What's Mindful?

What's Mindful?
      Mindful is paying attention.
      Mindful is being present.
      Mindful is knowing what it is that you are feeling at the same moment that you are feeling it.

This is in contrast to Mindless, which is:
      noticing something only after the fact,
      being scattered and/or frazzled without knowing the reasons for it,
      spacing out, etc.

Mindlessness is a coping mechanism for handling a life that feels out of control.

Mindfulness is a technique for pulling in scattered energies.
It brings a sense of peace even within hectic situations when you are trying to keep your head above water.

      Waves of stress
      Waves of sensation
      Waves of emotion
      Waves of pain (physical, emotional, mental...)
It's best to have a form of "surfboard" to ride rather than being tossed around and drowned by these kinds of waves. Mindfulness acts as that surfboard, allowing one to ride things out rather than being immersed.

Mindfulness techniques have been around for at least five thousand years. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to what is real right now.

If you are interested in learning how to be more mindful, there are many teachers, and they are located everywhere. If you are in Boston, you are welcome to my classes. My class schedule is listed on my homepage.

I offer two levels. The easier level of learning is to simply come to a yoga class. The more demanding level is an eight week program that I call the Intensive in MBSR. MBSR stands for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. It is a specific format that was developed by Dr. Jon Kabbat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Details about the program can be found on my stress info webpage.