What you should know about being mindful
Not being stressed and not getting wrapped up in negative thoughts is easier said than done. But what if there were small things you could try to improve your mood? Small things to change how we think? This can start with being mindful.
Being mindful is a state of mind in which we are present and aware of our mind, thoughts, and feelings. It’s about being aware of what you are sensing and feeling in the moment without interpretation or judgment. We don’t act on impulse, but we act mindfully; we think first, instead of being reactive.
I took a course on bringing mindfulness in the classroom and little did I know that this course would change the way I think. Being mindful and practicing mindfulness has lasting, positive benefits for everyone, and it can and should start early on in life. Implementing these practices is so beneficial as it can help improve health, both physically and mentally, and even help build resilience, improve self-control, and so much more. There are honestly so many benefits to being mindful that there is no reason not practice it.
Mindfulness can come in so many different forms, whether that be through actual meditation or just shifting the way we think. For this purpose, I want to focus on our mindset and small, easy things that we can do in order to achieve this state of mind.
One thing that I used to struggle with is staying in the moment and really being present. Not even that, but I used to struggle with negative thoughts. We all have a negative bias where our minds tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive. One big thing that I related to was the idea of grasping. Grasping refers to focusing on what we don’t have, but want or what we do have, but are afraid we will lose. This pulls us out of the present and makes us believe that happiness isn’t possible because we’re always looking for more or focused on things out of our control. We, then, become so hyper focused on things we don’t have or things we don’t want to lose that we forget about what we do have; we forget to take a step back and see everything that is happening. This can also apply to our futures. We are always on our toes, thinking about what’s next, but we forget to enjoy the moment we’re in right now.
I see this a lot, especially with seniors in high school and seniors in college. I understand that not knowing our futures is scary, but when we become so focused on our futures, how can we enjoy our present? For me, I’m in my last year of college, and honestly, I want to enjoy it. I am literally in a place that I never thought I’d be, and I want to remember it as a positive experience, rather than a negative one, because honestly, there has been a lot of negativity. I honestly just don’t like when people ask what’s next, because literally I just want to know what’s happening now. I just don’t think it benefits me if I am so over focused on what I am going to be doing next year.
It can be so easy to get wrapped in our own thoughts, especially negative ones, but being mindful means just understanding those thoughts and feelings. We cannot avoid any negative feeling or emotion, but if we can at least point it out, that can be so helpful. We need to learn to feel our feelings, and just allow ourselves to accept it as it is. Accepting our feelings doesn’t mean that we like it or that we agree with it, it really just means being compassionately present with our feelings. We recognize and feel it, and we want to redirect our minds. When I’m feeling any intense emotion, I stop and think. I think about what that feeling is and I try to redirect my mind to react in a way that is mindful and in a way that would benefit myself and those around me. Granted, this is really hard for me. There are so many times where I have reacted without being mindful, and all those times that I have done that, it has never been beneficial for me. I really try to label all of my emotions as they are going through my mind. It sounds a little silly, but honestly, I didn’t know about emotions or feelings, so even just being able to label and know what it is, is so important. It can help you accept the feeling and really help you understand how you cope with things.
These small little things sound childish, and honestly, this is something that we should learn as children, but since this wasn’t something I learned as a child, this is something that I am working on now. There were and are so many feelings and emotions that I struggle with even labeling. This is something that is so necessary, though, because in order to work with your own emotions and even just your thoughts, you have to learn to at least label them. Trying to unlearn everything I was taught about feelings and emotions when I was younger is honestly so difficult, but this journey has been worthwhile, in my opinion.
If you’re ready and want more tips on how to be mindful or don’t know where to begin, sign up now for free downloadable worksheets on mindfulness practices/tips to begin your mindfulness journey.
Simply allowing yourself to be in the present can improve your mood. We are so stuck in the past or trying to look at our future that we really forget to enjoy the present. I encourage you to look more into mindfulness. More importantly, though, I encourage you to be mindful, even just in small, everyday tasks. Just allow your mind to feel things, to label things, and to just be there with you, instead of letting the negative take over. Allow yourself to enjoy the little things that you do, free from outside thoughts. This is definitely a continuing journey, especially if this isn’t something you know/do often, but it definitely is worth the try.
If you want to learn even more, most of the techniques I learned are actually from a book, The Mindful Twenty-Something! This book was very insightful; I learned a lot about mindfulness, but also about myself.
xoxo,
kaels
too bad ain’t me<3
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