I'm not expert, I'm only four chapters into my self-help book, however I feel like I have the basics, the bare necessities of this practice and I wanted to share.
Firstly Mindfullness focuses on being in the moment. It believes that us humans fill our days with being busy and this busyness distracts us from enjoying the beauty and simplicity of actual life. Days, weeks, even years go by with us rushing through life focusing on the stress and the busyness. Sound familiar? It certainly does for me.
The idea goes on to explain that us humans make our lives busy in order to achieve all those things we think are important in life; successful career, perfect relationships, a lovely home (or whatever it is that keeps you going). We use these goals as indicators as to weather we are on the right track, if we can tick off these things then we will finally be happy.
The book I am reading helps you to understand the practice through the many excercises dotted about the pages. I spent a train journey to work the other morning focusing on my breath and the weight of my body on the seat. Yesterday I Mindfully drunk my morning tea, closing off my thoughts and simply noticing the cup, the liquid and the taste of my brew. It was a pretty flippin' good brew and that's exactly the point. If you focus on one thing, you reap much greater pleasure from it. Being busy spreads your focus too thin, resulting in your mind doing many different tasks but gaining only some satisfaction.
To keep the whole Mindfullness practice basic, the strap line for the idea (come on, I am in marketing) is this; Human-Being vs. Human-Doing.
I love that. It makes perfect sense to me. Enjoy the moment, every second, just be. Try your hardest not to get bogged down with all that self made busyness.
