A clear summary of the benefits of mindfulness and how YOU can use mindfulness to enhance your quality of life.
Mindfulness, whether practiced as a form of meditation, or whether it is practiced as an activity, can yield tremendous psychological, emotional and physical health benefits.
Just take a look at this article on the benefits of meditation
and you’ll see just how much mindfulness meditation can improve your
life. The practice of mindfulness benefits EVERYONE.
But how exactly will mindfulness benefit you?
1. Stability of Mind
Mindfulness benefits include a much more balanced outlook on life, and a
state of mind that is less likely to bounce around from one thought to
the next.
2. Flexible Awareness
Mindfulness will help train you to take command of your awareness, so
that you can shift your attention from depressing or angry thoughts to
more positive ones with greater ease.
3. Self Awareness
Mindfulness trains you to become aware of what is going on inside you
and how your inner world of thoughts and feelings is reacting to the
events that are taking place in the world around you. When you develop
this kind of awareness, you will be more aware of inner disturbances if
they arise, and therefore more able to take steps to maintain a positive
outlook if they do. Oftentimes, stress and anxiety build up over a
period of time because we are not paying attention to what is going on
inside us.
4. Non Reactivity
Through mindfulness, and especially through the practice of mindfulness
meditation, you learn to observe your thoughts and feelings and any
environmental circumstances with a more detached outlook. You learn to
stop labelling the events in your life as “bad” or “irritating” or
“boring” and so on. Instead, you learn to simply accept things as they
are without reacting to them. Of course, this does not mean that you
stop working to change the things in your life that problematic for you,
but it does mean that you will not be so burdened by problems that you
may once have deemed to be intolerable. Non reactivity is summed up
nicely by the ever popular “serenity prayer”:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
Mindfulness leads to a strengthening of your ability to concentrate, and a dramatic reduction in stress. Through the practice of mindfulness you will experience a greater sense of wholeness and aliveness, even during seemingly mundane moments in life, and you’ll find that your mind begins to disentangle itself from negative thoughts, negative reactions and negative judgements.
You will become aware that your thoughts and feelings are not the sum total of who you are, and that you need not be a victim of your own thinking. There is a great sense of freedom in this realization.
You’ll also find that you greatly improve your ability to deal
with any major upheavals that might arise in your life. But mindfulness
is more than just a good coping mechanism. It is also very powerful for
clearing the mind and developing space for deeper awareness, spiritual
connectedness, and deep meditation.
This article is copyright protected, however you may republish it online or in print media provided that that you include the following credit, including the active link:
Article source www.The-Guided-Meditation-Site.com.
Visit our Mindfulness Homepage for expert advice and inspiring information about mindfulness
Learn more about the Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation
Download a guided mindfulness meditation
Reinforce your meditation with these mindfulness exercises
Try 'The Mindful Coffee Meditation'
Bring the peace of meditation into everyday life with these Mindfulness Activities