Being Mindful Series: What is Mindfulness?
“Being Mindful” is a blog series for anyone curious about mindfulness and meditation. Feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed with life? Mindfulness and meditation are powerful tools for improving your mental health. In this series, we'll explore the basics of mindfulness, how it can help you, and how to implement it into your life.
When I first started exploring mindfulness, I realized it was not nearly as complicated as I thought it was. When you get down to basics, mindfulness is incredibly simple and easy to incorporate into even the busiest of lives.
My main source of mindfulness teaching is from Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness teacher, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and author of “Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment--And Your Life” and “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.”
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His MasterClass on Mindfulness and Meditation completely changed how I view the practice. The main takeaway for me was in how he described the basic tenets of mindfulness. But first, a definition.
What is the definition of mindfulness?
According to Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is, “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and nonjudgmentally.”
Let’s break that down.
Awareness: having knowledge of something
Paying attention: watch, listen, or think about something with interest
On purpose: with intention (you set out to do it, it didn’t happen on accident)
Present moment: right now (not yesterday or five years from today)
Nonjudgmentally: observing without forming opinions
So, another way to define mindfulness is, “purposely deciding to think about the present moment without forming opinions.” Sounds a little simpler when you put it that way, right? Let’s dive into the basic principles of mindfulness.
What are the basics of mindfulness?
Kabat-Zinn calls these the “attitudinal foundations for mindfulness.” Basically, the mindset you’ll want to have to be truly mindful. Here they are:
Non-Judging
There’s that word again. The word “judge” is used a lot in our society, from the person in a robe in a courtroom to the mean girl at school who judged your outfit. At its basic level, to “judge” means to form an opinion about something. You see someone driving a Porsche — you assume they make a lot of money. Your coworker never invites you to lunch — you assume they don’t like you. We form opinions constantly, and then we act in certain ways based on these judgments.
In mindfulness, “non-judging” means removing the attachment we have to our thoughts. For example, you think, “I forgot to buy milk at the store.” You then form an opinion based on that thought, perhaps, “I’m so forgetful.” Emotions arise from there, like frustration, shame, or guilt. Then maybe when your partner asks you where the milk is, you snap and get defensive. So now you’re feeling crappy because a simple fact entered your mind.
Imagine if you could think, “I forgot to buy milk at the store,” and instead of spiraling into negative thoughts and uncomfy emotions, you just set a reminder to get milk later and go on about your day. When your partner asks about it, you calmly reply that you forgot and you plan to get it later. This is non-judging. You took a thought and didn’t attach to it. You just let it be.
Patience
We all know what patience is, primarily because so many of us struggle with impatience. Sitting in traffic is excruciating. Walking behind a slow-moving person makes your blood boil. What’s at the heart of impatience? Wishing to escape the present moment and enter a future moment. Having impatience means you anticipate that some moment in the future is better than the moment you’re living now.
The opposite of impatience is, of course, patience. Patience is being content with the present moment you’re experiencing. Patience is extremely valuable because, spoiler alert, the present moment is all you have. We can never be satisfied if we’re always looking for the next thing.
Beginner’s Mind
In his MasterClass, Kabat-Zinn quoted Zen Buddhist monk and teacher Suzuki Roshi: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”
Think back to a time when you were excited about something. It was probably at the beginning of some new experience or project. You get an idea to write a book and suddenly all these ideas are flooding your brain. Then once you sit down to start writing, all those fun ideas seem dumb or stale.
In mindfulness, you’re encouraged to maintain the “beginner’s mind” no matter how advanced you are. When you’re too stuck on what you know, you miss out on the infinite possibilities of the unknown.
Trust
Mindfulness is a uniquely solo activity. Sure, you can join a meditation group with others or take a mindfulness class with a bunch of people, but the real work is going on inside your head, and you’ve got nobody in there but yourself.
To be truly mindful takes trust in yourself. Trust in your intentions. Trust in your knowledge. Trust in your completeness. Trust in your feelings. Trust in your truth. Trust in your needs.
Non-Striving
This was the foundation that was hardest for me to understand. Kabat-Zinn describes non-striving as “forgoing your attachment to a particular outcome in any given experience.” At first glance, it might sound like a lack of motivation or determination, but he argues that it has the opposite effect.
He says, “If we focus on the work we’re doing right now rather than tangling ourselves up in thoughts about what it might achieve, that work will be of higher quality and will paradoxically produce a better end result.” Again, we’re hyperfocused on the here and now, and not getting distracted by “what ifs.”
Acceptance
Have you ever tried to change the weather? Maybe your outdoor wedding is a week away and rain is on the forecast. You refresh the weather app over and over hoping for it to change.
Nobody can deny this sucks. It feels really bad when our expectations aren’t met. But nothing that’s within your control is going to change the weather (unless you’re Storm from X-Men in which case you probably have a lot bigger problems than a rained-out wedding).
So you have two choices:
Have a rainy wedding + sadness
Have a rainy wedding + no sadness
The answer is obvious of course, but not always easy to achieve. This is acceptance: seeing clearly what the reality is and recognizing it. Doesn’t mean we can’t make efforts to improve the situation (rent a pop-up tent or move the wedding indoors, for example), but it does mean that we don’t have to make our negative circumstances any worse for ourselves.
