Is mindfulness fake or real?
After a recent experience, I’ve been thinking more about mindfulness. It is a word thrown around in our society, especially online as if everyone understands it. However, I’m of the opinion that not as many understand what mindfulness means.
In these days, I think we have to consider, is mindfulness fake or real?
How Do We Know?
Sure, you might be quick to jump into the conversation and say, of course, it is and who are you to judge? This would be a fair point because what mindfulness is to me, may not be real to someone else or they may assume it is fake. How would we know? What would be the important points to answer the question, is mindfulness fake or real?
If we google it, the dictionary will say that it is a mental state and it is achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment. It also goes on to talk about calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations used as a therapeutic technique.
It is even suggested that the use of the world mindfulness has dramatically increased over time. In fact, starting in the late 1980’s, the exponential use of this word has skyrocketed.
Is Mindfulness Fake Or Real Defined
So, if we want to understand is mindfulness fake or real, I think we’re going to have to pick the definition apart.
I’m not sure anyone would have an issue with it being about focusing on one’s awareness on the present moment. Anyone who understands mindfulness knows this.
In my view, it is stopping the world for one moment in time and being aware of all that we can be. Yes, most of us never do this. In reality, we have far too many things going on in our day and we’re hit by so much input in the world, that to stop and observe the moment is asking more than we can give.
Unfortunately, though we spend our times punching the keys to put out a text message, Tweet, Snapchat, Facebook or Instagram post. In fact, most of the time I don’t think we are truly aware of how much of our lives we are giving up to perform these activities. Yet, do we get as much in return as we think we do? Do we really stop to observe how we use our time in a day? After all, mindfulness happens when we stop to observe our lives.
Let’s say that we are very good about stopping throughout our day, turning off the input around us and being mindful. Let’s say that we step out in nature away from noise and distractions and we focus on our awareness on the present moment. I wish more people did this and sometimes I wish I did it more than I do. However, I think we may all have to admit we don’t do this as much as we think we do.
Mindfulness Is About Doing, Not Just Talking
This is where I start to get to the point I’m trying to make, is mindfulness fake or real? We can talk about it and we can explain it but mindfulness is more about doing it. It is more about taking us to a place where we often are too busy to stop and see.
A few weeks ago someone did not like my view of this on social media. They were posting pretty pictures and doing one of the social media tricks tagging my account continuously. They were lovely pictures but when you see hundreds and hundreds of social media postings in a day, it becomes noise. It does not result in the intended manner the person thinks that it does. Personally, I don’t believe we are meant to have this much input coming into our minds every day.
When I gently tried to bring this subject up, I was told that “we all need mindfulness in a day.” Yes, I would agree, but I have no way to know what the image meant to them or anyone. It left me ignoring it, more than looking at it. In the end, the person did not like me bringing the subject up and they blocked me. If you know me, I don’t just do things because that is what the “group think” says I should do.
Is A Picture A Sign Of Mindfulness?
It got me thinking more about this topic. Is a picture really a sign of mindfulness. It can be, but it may not be. I am a photographer and I take a ton of pictures every place I go. Some I share online, but mostly I love looking back at the photos I’ve taken. The minute I see them, I’m right back at the place and time. It takes me back there in an instant.
To me, that is more mindfulness because I recognize the moment I was there observing what I saw and capturing it with my camera. To other people, it is most likely another picture. More than likely they don’t get the same reaction I get when I see it because it doesn’t have the same meaning to them. They were not there to experience it.
So, in many respects when I ask the question, is mindfulness fake or real as I’m thinking about this situation. It is real for me, but fake for others. The same way in social media posts where many of the pictures might be real to some but not to all. I love cats and so some pictures of cats make me pause, but others don’t. I think we’ve got to be careful pushing this view of mindfulness on everyone just because we see it that way.
Let’s go further with this discussion, Is mindfulness fake or real? I believe this is the part that truly matters.
To continue this discussion – (Read The Body And MIndfulness – Oct 31, 2018 )
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