Mindfulness helps us understand ourselves and develop our emotional intelligence. A mindful existence is one of the most important aspects of living a full, meaningful, and joy-filled life.
Living Fully Present: Exploring Mindfulness as a Key Aspect of a Rich Life
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is paying attention or observing and experiencing everything in your life, both good and bad. It focuses on or notices your thoughts, emotions, and other people and circumstances.
Practising mindfulness can be adopted into every aspect of your life routines, like driving your car or brushing your teeth, interacting with people, and time spent by yourself. It requires focused attention, compassion, and patience.
The Rewards of Regularly Practising Mindfulness
Mindfulness practice is a powerful antidote to a confused, chaotic, distracted, ineffective mind, conflicted relationships, and an unhappy, stressful life. With regular practice, you can achieve the following rewards:
- Find more clarity in your thinking; you can use your emotions with more apparent paths to decision-making and problem-solving.
- Realize more joy and meaning in your relationships with enhanced listening, engagement, and growth in those relationships.
- Experience better management of your emotions with increased compassion for yourself and others.
- Become more self-aware and feel happier and calmer because you are more resilient and successfully manage your life.
- Enhance physical and mental health.
Staying Present and Choosing a Lifestyle of Mindfulness
When I share the surprising fact that we have approximately 50,000 thoughts daily with those I work with, I usually receive quite a reaction. Yes, managing thousands of ideas and choosing which ones to act upon is incredible. It's no wonder all those thoughts can overwhelm and distract us.
We all work through various situations that hijack our thoughts and emotions as we move through our day. Practising mindfulness can help us develop more robust resilience and joy.
Mindfulness Through Meditation
“Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it.” - Sharon Salzberg
We can achieve mindfulness through meditation, defined as contemplation, thinking, reflection or deliberation. The feeling of deep peace occurs when our minds are calm and silent.
For some, meditation is a vital step in achieving sound sleep. At other times of the day, it may be necessary to switch gears from a meeting on a complex project to problem-solving with a co-worker from earlier in the day or talking to your teenage son or daughter about the current pressures they are facing. Meditation can help us switch gears more effectively as it shuts down the chaos and distractions in our minds.
Let's focus on the strategy of meditation, making it part of our well-oiled routine.
You will create a more joy-filled life regardless of how you incorporate mindfulness into your day. Additionally, you will be more mindful of your behaviour and increase your emotional intelligence. You will want to get your copy of my book, The Power of Emotion: A Practical Guide to Making The Most Of Your Emotional Intelligence to learn more about this topic.
This article was originally published on September 7, 2019, and has been updated (June 2023).
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