the world and ourselves.
Mindfulness meditation gives us a time-space in our lives when we can suspend judgment, explore our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind and approach our experience with warmth and kindness.
How does it work?
Has it ever happened to you to find yourself lost in thoughts brooding over past events while your mind is making judgments, assumptions, and criticisms?
Has it ever happened to you to find yourself planning the future and feeling worried about it? These are common experiences that we as human beings are familiar with.
In both situations we are not living the present moment because we are busy thinking about either the past or the future. Our mind is engaged in thinking, reflecting, daydreaming, planning, anticipating, worrying, forgetting, remembering, and so on.
Mindfulness plays its effective role exactly when the mind is generating a series of thoughts.
By training the mind to pay attention to the moment-to-moment experience, we can help to alleviate the stressful and repetitive considerations and judgments our mind makes by default.
Mindfulness can be cultivated through a series of formal and informal practices. Formal practices are called meditations such as being seated, walking, lying down, standing, and moving.
Informal practice refers to any activity that we do in daily life with full attention. Any simple routine activity can be considered a mindfulness exercise when we bring full awareness to it such as having a shower, doing the washing up, reading, etc.
The best way to know what mindfulness is to try it for yourself!
Who is it for and where it should be practiced?
Mindfulness can be beneficial for people from different walks of life and different age groups (from children to older adults) and it can be practiced in groups or individually.
It can be practiced in different places such as the home, hospitals, schools, and workplaces.