Mindfulness: What It Is And What It Isn't.

The word mindfulness is used a lot lately and there are a lot of misconceptions about what it actually is. Today I discuss mindfulness fact and fiction and what is meant by the words "awareness and acceptance".

Transcript

Let's talk a little bit about what mindfulness is and what mindfulness isn't.

There are a lot of misconceptions about mindfulness.

The word is being used a lot lately.

It's a buzzword and it's often being misused and misunderstood.

So mindfulness is not about toxic positivity.

It's not about mind blanking or having no thoughts.

It's not necessarily a spiritual thing where you have to go sit on a mountaintop.

It's not just for gurus.

It's not even about meditation.

What mindfulness is,

Is awareness and acceptance.

It's being aware of what's happening in the current moment and accepting it.

It's about not resisting what is.

Accepting life as it is on life's terms.

Now sometimes people bristle when they hear this because when they hear the word acceptance they think it means being a victim or being a doormat or letting life or other people walk all over you and that's not it at all.

Acceptance is about noting what is and accepting it as it is in that moment but using that moment,

Using that pause,

Using that space to decide if something can be done to change it and if so the best way to go about doing that.

So rather than just knee-jerk reaction,

We can use mindfulness to create a little space and respond rather than react.

We can respond in a way that is in alignment with our long-term goals rather than just reacting which may take us off course.

Now most of us live the majority of our lives on autopilot.

We're sleepwalking.

We're just going through the motions.

We're living mindlessly and we're basically repeating the same day in different clothing over and over again with the same patterns and the same behaviors and the same thoughts and the same beliefs and the same internal conversations and we're going to talk more about that in my next video.