Mindfulness is an emotionally non-reactive state and involves acceptance of your experience without thinking there is a right or wrong way of noticing it or being with it.
ABC of Mindfulness
A for awareness. Becoming more aware of what is going on in your mind and body. Noticing what you are thinking and doing. Awareness helps us to listen in and notice the many layers and subtleties of human experience. By slowing down and being present to all of our experience we can increase the depth and range of feeling so that we really get to know ourselves and understand ourselves and how we create or let go of our suffering.
B just being there with your experience as it is in the present moment.
C seeing things and responding wisely. Creating a gap between the experience and our reaction to it.
Mindfulness is a way of becoming more aware of what is going on inside your mind and body and so makes it easier to respond calmly to our difficulties which helps our heart, body and mind.
When we are talking about a situation, an issue, a memory we move to the reactions we have usually had based on past experience. As we begin to notice what we are thinking, feeling and sensing inside us in the present we begin to relate in a more spacious way which increases our ability to see clearly and be compassionate towards ourselves.
