At the core of mindfulness is presence, or being present, living in the present.
This topic got me thinking of how our minds sometimes get the better of us.
For example, I’ve been dwelling on an argument I had with someone earlier this year. Words were said – that hurt – and I’ve just not been able to move past that argument. So much so that my relationship with this person has been tense and uneasy for most of the year. I’ve heard an apology, but I’m still battling to let it go. And we’re talking eight months down the line.
Where am I going with this? Mindfulness.
When I think of mindfulness, I picture meditation or quiet time with oneself. I’m not wrong in my line of thinking, but when you dig deeper into the concept of mindfulness, it is so much more than sitting cross-legged on the floor and humming for 20 minutes.
I believe that the core of mindfulness is living in the present.
As already mentioned, I’ve been living in the past for the last eight months. When we live in the past, we forgo the present. We stop growing and developing as a person because we’re rigid and sat tight in the past.
We can say the same of “living” in the future. We’re waiting for life to happen – we’ll buy new clothes when we lose some weight, or we’ll take a vacation when we’ve finished a project at work.
This unhealthy obsession with the past or future prevents us from becoming better versions of ourselves. It stops us from living the life we have control over – the present! This very moment in time.
When I realized how much I’d been living in the past, and how this prevented me from enjoying the last eight months – the argument stopped haunting me. My conscious decision to focus on today, lifted the weight of this argument and I literally #letitgo.
It no longer eats at me, my friend had apologized – and life has moved on.
Being mindful entails living in the present – allowing yourself to experience the here and now in its entirety. We should feel and experience our emotions, but be conscious of them and not let them drive our actions – and sabotage our ability to live for the now.
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