Mindfulness isn't what you think it is

The term 'Mindfulness' has been productised in the public mind as a meaningless consumer commodity. You can find 'mindfulness' gardening books and mindful country walks. There are mindful crafts, art, cooking and pretty much anything that you could possibly attach the label to.

The Misunderstanding of Mindfulness

If you stop someone in the street and ask them what mindfulness is, they will probably tell you it's a hippie thing or something to do with mental health. Or, possibly, there may be a vague notion of how it relates to Buddhism.

The Natural Human Heritage of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a natural trait that is part of our genetic heritage. Mindfulness is how we monitor our environment. Mindfulness was integral to how humans lived until the modern world filled our minds with to-do lists, priorities, expectations, doubt, anxiety and many other worries and concerns.

Rediscovering Our Legacy

The human brain can switch on mindfulness when the circumstances are right for almost everyone. The problem is that those circumstances rarely exist in the modern world, so we cannot experience it at will. 'Mindfulness is the undistracted awareness of the experience of the present moment', and it's a present moment that becomes closer and closer to calmness and stillness the more we practice mindfulness meditation.

No Meditation, No Mindfulness

Because our education and early life train us to run modern world mind-loops, and because we continue to do so for decades if left unchecked, it takes years of mental training to learn to return to mindfulness at will. This mental training is called mindfulness meditation.