When I first started meditation, I thought that it was mainly about the formal sitting meditation. And although I now believe that without a regular practice of formal meditation one gets nowhere, I am quite convinced that the most important practice is that of mindfulness. And mindfulness at all times. No matter what the situation might be.

One reason was given in the previous post: it will give you the means to pursue you purpose and to keep on track towards whatever you want to attract.
But before describing a few methods on how to achieve mindfulness, I’d like to point to an equally important point regarding this practice. By constantly being aware of your thoughts and feelings, it will now be possible to decide for yourself whether you want to act or not on an impulse you get. It puts you in control.

This happens because when this exercise is done properly, you start to look at you feelings and thoughts in a more detached way. You can distanciate yourself and see them for what they really are: just some thought or feeling, but not really you.

This was for me a hard concept to grasp as I identify very much with my thoughts. But how many times did you not say to yourself: I wish I did not get angry, or: it is really stupid of me to get scared over … because it is really harmless. These are the kind of thoughts I am referring to. In the case of getting angry, you often hear people say: I was so enraged that it was as though it was somebody else being angry.
When you start seeing your thoughts as that: coming outside of you, you made a big step in overcoming all the negativity in your live. When you stop identifying with your thoughts, you can more easily put them aside and not act on them (which, in the case of anger or fear, is a handy feature).

And then another property of mindfulness will help you. As you start to be more mindful, you will see thoughts and emotions arise much earlier.
Let us take anger a an example. Most people that get anger, have a sudden outburst of aggression (be it verbal or physical) and cannot seem to stop it. In fact, it was bubbling under the surface for quite some time, unnoticed. Therefore, we are already very angry before we start noticing the anger, and then it is too late. If we now can spot the very first symptoms, it is still possible to reason oneself through it: to notice that it is not a big deal, or that the issue is just not worth it. In this way, the anger goes away slowly, without any negative effects.

So you see that mindfulness is a very handy tool to have, but I am afraid that this post already is too long to start the description of the practice. It will be for another time.

Be well. Be rich. Be great.

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