This is your present moment. The only state you live in. Some of us even dare to mention the continuous present as the state in which you live. This is the basis of the meaning of Mindfulness. Understand that your moment is the current one, that the past no longer exists and the future will come. In this previous article I already talked about 8 basic poses for beginners in mindfulness meditation. Next I will tell you about an approach to the impressive book by Jon Kabat-Zinn and that gives us keys to know how to apply Mindfulness in everyday life.
That in the Buddhist perspective the state of consciousness during waking hours is considered to be more like a prolonged dream than a true waking state. And that meditation helps to wake up from that dream characterized by automatic functioning and unconsciousness, which gives us the possibility of living our lives having access to the entire spectrum of our conscious and unconscious possibilities.
When we commit ourselves to paying attention in an open way – without getting caught up in what we like or dislike, our biases and opinions, our projections and expectations – new possibilities open up before us and we are presented with an opportunity to free ourselves from the shirt of force of unconsciousness.
Mindfulness means paying attention in a certain way. Deliberately in the present moment. Without judgment. Thus allowing to develop a greater awareness, clarity and acceptance of reality. It is a way of taking charge of the direction and quality of our own life.
With this I understand that we live life with automatisms and unconsciousness. That we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to wake up from our slumber. Our mind keeps us immobile before the possibility of mindfulness. The mind takes the path of automatisms to take us to its daily routine.
With this, he proposes meditation to achieve mindfulness that awakens us. In this way, you can see that your life unfolds only in your present moment.
How to apply mindfulness in everyday life.
Tip 1. Be careful with your daily routines.
Try to abandon the routines and automatisms that make you advance each day in the same way. Live the experience of the present moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn also indicates that the practice of mindfulness is not easy as it requires effort and discipline. The forces working against us are extremely tenacious and intense. We tend not to be aware that we are thinking practically all the time. Without a doubt, this leaves us few breaks to experience inner silence. Besides, it hardly leaves us very little space to simply be.
On stress, he concludes that it is an inevitable part of life and for him meditation. It helps to see things clearly and deliberately position ourselves differently in relation to them.
Does this mean that stress is inevitable? It is probable, although I think I understand that the meaning is that on many occasions we must learn not to worsen the situation and above all to make ourselves the victims of the situations in which we are, because that is a negative contribution to our development. We must understand how to deal with the situation, with stress. Accept the situation since the energy that it will bring us will be the essence necessary to live consciously and calmly.
How to apply mindfulness in everyday life.
Tip 2. Meditation.
Regarding the fact of meditating, the author believes that people often confuse meditation with relaxation and that when they try it 1 or 2 times and do not get anywhere they do not feel anything special. Thus they think they are unable to meditate.
But meditation is not about feeling the way we feel. It is not about emptying or calming the mind. It has to do with allowing the mind to be as it is and having a certain knowledge about how it is in that moment.
It involves spending time stopping all external activity and deliberately cultivating stillness. With no other purpose than to be fully present at every moment. It is synonymous with practicing non-action. Practice in order to understand and experience directly that things are already perfect as they are.
It suggests not allowing our anxieties and our desire to achieve certain results to dominate the quality of the moment, even when things are painful.
Is this wonderful. An ideal definition to understand that meditation is not finding the moment of calm but your present moment of accepting your situation and above all accepting your present moment. Thoreau said:
To affect the quality of day is the greatest of the arts.
How to apply mindfulness in everyday life.
Tip 3. Don’t judge
Our mind is constantly evaluating our experiences, comparing them with others or comparing them with the expectations and levels of demands that we create, often due to fear. The fear of not being good enough, that negative things will happen, or that positive things will not last.
Judgments are generally unsupported personal opinions. They are reactions and prejudices based on limited knowledge and influenced by our conditionings from the past.
Not judging does not mean that we stop knowing how to act or behave in society. It means that if we know that we are immersed in an unconscious stream of preferences that isolates us from the world, we can act much more clearly in our lives and be more balanced. We can be more effective and abide by ethical conduct.
In this case, it determines that we unconsciously judge out of fear and we make it compare ourselves with certain experiences or according to the levels of demands that we have that are usually conceived by our past conditioning. Meditation will help us to cultivate a judgment-free attitude towards what emerges in the mind and to acknowledge it without condensing or promoting it.
How to apply mindfulness in everyday life.
Tip 4. Be generous.
Regarding generosity, he tells us that we should try to notice the resistance to the urge to give. Notice the concerns that arise regarding the future. The feeling that perhaps we are giving too much or that the act will not be sufficiently appreciated. That we will not make any profit or that we do not have for ourselves. These are then fear-based self-protection mechanisms. Feelings that cause pain to ourselves and others.
These terms can be connected to the following statement:
We shouldn’t have to have opinions about everything. We should not have to be invincible or insensitive to others. We must allow ourselves to be in touch with all feelings because what appears to be weakness is where strength lies and what appears to be strength is often weakness, an attempt to hide fear.
How to apply mindfulness in everyday life.
Tip 5. Sitting meditation.
It represents the willingness to look closely at pain, confusion, and loss, if that is what is dominating the present moment, and to stay with observation for an extended period of time, beyond thought.
Practicing sitting meditation means sitting in a way that our body radiates and transmits an attitude of presence, that we are committed to recognizing and accepting everything that emerges; it is characterized by non-attachment.
Kabat-Zinn recognizes that unconsciousness involves those moments that could be opportunities to see transience in action. Therefore, if we drop an object we must pick it up, if we use a glass we must clean it and if we open a closet we must close it. We must abandon the usual practice without consciousness, we must try to be in contact with our present moment and pay full attention to the meaning rather than its form so that we can then see things as they are, to recognize the moment in which we meet.
How to apply mindfulness in everyday life.
Tip 6. Get up early.
The virtues of getting up early have nothing to do with adding hours of activity and eagerness to our day. They arise from the stillness and loneliness of that hour and the potential to use that time to expand consciousness, contemplate, deliberately take time to be and do nothing. It also gives us the advantage of starting the day in a very real way and with a solid base of mindfulness and inner peace.
If you want to learn more about Mindfulness, let me recommend that you know what will become of Mindfulness in 100 years .
