Mindfulness: A Short Guide

I'm sure most of you know of mindfulness. With the recordings on this site, a group support room and a forum section dedicated to mindfulness, it's hard not to. But what does mindfulness really entail? And how do you practice it?

My interpretation of mindfulness is: Non-Judgemental Awareness.
To be mindful is to be aware of anything going on in and outside of you, without labeling or judging it. What we commonly practice when doing mindfulness is observing our mind. We observe our thoughts and emotions, we watch them come and go, without judging or wishing they weren't there.
Mindfulness is strongly connected to the Now, the present. You can't be mindful of the Now if you're living in the past or worrying about the future. To quote Eckhart Tolle: ''People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.''

With mindfulness comes acceptance. Acceptance of your thoughts is important because if you resist them, you're only giving them more power. Often the struggle against painful emotions or thoughts becomes more painful than the original source.
When you notice you're resisting pain in any way, seeking a distraction or cursing it and trying to make it go away, congratulate yourself. The first step in waking up is noticing you're asleep. Once you notice you're doing this, you can try and practice mindful accepting of whatever is bothering you. You may find it helpful to keep a journal and write down your thoughts in there.
Check out a post I wrote on ACT for more on this.

Another aspect of acceptance is accepting the Now; accepting whatever situation you're in at a certain point without judging or wishing it were different. Truth is, usually you can't really do much about a lot of situations life throws at you, what you can do is changing your attitude about them. This is strongly intertwined with the struggle against painful emotions, for when you struggle against a situation you can't change you're only giving it more power over you. Make the Now your friend and ally, not your enemy.

So, how can you practice mindfulness?
The mindfulness tapes on this website are absolutely wonderful and will help you get better at meditation and mindfulness. But there is also lots you can do outside of meditation. You can practice being mindful of your thoughts at any given time of the day, and it's a great way to make it a habit.
You can also extend mindfulness practice to everyday things, like eating. A common mindfulness practice is mindful eating. Take the time to really enjoy your food, chew slowly, breathe deeply, and taste everything thoroughly. If you do this with a food that you can easily hold in your hands, like an apple, you can ''examine'' it. Feel it's texture, whether it's soft or hard, moist or dry. Smell it. Think about where it came from.

Other everyday things you can do mindfully: washing the dishes, vacuum cleaning, walking, listening and talking, driving. And that's just to name a few. I challenge you to find an activity that you can not do mindfully!

That concludes my not so short guide on mindfulness, thank you for reading.

Resources:
''The Power of Now'' by Eckhart Tolle
''​Mindfulness for dummies'' by Shamash Alidina