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Mindfulness.

Annapoorni Balan Principal IUEF SECRETARY GENERAL for Pooma Educational Trust.
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness.
It means waking up out of autopilot and ‘taking the steering wheel’ of our attention again.
We practice mindfulness by maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and the surrounding environment.
Mindfulness also involves non-judgment, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings with the attitude of an impartial witness — without believing them or taking them personally.
Mindfulness is defined as:
“Paying attention;
On purpose,
in the present moment, and
non-judgmentally.”
I like this definition because it allows us to see exactly what the components of mindfulness are. Through this definition Jon shows us that there are three specific ways in which our attention ‘shifts gears’ when we practice mindfulness.
Firstly our attention is held…
1. ON PURPOSE
Mindfulness involves the conscious and deliberate direction of our attention.
When we’re on autopilot our attention is being swept up by a never ending (and not always positive) current of thought processes but when we’re mindful we ‘wake up’ and step out of that current, placing attention where we choose.
Another way of saying ‘on purpose’ is consciously. We are living more consciously, more awake, more fully ourselves when we pay attention in this way.
Secondly our attention is immersed…
2. IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
If we leave it to it’s own devices our mind habitually wanders away from the present moment. It constantly gets caught up in the replaying the past and the projecting into the future. In other words, we’re very rarely fully present in the moment.
Mindful attention, however, is completely engaged in the present moment experience – the here and now. We let go of the tension caused by wanting things to be different, the tension of constantly wanting more, and instead we accept the present moment as it is.
And third, our attention is held…
3. NON JUDGMENTALLY
When practicing mindfulness we’re not aiming to control or suppress or stop our thoughts.
We simply aim to pay attention to our experiences as they arise without judging or labelling them in any way.
Mindfulness then allows us to become the watcher of sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions as they arise without getting caught up in them and being swept away in their current.
Becoming the watcher in this way, we’re less likely to mechanically play out old habitual ways of thinking and living. It opens up a new freedom and choice in our lives.

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