What is Mindfulness?
According to Jon Kabat-Zinn Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. The first important element here is observing which means simply noticing the present external or internal experiences in a wordless watching manner. The second step in being mindful is describing what you observed. This includes thoughts, emotions, sensations, behaviors or urges to act and more. The third element is participating in the experiences in a non-judgmental way, in the moment effectively.
Mindfulness can be practiced by trying to pay attention to and be present with the present internal or external experiences. Engaging the five sensations to the surroundings and paying attention to the sensory information received from this engagement in this moment is one way of having mindful moments. For example, while being on walk, pay attention to what you see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. It is normal for our mind to be distracted by anything that is not going on in this moment; simply notice that distraction and shift your attention back to the present experience. It doesn’t matter if you have to do it even billions of times.
Another way to practice mindfulness is paying attention to the present internal experiences such as noticing and observing any thought process, emotions, physical sensations or any other experience going on internally in the present moment. But remember there is a difference between observing an internal experience non-judgmentally from a place of curiosity and holding on to that internal experience.
This is similar to defusion concept that is broadly used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT. Defusion is a skill or technique that is primarily used to detach, separate, or get some distance from our thoughts and emotions and just notice and observe them. A metaphor that can help describe this concept is that consider you are sitting next to a river in the middle of a jungle while watching the leaves of trees falling off the trees on the river. Do you go inside the river and pick every leaf up to analyze or you continue to watch the leaves fall and pass with the flow of the stream? You keep noticing the leaves fall and pass, fall and pass; exactly like noticing the rise of thoughts and watching them pass our thought stream without engaging in any other relationship than noticing and observing them.
Happify has developed interesting videos about mindfulness. http://https://youtu.be/w6T02g5hnT4
