What is Mindful Meditation All About?
Mindfulness, a term pegged by biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn in the late seventies, has been popping up more frequently when talking about mental health these days. Later, Kabat-Zinn would open the Center for Mindfulness at University of Massachusetts Medical School. You might be familiar with the SEL movement that came around about five years ago. The Social and Emotional Learning technique had different focuses than the practice of mindfulness does. Based off of Buddhist meditations, mindfulness meditations are about honing in on what you’re feeling internally and externally. Buddha taught that the root of suffering is ego and desire, so the idea behind this practice is to move past these two causes to find true happiness by making yourself aware of them.
Unlike the more popular form of meditation where you let go of all your thoughts, mindfulness meditation can be more intense as it forces you to deal with whatever you’re facing. If you feel truly content, then you can bask in that pleasure without trying to find a reason to worry about anything. When you’re in a place of conflict or struggle, however, meditations can lead to unexpected realizations that may hurt at first, but are productive in the end. You have to decide whether you’ll make a change to get yourself out of the situation you’re in or accept where you are once and for all. Remember, you can’t control everything – there are some things that may upset you that will never change, and accepting that fact is the first step towards a lot of growth.
This meditation teaches you to pay attention to your surroundings with the intent to fully, truly, and honestly feel everything in the moment. It’s helped groups of people in companies to work more efficiently and with more focus. Attention, empathy, and communication improve while stress, anxiety, depression, and the effects of aging on the brain are all lowered. Schools across the nation have implemented mindfulness into their curriculums to help kids learn skills early, especially those who are already at risk of falling behind either because of their socioeconomic, health, family, or living situations.
To try out this kind of meditation, find a spot with as few distractions as possible. Sit in a position that’s comfortable for you and remember that you can meditate for however long you want to. Slowly building up by adding a few minutes every other time you meditate is a steady way to reach whichever level of consciousness you’re seeking. Focus on your physical body, your senses, your breaths, your environment, and finally, your thoughts. There are free guided meditations online of different lengths and even some versions in Spanish you can choose from. With practice, you’ll eventually be able to reach that state of awareness whenever you need to and live in true happiness.
