The lesson we are thought by the society from a very young age in our default settings tends to be; “Think about what you want, go make it happen, and be really frustrated until it occurs.” Which promotes suffering in every step of it, until we eventually get it.

Mindfulness approaches this kind of beliefs from a different point of view and refuses to go with this kind of impositions. On a Mindfulness themed TV program, Patricia Rockman, MD, Senior Director of Education & Clinical Services for The Center for Mindfulness Studies explains this phenomenon as follows; “Shinzen Young says that “Pain times Resistance equals Suffering”. Mindfulness deals with the Resistance part of this equation, by asking us to be with difficulty, to hold it in the same way we hold the joys and the ecstatic moments of our lives so that it all becomes a leveled plain field. That is different than taking the position of trying to get rid of any kind of negative thought and quickly replacing it with a positive thought, as it is not realistic and does not work well. Instead, Mindfulness asks us to recognize the negative thoughts as we recognize the positive ones and to acknowledge them, accept them as they are.”

Being mindful activates the areas of our brain responsible for present moment experience which disrupts our habitual tendency to draw conclusions and explanations about our experience that may or may not be true. What we achieve by doing that is changing our brain in a positive way. And as our brain is open to modification and improvement at all times, it benefits immensely from the mindful state of mind.

Practicing Mindfulness is the first step into becoming the best version of yourself, doing the most you can do for yourself, recognizing that life is not a competition. Being in the moment, whether positive or negative and looking at situations you are in from an external perspective.

And I love it… Almost as much as I love you all…

PS: If you want to take a look at my earlier blog post on this subject, you can click on this title: Mindfulness: Being in the moment