What is Mindfulness?

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment with a non-judgmental, non-reactive and accepting attitude.

The central principles of mindfulness are known as equanimity and impermanence.

Equanimity means a neutral reaction to something we experience. It is a state of consciousness in which we neither feel an aversion to unpleasant experiences nor desire pleasant experiences. Other ways to describe equanimity are balance, calm, and serenity.

Impermanence means the change of all things, including our own thoughts and feelings. By experiencing the changing nature of inner experiences, we can break away from fixed views that can sometimes lead to stress and unhappiness.

Do you see how mindfulness can be helpful in treating eating disorders? It helps us develop a state of balance or equanimity in which we neither feel an aversion to unpleasant experiences nor crave pleasant experiences.

When you binge, you always have this overwhelming feeling of food cravings right before you start. Before you starve yourself, you have feelings of dislike or disgust towards yourself and your body - so stop eating.

With mindfulness, you can see your eating disorder as a foreign voice (or person) sitting inside you telling you what to do. When you practice mindfulness, you can separate yourself from that foreign voice and be free.

Mindfulness is a subset of meditation practices. To be mindful, you must first learn to meditate. Mindfulness and meditation are similar, but not exactly the same. As we have already explained, mindfulness is the awareness of the present moment. But meditation is the intentional self-regulation of attention. During meditation you regulate and control your attention. And this is a development of mindfulness.

In mindfulness you learn not to judge and not to react. Observing what passes from moment to moment without judgment, without any reactivity to any part of the experience, whether thought or sensation. By reducing our overactivity in the judgmental part of the mind and the reactive part of the mind, our nervous system learns to change its pattern. It becomes less judgmental, less reactive, more objective and offers us more options to manage life, no matter what the problem is.

This method is not limited to eating disorders, anxiety, fear, or depression. People of different faiths have been practicing this method in different ways for thousands of years. This is certainly not limited to psychological or emotional issues.

Everyone will benefit from decreasing reactivity, reducing biased judgments, giving new parameters to the nervous system, and gaining greater insight and focused attention. In short, the purpose of mindfulness training is to develop a certain level of acceptance of one's experience and of course an equal level of awareness. As things become acceptable on the inside, people seem to find things more acceptable on the outside as well. The world will be a better place.

Inspired by Irina Webster