Master your mind with Mindfulness? Read 4 tips here

Mindfulness something for you?

Haptotherapy, like mindfulness, is a way of counseling that focuses on the balance between feeling, thinking and doing. After all, when feeling, thinking and doing align, we are "at our best. The emphasis is on experiencing yourself in the here-and-now, and on who you are in contact with others. It helps you develop your 'feeling capacity' so that you can better cope with your symptoms. It focuses on making you aware of feelings and promotes your body and self-awareness.

Unlike meditation, mindfulness focuses precisely on being consciously present and feeling. 'Ordinary' meditation is often aimed at 'escaping reality'. That may give a moment's rest, but to truly 'experience' life, the movement, to be able and dare to return to reality, is just as important as it is interesting.

STOP!

Literally stopping whatever you are doing is always the first step you take when it comes to living "mindfully. As long as we don't -consciously- stop, we get sucked into the maelstrom of life. Then we are lived instead of living.

When?

The simple thing about mindfull living is that it can always be done. In fact, you can ALWAYS STOP. Often our lives move so fast that we think we don't have time. And when we wait to "stop" until we actually have time it is most likely never going to happen. So it can be done anytime and for as long or short a time as you want.

Whether it's 3 minutes or 3 seconds. The important thing is to do it BEWARE above all else! 3 seconds to pause what you are doing, stop and then be there all over again. These 3 seconds can make a world of difference. In any case, keep it realistic. It is better to meditate for 5 minutes every now and then (mindfulness meditation) than to resolve to take an hour every day and then not get around to it.

Where?

The important thing here is: keep it simple. You can "stop" (or as we call it "meditate") anytime, anywhere. It does make it easier if the simplify the situation around you as well and sit, lie down, stand or walk in a place where you are not immediately called upon.

However beneficial and beneficial, stopping is not the end in itself of mindfulness meditation. Stopping is a condition for, a stepping stone to, being attentively present to what is here now. "Mild open attention" is what meditation is all about.

Shifting attention

The simplest (and at the same time most difficult) meditation instruction is: just sit and watch what happens. Without more, without focusing your attention on anything. It is the most complete instruction. But this often seems somewhat aimless and difficult to do because we are naturally accustomed to focusing our attention on something. Hence, it may help to remember the following tips:

1. Focus on your breath:
   Following your breath is by far the most commonly used meditation technique. At first, you will feel how you breathe in and out, and then you will gradually notice that your attention wanders. That doesn't matter. Just try to keep returning to your breath. (Note: it's not about the result, but about learning to be aware of what is happening to you!)
2. Focus on your body:
   In mindfulness, this is called the "body scan." It makes your body "visible," as it were. Many people discover how little they actually feel their body. Sometimes it takes a lot for our body to really get our attention. Sometimes only when we feel pain or exhaustion. But the body sends out very clear signals. You just have to learn to recognize them. Our body also sends out pleasant signals. These confirm what you are doing 'right'. This also provides a lot of information.
3. Focus on sounds:
   Listening to the sounds around you is a wonderful exercise. Sounds are also constantly 'in motion' and you never know what's coming next. Sounds are like breathing; a kind of anchor you can always return to when your thoughts have wandered off again.
4. Focus on your thoughts and feelings:
   According to Buddhist psychology, the sixth sense is our mind; the sense with which we can perceive thoughts and feelings. You can know what you are thinking and feeling. This is therefore a form of 'perception'. So you might as well make your thoughts and feelings the 'object of attention'. If you are at your right foot in the body scan and you are distracted by your own thoughts, as soon as you notice this, shift your attention back to your right foot. The reverse is also possible: if you take your thoughts as the 'object of attention' and you are distracted by a feeling (pain, tickling, or restlessness) in your right foot, as soon as you notice it, shift your attention back to your thoughts.

Openness

Openness is the most characteristic of a good mindfulness meditation. So it's not about stopping thinking or feeling. Whatever your practice is, thoughts and feelings are just part of it. In the foreground or in the background, it doesn't matter.

Often you hear someone ask, "what should I think, what should I feel?" These kinds of questions are not important. Whether it's appropriate or not, whether it's beautiful or not so beautiful thoughts, it doesn't matter. Mindfulness is a radical, honest a heartfelt openness to what is now.

Being mild

Often people start meditating in the hope that it will do something for their problems. That it will relieve at least some of the cares of life. Or that they will experience less stress. In achieving this, it is especially important to be gentle toward yourself and then toward your environment. Just remember that the very fact that you have the desire to solve a problem or want to live a nice(er) life already indicates that you are being gentle. You are seeking gentleness.

Whatever you think, whatever your thoughts are, whether or not you manage to meditate "properly" try to look at it with mildness. After all, everything you do and everything you try is good. And that very process of awareness, that acceptance of what is happening, is where the basis for mindfulness living lies.

Setting aside time daily to replace the doing mode with the being mode is one of the most useful gifts you can give yourself. You cultivate mindfull awareness-you nurture it and keep it readily available. Preferably do a (short) meditation. If this is not possible or does not suit you, provide an activity that you cannot do purposefully and with full attention. Give yourself enough time to make the switch and experience the being mode.

Experience our Cardiovascular and Stress Test to see if you could use some mindfulness!

Source: Yoga Center Innerwork Haarlem /www.allehaptonomen.nl/ The body never lies, Ted Troost on haptonomy