If you’re someone who isn’t where they want to be, who feels like so much is missing from your life, then mindfulness or self-awareness is probably the single most important practice to cultivate.
Mindfulness has become quite a fashionable word, often associated with things like yoga or meditation.
To me this is a little bit unfortunate, because things like yoga and meditation are by and large still seen as niche practices or rituals.
The real, actual benefits of them, the reason why people do them, are still not as collectively conscious as they will be some day.
So someone not into yoga, Buddhism, or spirituality might be inclined to dismiss mindfulness as a practice before even really understanding it.
In reality, mindfulness can be extrapolated down to simply being aware of one’s own mind and the activity within it.
It means observing your own thoughts—an incredibly useful ability that can completely overhaul your whole life and how you see and experience it.
Thoughts are often the thing that everything “negative” we experience can be traced back to.
Almost everything bad that happens to us can be seen from an aerial perspective as experiences that we tell ourselves stories about.
These stories can cause us everything from pain to pleasure. They determine the a large portion of the ensuing emotions.
There is a certain animal, unconscious aspect of us that react to events instinctively.
This can be changed as well, but it can take years, lifetimes.
But fortunately, the intervals of time we allow those instinctive reactions to embody us can be reduced to almost nothing.
The more we practice awareness of ourselves, the faster we can mindfully notice the reaction and then pull ourselves out of it completely.
That process is more complicated than the description eludes to, but it is a skill that can become habitual.
Physical pain and suffering is the essentially the only type of suffering that are “outside” our volition.
But for most of us living in the developed world, without a chronic health condition, and not in a constant struggle for survival, physical pain is a smaller part of our lives than mental pain.
And regardless, mental pain can be mitigated to the extent that it will even lessen the impact of physical pain.
Both are, in the end, perceptions.
They influence each other as well.
If we tell ourselves a story of destruction about pain, it’s a horrible experience.
If we tell ourselves a story of preserverance and growth about physical pain, it’s merely exciting, even if they both involve the same signals of pain from the same nerves.
In a similar way, the physical pain our body experiences can subtly influence the thoughts in our minds.
It can make us think more negatively as a result of feeling weak and leaden down by life. There is a dose of hopelessness.
Be aware of these influences, then do everything you can to not get unconsciously drawn into the processes of them.
Develop strength and take care of your body, to mitigate physical pain and to stand strong in the world.
It will lead to better thoughts, boost your confidence, and open up the world for your soul.
Notice your own thoughts and how they are influencing you, try to find where they’re coming from.
Analyze them.
How are those thoughts affecting your behavior?
What grounds are there for having them in the first place?
Most importantly: is it useful to conitnue having them, in the face of the greatest vision of your life?