Mindfulness

Consciously being present

Consciously being present in the here and now, without judging. This is what Mindfulness training can help you achieve. Mindfulness is neither meditation or a treatment.
Mindfulness will give you the tools to direct your concentration, to actively guide your attention and teach to to have an open and accepting attitude.

Directing your attention

Often you can get distracted by all sorts of thoughts and emotions. How could I possibly have done that, is he angry at me, am I ever going to finish my to-do list, what was I supposed to get at the grocery store…? With mindfulness training, you can become aware of these thoughts and feelings, often by means of your breath. By recognizing these distractions, you become able to direct your attention to what you are doing at that moment, in the now.

An open and accepting attitude

You feel fear, you feel rejected, you want a piece of chocolate. Automatically, without you even realizing it, you go sit in a corner, grab a piece of chocolate, go lie down in bed under the covers.
What are these thoughts and emotions? What are these impulses? Your body, your feelings, trigger you to act and you act. What would happen if you first recognized these triggers before you acted?
Aha, I feel scared, I feel rejected, I want a piece of chocolate. Instead of immediately reacting to the fear, you feel the fear, without judgment, without doing anything to suppress the fear.
That won’t say that you want to feel scared, that you want to feel rejected, or that you don’t really want that piece of chocolate. It just means that you recognize, accept that these emotions, these impulses, these thoughts are present.