This blog post is continued from Is Mindfulness Fake Or Real (Oct 24, 2018). This part focuses on the body and mindfulness.
The other part of the discussion talks about how mindfulness is calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations used as a therapeutic technique. In other words, the body part of mindfulness is key!
The Body and Mindfulness – Essential For Both Parts
Whoa, let’s hold on a minute here. You mean that how we see mindfulness and the body is essential? Surely, you’re just kidding me, right?
Wait, aren’t we all connected to what we feel in the body? Okay, I’m in my sarcasm mode here if you can’t tell. The answer though is no we are usually not feeling connected to our body. Mindfulness is a mind-based practice in this world, but when we talk about the body connection, we’ve already escaped out the side door.
I know, everyone wants to believe they are fully connected to our body, but there is so much evidence to the contrary of this in our world. I see evidence through the painful difficulties we face, the way we hate one another, the anger that lies below the surface, and the way we turn a blind eye to those that need our help. These are the outward manifestations of not being connected to our body and feeling our body.
The Body And Mindfulness In My Latest Book
If you read my blog or even my first book, you’ll see this discussion more fully. In fact, my latest book that I am working on, Overcoming A Mysterious Condition, goes into this in much more detail.
Mindfulness in my view and opinion involves feeling it. It is more than seeing a picture or hearing someone share an encouraging thought. It is more than a word of positivity with a cute little picture. The body part of mindfulness is essential if we truly want to say this is what we practice.
The Body And Mindfulness – How Do We Do This?
I realize, that even though we claim that the body part of mindfulness is important, we have little clue how to do this. We have very little time that we spend connecting the two.
If you’re truly in a state of mindfulness, you’ll feel it in your body.
Maybe you notice that the tension in your body decreases or your heart rate slows down. You might smell things that you didn’t notice were there or see colors and beauty that you would normally not see. There may be birds flying around, squirrels playing or children laughing that would normally escape your attention. These responses are mindfulness. However, it is important to connect with them, not just wisk them away as a ship passing in the night.
The Body And Mindfulness – Feel It and Notice It
It is something that draws you into that moment where you feel it and notice it and you and the moment become one. Mindfulness is not always what others see or feel as it is a personal experience for everyone involved. These responses and how they feel deep within the cells of your body take you into a moment of true mindfulness.
Posting pictures all day long may not take you there. In fact, I think one could argue that it takes you out of mindfulness more than it takes you to that place. Online activities are not conscious moments. They turn off our consciousness most of the time and without that, mindfulness has a difficult time appearing.
Instead of just posting random pictures, write what the picture means to you. Paint the scene where you fall in love with it. How does it impact your feelings, emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations? I bet if you share those moments, others will be able to connect more fully with mindfulness. I’m willing to bet too that as you do that, you’ll have a deeper connection to the picture or moment as well in your life.
It is easy to say we practice mindfulness. It is easy to claim we need more mindfulness in this world which we do. The more difficult part is to truly practice it where we feel it in the body. The more we focus on the body part, the more we will begin to understand the role of mindfulness in our lives.
The Body And Mindfulness – Gets You Feeling In The Body
It is more than a mere practice. To me, mindfulness that gets you feeling in your body all the parts that are there is essential to fully living in a human body. It isn’t in the mind only that this happens. The mind is a part of it, but let us not forget the most important part which is feeling and experiencing mindfulness in the body. When you do this, the question, “is mindfulness fake or real” will become easy to understand.
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