How can mindfulness help you navigate life?
I have been practicing mindfulness and meditation for 13 years now. Practising regularly has made a huge difference to my mental health and overall wellbeing.
What brought me to mindfulness was a demanding job that felt overwhelming at the time. I suffered from high levels of stress and anxiety.
A mindfulness practice has given me a raft of practical tools that I can apply daily to navigate the ups and downs of life, to support myself and emotionally self-regulate as well as notice, fully live and make the most of joyful moments.
But what has helped me most is the underlying philosophy of mindfulness: that life is uncertain. In mindfulness practice we learn to relate to our experience as fluid and always changing.
Mindfulness teaches us that we can’t change the circumstances we are in but that we can have a powerful sense of initiative and agency over the choices we make. We can always choose the attitude we bring to any given situation, whether that's being kind, open and caring or critical and harsh.
Mindfulness is an awareness that arises when we intentionally pay attention
Your practice can be formal – where you sit quietly and have an object of intention such as the breath, or informal - where you incorporate mindfulness into your daily life. Both forms are needed to truly benefit.
Through a mindfulness practice we learn how to become more aware of what’s happening in our mind, body and emotions in relation to other people and our surroundings.
It’s about our intentions and actions and knowing that our intentions and actions have an impact on ourselves, others and the world we live in.
What are the benefits of mindfulness?
Mindfulness increases self-awareness, reduces stress and anxiety and helps us to emotionally self-regulate. Mindfulness can also improve relationships – we listen better to others – and increase cognitive capacity, which boosts focus and decision-making.
What simple thing can someone do to practise mindfulness at any time?
· Set a timer on your phone to pause several times a day to take three deep breaths.
· Notice sensations in the body and the mood you are in with an attitude of curiosity and kindness. This will create some space to re-engage with the present moment, to restore, to respond creatively and with choice to what’s happening in any given moment.
My mindfulness practice led to a career change and today I’m one of the leading accredited mindfulness practitioners and teachers, running 8-week mindfulness courses for stress and 8-week courses for chronic pain management; planning and implementing bespoke mindfulness programmes and workshops for the workplace.
As always, I’d love to hear from you.
Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions about how to start a regular mindfulness practice to help you navigate everyday life.
Email me at: karen@greenspacecoaching.com
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