Mindfulness is a technique that can help us to live in the present. Too often we get caught up in autopilot, our minds wander away and we lose touch with the reality of any given moment. We can become immersed in obsessive thoughts about past events, or we can worry about the future. Either way, this can have an impact on our mood – depression, anxiety, worry, stress and more.
Mindfulness allows us to be fully present, engaged in the moment, aware of where we are and what we’re doing. The more aware we are, the more we can manage how we respond to situations and not become overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
What’s more, Mindfulness is a quality that we all possess already, we can learn to access it and draw on it whenever we get caught up in a cascade of stress or worry. We all have this ability at our fingertips, we are usually just too busy or sidetracked to realise. Mark Williams, former director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, adds “It’s easy to stop noticing the world around us. It’s also easy to lose touch with the way our bodies are feeling and to end up living ‘in our heads’ – caught up in our thoughts without stopping to notice how those thoughts are driving our emotions and behaviour”.
With more present moment awareness through mindfulness practise, we are increasingly in tune with what is going on inside and outside of ourselves, moment by moment. This can be hugely beneficial for our mental health, allowing us to recognise more clearly when we are getting caught up in a stream of thoughts of feelings that are not helpful.
Many people find regular mindfulness a transformative process, helping to increase clarity of mind, reduce stress and anxiety, improve quality of sleep and reduce worry and rumination. A renewed sense of the world around us is one of the biggest benefits of mindfulness; when we are paying attention on purpose, we live life in HD.
I trained as a Mindfulness practitioner with the UK mental health charity MIND, to deliver the evidence-based 8 week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) course, helping to reduce stress and anxiety through various mindfulness practises to help cultivate a sense of calm, balance and self compassion. I regularly run online courses catering for different levels of mindfulness practise, as well as online drop-in sessions on Zoom for all levels. Please see the events and online courses page for further information.
If you think Mindfulness or any future courses could be beneficial to you, please call or text on the number below or use the contact form to get in touch.