Mindfulness

We hear a lot about being mindful, what does it mean?  It means paying attention to what you are doing, staying focused.  It means being wakeful in the sense that you are fully conscious of what you are doing, being aware, and alert.  Consciousness also means showing knowledge, understanding, and being able to perceive what is going on.  It is an awareness of surroundings and sensations.  The most basic mindfulness is when you focus on what you are doing.  For example, telling yourself, "I am putting my keys here," or "yes, I locked the door."  Almost as if you are shining a light on what you are trying to remember.  Fixing and putting your attention on a central point and concentrating.  Often we have to remind ourselves to be mindful as most of the time we live on autopilot.  Our minds seem to have a will of their own.  Thoughts come and go and it seems as though we don't have much to say in what thoughts turn up in our head.   One of the best ways to explain mindfulness in a mundane way is to talk about it relative to eating. Mindfulness experts tell us to eat slowly and deliberately, paying full attention to each  piece of food you select to eat, how it looks, how it smells, the texture and the taste as you chew it carefully and slowly.  Mindfulness in this case means being absorbed by the experience.  Another purpose and explanation of mindfulness is to bring us back into the present moment and to quiet our minds.  If our minds wander off bring out attention back to the present moment.  But this is another topic for another day,