What is mindfulness and what is it for?

Mindfulness, also known as mindfulness or mindfulness, is a psychological theory and practice that emphasizes the importance of being aware of the present moment . That is to say, it is a method that allows us to prevent the mind from wandering and, on the contrary, to be consciously present in the now and in every action we perform or around us.

In colloquial terms, it could be assimilated to the expression “living in the present”. However, mindfulness is much more than that. In fact, mindfulness consists, mainly, of avoiding thinking about the past and the future , forcing the mind to be present in the now and avoiding any feelings of guilt for the actions it has taken and fears for future events. In this way, it is achieved that mindfulness focuses on everything that surrounds us, without judging it or providing a positive or negative value of any kind. It only consists of controlling our mind so that the thoughts do not control us, which seems easy to say but, in practice, it is more complex to do.

The goal of mindfulness or mindfulness is to calm the mind in order to calm the person as a whole. In this way, a healthy relationship is created between the person and the environment that surrounds them , without this environment, or life situation, leading to value judgments of any kind. In other words, it allows us to focus our attention on what is being done, with the aim of being perfectly aware of the nature of the acts and the testaments in which we develop in our day to day life.

This serves to balance the mind , which also affects the physical dimension of the person. In addition, it ensures that events do not trigger a torrent of uncontrollable sensations or, rather, that when these sensations are going to be triggered by a stimulus, the mindfulness practitioner can control these sensations and extinguish them as if it were an inner fire. This, at the same time, leads to greater inner peace and mental health , since a sense for the present and for the emptiness of events is developed that helps us eliminate a large part of the unnecessary suffering that we suffer in our day to day life.

The origin of mindfulness is found in Jon Kabat-Zinn , an American doctor born in 1944 who is responsible for the popularization of the term and the practice itself. However, although the concept of mindfulness was born with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the inspiration for this method is much older, for which, we must retreat to the eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism .

One of the factors that must be taken into account when mindfulness became popular is that Jon Kabat-Zinn himself is a student of Eastern cultures, as well as the practices of meditation and yoga . In these cultures, the concept of “sati” is present, a word coming from the Pali language and which would be translated as full attention or awareness. The concept of sati refers to the mental state that should be sought in meditation, since it is the way in which it is possible to develop an expanded state of consciousness and, consequently, to be able to reach enlightenment, which would be the final objective of meditative practice in religions such as Buddhism.

However, what Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn did is adapt this concept to the Western mentality, thus allowing sati to evolve into the so-called mindfulness or mindfulness, more focused on mental health than spiritual development , although both concepts have great elements in common.

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