Mindfulness, What Is It?

Mindfulness is an important concept in Whole Health care, which takes into account your physical body, but also your emotional and mental "bodies." Our mind and what we choose to pay attention to is instrumental in terms of health and happiness.

What does it mean to be mindful?
Let's break it down into three different, yet related parts.
1. Paying attention in a more conscious and purposeful way
2. Paying attention to the present moment
3. Paying attention without judgment

1. Paying Attention in a conscious way means to deliberately choose your focus. 
What do you pay attention to? 
What is most important for you to be mindful of?
And how do you pay attention? 
Can you do it with a relatively open receptive mind, a "beginner's mind"?

In the morning, do you immediately start thinking about your to-do list, finding yourself increasingly stressed or do you allow space for something else? 
Do you argue with the weather? 
Do you put your attention on what’s possible or immediately jump to limiting conclusions? 
Do you consciously determine your focus or is it completely at the mercy of whatever triggers you?

When doing a session, a BodyTalk practitioners is trained to consciously choose to focus on or pay attention to priority issues according to your own inner wisdom, using neuromuscular feedback and balancing techniques.

2. Being mindful also means Paying Attention to what is presently occurring. Everything only happens in the “now”, as past and future are concepts in our mind. Much of our time we spend either reflecting on and analyzing the past, or planning for or worrying about the future. At times, this is of course important. The problem is that we tend to overdo this. What if more of your thinking could actually spring from inspiration in the present moment? How would that change your life?

When doing a session, a BodyTalk practitioner works on staying open to what is ready to emerge at the present moment. 

3. Paying Attention without judgment is the third part of this mindfulness definition. And this is not easy for us humans. With practice we can bring more spaciousness to every experience without being so quick to label it good or bad, right or wrong. In challenging times, can you simply sit with an uncomfortable feeling for a bit without judging it? This in itself can be quite healing.

When doing a session, an experienced and mature BodyTalk practitioner will be open-minded and accepting, without the need to judge. 

Source: Writings by Mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn

Warmly,
Tone-Lise