Why You Should Give The Gift Of Mindfulness This New Year

The start of a new year can feel magical for many of us. Although the day is still short and dark, flipping the calendar can make it seem like fresh beginnings with renewed determination are possible.

Mindfulness Scholars and Teachers like me call resolution”habit breakers,” as they can fix patterns that no longer serve individuals. However, research shows that many solutions will fail by the end of January.

But one the key to make sure that the resolution sticks is choosing the one thing that will make a meaningful difference in your life. Seeing a real, tangible benefit can provide inspiration to move on when all of life is telling us to let things go back to the way they were.

Live more mindfully is a normal new year Resolution. This year, try giving it to someone else.

Meaning of mindfulness

Mindfulness has been shown to have some significant health benefits—it can help reduce anxiety and promote healing in those people. misery from long-term chronic illness.

The practice based on an insight first described by ancient Buddhist texts that humans are capable of observing experience without getting caught up in it. What this means, simply and wonderfully, is that we can observe ourselves having a craving, a happy thought, or even a frightening emotion, without reacting. react in a way that amplifies the feeling or makes the mind spin about old memories or anticipated events.

This practice can help Soothe mind and body as we learn not to react to experience with likes and dislikes or good and bad judgments. It doesn’t make us cold or indifferent but be present more fully.

Mindfulness in a distracted world

One of the challenges of practicing mindfulness in our contemporary world is that there has been a profound transformation in people. attention. Artist Jenny Odell discuss that in our “attention economy” human attention has been turned into a commodity that large corporations buy and sell. This economy is based on the technological revolution of mobile phones and social media that makes it possible for corporations to reach us with content that can capture and monetize our focus any time, every day, and wherever we may be.

The essential little devices that most people carry in their pocket and strap on their wrists, beeping, humming, and chirping, are a permanent diversion from present moment. As a result, we can feel as though our ability to focus and be fully present was stolen.

But mindfulness can help us fight the attention economy and enjoy the things that make life special, such as being with the people we love.

The gift of mindfulness

While most research on mindfulness focuses on the individual benefits of the practice, Scholars like me argue that we can not only practice mindfulness for ourselves, but can also practice it for others. It can help us build stronger, healthier relationships.

The sad truth is that living in the attention economy, most of us have become bad listener. However, just as we can observe ourselves going through an experience without reacting, it is also possible to observe another person going through an experience without being bound by reaction and judgment. . It may simply be present.

The gift of mindfulness is the practice of listening with compassion Let others describe their experiences. To give this gift means putting your phone away, turning off social media, and setting aside other common distractions. It means to practice being fully present in front of others and listen with them with your full attention, without reacting with judgment, and at the same time resisting the urge to create interaction about you.

If we judge the value of gifts based on their cost, this gift seems worthless. But in a distracted world, I argue, it’s a a quarter.

It is not a gift that you will wrap, or put inside a card; it’s not the one you’ll have to name as a gifts or attract attention. That’s what you can do right now.

This post was reposted from Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read original article.