The act of mindfulness has come in to mainstream discussion more and more in recent years – used as a tool to help us focus more, eat less, get to know each other better, and appreciate life. Mindful meditation, mindful eating, mindful speaking, mindful thinking…. It’s true that practicing mindfulness allows us to engage more with the people around us, it stops us from making unconscious unhealthy food decisions, and it makes us able to view our thoughts without getting caught up in them. This is all very useful, but it is when we start to make mindfulness a part of our lives that everything changes.
Living with mindfulness allows us to approach each situation for just what it is, without judgment and open to the possibility that our fixed beliefs are not the only ‘truth’. We notice our habits; the ones that serve us well and the ones that don’t, so we can change for the better. Living with mindfulness encourages us to finally open our eyes to what we’ve been missing while we were living in our minds. It’s like taking off a pair of glasses that only let you see half of what is going on. Mindfulness allows us to live in the now, where we can fully experience life, rather than in the past or the future where our minds like to drag us to. Waking up to now allows us to see the world and everything in it – including ourselves – for the miracle it really is.
Mindful Monday Quote of the Week:
‘People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle’ – Thich Nhat Hanh
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