The Zen of Spacious Life – Mindfulness
To consider it in the simplest way, mindfulness means to stop thinking and start to embe aware/em, to live in the present (here and now) of your life experiences instead of the past and future of your experiences and thoughts. Awareness or mindfulness stretches time in exactly the same way that new experience does, and since we devote more focused attention to our experience, we take in more information from it.
In other words, each of us to some extent can actually control time, although many do it unknowingly. But, the fact remains that time doesn’t emhave to/em speed up as we get older. Some of us try to extend our lives in traditional ways like keeping fit and eating healthy food, which is completely sensible and highly recommendable. Yet, it’s also possible for each one of us to expand time from the eminside. /emHow? By changing the very way we experience moments, the moment to moment reality that is our lives. Just imagine we can live for much longer, not just in terms of chronological years, but also in terms of our perception… and our spacious life.
Understand that Mindfulness is simply, your focused awareness of the present moment. The focused awareness of mindfulness allows us to be entirely conscious of any simple sensation like the warmth of sunlight, the cold of snowflakes or with the right focused awareness, the complex relationship and interaction occurring between our inner thoughts and feelings.
By tuning into our mental processes with the same focused mindfulness, we are capable of recognizing that our thoughts are actually just thoughts, and they don’t necessarily have to represent reality. With that focused recognition, we can observe our very thoughts, rather than being subject to them.
An amazing trait of mindfulness is that the clear and focused awareness allows us to absorb the tapestry-like richness of the moment, rather than going through life with half of our attention on the past or future or consumed by our own mental thought-chatter. The self-actualized knowledge that directly results from mindfulness permits us to be more intentional in choosing priorities and actions that fit our life mission or our entrepreneurial endeavors with greater success.
strongSenses of Mindfulness/strong
strongBody/strong – Being mindful of your breathing, even to the level of individual breath and this is your perception of the breath. Try it with different breath durations, long breath, short breath, deep breaths and shallow.
strongFeeling –/strong From pleasant to painful and feeling along the spectrum.
strongThoughts –/strong Thoughts and intentions.
strongMental – /strongThis is as much about the mechanism of how the six senses function, and is the very source or origin of all thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Everything starts somewhere and this is it. It is known in many beliefs as “a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_All” rel=”nofollow”the all/a.”
strongemTherefore mindfulness should be defined as/em/strongstrongema technique in which a person becomes intentionally and skillfully aware of his or her perceptions, feelings, and thoughts in the present moment./em/strong
Finally, studies have found the following benefits for people who have developed their personal focused awareness and mindfulness with regular practice:
ul
liSelf-trust, self-acceptance, and increased self-awareness/li
liEnhanced and insightful appreciation of life/li
liFace difficulties with genuine serenity/li
liAccepting of life and its challenges with greater attitude/li
liEffective coping strategies with fluid adaptation to change/li
liLasting decrease in stress-related physical symptoms, including chronic pain/li
liAnxiety and depression decreased significantly/li
liGreater concentration and enhanced creativity/li
liImmune system functioning with highly-noticeable improvement/li
/ul
strongemIf you are doing mindfulness meditation, you are doing it with your ability to attend to the moment./em/strong – Daniel Goleman
strongemPraying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness ‘the All,’ with God./em/strong – Peace Pilgrim
strongemThe awareness of our own strength makes us modest./em/strong – Paul Cezanne
strongemThe key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness./em/strong – Lao Tzu
strongemTo become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are. /em/strong– Eric Hoffer
strongemTo reach your highest level of awareness, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings./em/strong – Anonymous
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