Can Mindfulness Practice Make You Happier?
Mindfulness practice, and living mindfully are a transforming presence in one’s life. When we live mindlessly, which most people do, we live on autopilot where random thoughts and our default programming runs our life and our moods.
Say for instance you worry if you are spending too much money, you’ll find that all of the thoughts that follow will chase the worry thought until you get distracted or consciously choose a new thought. This is one of the major causes of chronic stress, that space where you know you don’t really have anything to worry about but you feel stressed anyway.
What is Mindlessness?
The only power thoughts have over us are what we give them by dwelling on them. Of course, you may have something you want to worry about, and, in this case I’ve always advised clients to allocate a worry time, no more than an hour, during which time you can allow yourself to search for solutions or worry about something in your life.
Remember, thoughts have no power on their own. When you dwell on a thought for more than a few minutes it starts to produce a chemical reaction in your body. If a thought is fleeting, no matter how fear based it is it has no power.
Mindfulness practice is not about trying to fix anything.
Instead, by practicing mindfulness, we are expanding our awareness by focusing on the present moment several times a day for short periods of time. Mindfulness is known to alleviate stress but that is just a side benefit; the real benefits we gain from mindfulness is increased to full awareness.
Creating Your Story
When we allow our minds to wander, it’s easy to get caught up in our story. You know your story even if you aren’t consciously aware of it. Mine used to be that there was never anyone to support me and I had to do everything for everyone. There was never enough money for me no matter how much I earnt.
Your story includes all the patterns that make life hard or easy for you, and includes how you relate to others, what people have done to you, how much money and time you have and how successful you are or and will be. I used to ask participants in my courses to monitor their mood over a 24-hour period. Now not everyone did this exercise but those that did found that their moods fluctuated a lot more than they realised. They became aware that there was usually a specific time of day when their mood dipped, 2pm being the most common time.
How to live Mindfully
Mindfulness practice is not about judging, it’s simply observing. By being mindful we are not living in the past, the future, or worrying about something or someone we have no control over, we simply experience this moment right now. Mindfulness can be a form of brain training and that is why we hear about it so much nowadays.
Awareness enables us to adopt new habits when necessary. Through the practice of mindfulness, we train our brains to a new default pattern in much the same way as acting on values does. Being mindful has also been found to reduce negative thinking and improve our ability to regulate our emotions.
Yes, the practice of being mindful can make you happier but only if you use it to adopt habits that support you. Such profound changes as stress management, emotional regulation and increased awareness of self and others can't happen in an instant. Instead, you need to dedicate some time, even a half an hour daily to establish the habit and increase your awareness.
Anne Hartley
https://www.facebook.com/annehartleyjoyfulageing/
