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One of the concepts that is being written more and more and that can be found in many conversations is mindfulness. This concept comes from English, and would be translated into Spanish with a meaning similar to "mind full." However, mindfulness has its origins in a time much earlier than it became fashionable in the Anglo-Saxon world and reached us as a form of coaching or a variant of traditional psychology. If you want to know what is mindfulness and what is it for, keep reading Green Ecology and we will tell you about it.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness, also known as mindfulness or mindfulness, is a psychological theory and practice which emphasizes the importance of be aware of the present moment. That is, it is a method that allows us to prevent the mind from wandering and, on the contrary, to be consciously present in the now and in every action we perform or around us.
In colloquial terms, it could be assimilated to the expression "living in the present". However, mindfulness is much more than that. In fact, mindfulness consists mainly of avoid thinking about the past and the future, forcing the mind to be present in the now and avoiding any feelings of guilt for the actions carried out and fears for future events. In this way, mindfulness is focused on everything that surrounds us, without judging it or adding a positive or negative value of any kind. Only, consists of controlling our mind so that the thoughts do not control us, which seems easy to say but, in practice, it is more complex to do.
What is mindfulness for?
The goal of mindfulness or mindfulness is to calm the mind in order to calm the person as a whole. In this way, a healthy relationship between the person and the environment around him, without this environment, or vital situation, entailing value judgments of any kind. That is to say, it allows us to focus our attention on what is being done, with the aim of being perfectly aware of the nature of the acts and the testaments in which we develop in our day-to-day life.
This serves to get balance the mind, which also affects the physical dimension of the person. In addition, it ensures that events do not trigger a torrent of uncontrollable sensations or, rather, that when these sensations are going to be triggered by a stimulus, the mindfulness practitioner can control these sensations and extinguish them as if it were an inner fire. This, at the same time, entails a greater inner peace and mental health, since a sense for the present and for the emptiness of events is developed that helps us eliminate a large part of the unnecessary suffering that we suffer in our day to day life.
What is the origin of mindfulness?
The origin of mindfulness is found in Jon Kabat-Zinn, an American physician born in 1944 and who is the responsible for the popularization of the term and of the practice itself. However, although the concept of mindfulness was born with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the inspiration for this method is much older, for which, we must retreat to the eastern religions of the Hinduism and Buddhism.
One of the factors that must be taken into account when mindfulness became popular is that Jon Kabat-Zinn himself is a student of Eastern cultures, as well as of the meditation and yoga practices. In these cultures, the concept of "sati" is present, a word coming from the Pali language and which would be translated as full attention or awareness. The concept of sati refers to the mental state that should be sought in meditation, since it is the way in which it is possible to develop an expanded state of consciousness and, consequently, to be able to reach enlightenment, which would be the final objective of meditative practice in religions such as Buddhism.
However, what Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn did is adapt this concept to the Western mentality, thus allowing sati to evolve into the so-called mindfulness or mindfulness, more focused on mental health than spiritual development, although both concepts have great elements in common.
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