MindfulLiving

Increasingly more of us have ceased noticing many aspects of the world within and around us, especially when we live very busy lives. It is something which may not be immediately obvious as we are so entrenched in our lives. With an ever-changing world, it has become significantly easier to lose touch with the sensations of life and living. As we do, some of us start to act totally via conditioned thinking, apparently reacting unconsciously to life.

You do not need to change who you are or modify your beliefs to become a lot more self-aware. All of us have the capacity to be mindful, to take notice of and be aware of the here and now. The trick is discovering that impetus to break free from the thoughts which your mind generates to keep you living life mindlessly. Active intelligence is the act of engaging in your thought processes beyond unconscious thought, utilising both good judgment and awareness to make real choices. In all of this, it is awareness which is the fundamental key to activating choice in life.

Through the awareness of yourself and your life, which can be achieved via techniques such as mindfulness, you can break those patterns of unconscious thoughts or pre-programmed reactions. At its heart and core, the whole focus of mindfulness is about awareness. Whether that be awareness of a sensation in your body or of some other external subject, the objective is the same. The objective is to focus your mind away from the everyday thoughts of your mind.

So if you find that you have actually stopped noticing the worlds around or within you, spend some time reconnecting with your real intentions with life force mindfulness.

How many times have you become aware of the expression “You become what you think” or variants on the same concept? Your thoughts are more than simply thoughts, they are what guide you through life and define you. They shape your perspective of the world and those around us. If you believe you can be successful, typically, you will achieve some form of success. However, if you believe you will fail, then more often than not you will face challenges and not succeed. This does not imply that you are prophetic, it just means that you generally believe and act out what rattles around inside your head.

Your mind is a powerful tool when used correctly, but it can also be your own worst enemy. You may not know it, but for most people, your mind can play tricks on you. If you think you cannot do something, at that point you have set yourself up for failure. Before you have even begun you are questioning whether you will be successful, it is a formula for calamity.

Buddha stated, “The mind is everything. What you think, you become“. As you probably have picked up from the above paragraphs, there is an honest truth in this statement. It then follows that if you can control your mind, you can help to direct and guide the direction of your life. We live what we think about constantly. These thoughts might be intangible, however, their power lies in the way they affect and influence us. For every thought or action, there is a reaction or effect. This correlates to the observations made by Newton when he detailed his third law of motion. Realise that your thoughts and reactions all have effects and consequences. There is always an effect even if you do not witness the result. Your thoughts and reactions in life can result in an accumulation of emotionally charged energies within you. These energies can have damaging or detrimental effects on your body, sometimes bringing about illness.

We have the capacity to choose how we feel and to dictate how we will live our lives. That is why our thoughts are so significant, due to the fact that they determine virtually every element of our lives. You can either be shackled by your thoughts or set free by them. If you want to transform your thought process and improve your quality of life – you must take action. So begin to take control of your thinking and reactions to make sure that you only build beneficial energies of thought.

When focused with intent, your thoughts can be significantly more powerful, akin to light being concentrated by a magnifying glass. If, however, your thoughts lack focus, they may resemble light being transmitted through a prism or even being diffracted through the water. While light can be transited through a magnifying glass, a prism or a glass of water what happens to the light on the other side is very different. When the light passed through the magnifying glass, the multiple waves and particles of light are focused with greater intensity. Conversely, light transiting through the prism can be split up and separated, effectively reducing the overall intensity. Similarly, light traversing a glass of water can be distorted and scattered by the intervening components so that the light may no long bears recognisable as the original form.

These examples of light passing through various substances are comparable to your own thoughts. You can discover the skill of focusing your thoughts through the technique of Ekagrata rather than allowing your thoughts to become dispersed or scattered like the light in the previously mentioned example of the prism and glass of water.

The ability to be able to truly focus your mind is a key aspect of any practice relating to mindfulness or indeed any aspect of your life. The basic principle of Ekagrata is simply that of focusing your thoughts without concentration and maintaining that focus without allowing your mind or thoughts to drift off to other things. The same principle of focusing your thoughts is also important for those who wish to succeed in their practices of meditation or other more advanced techniques such as Cognition.

While many may talk of focusing your thoughts, it is important to comprehend that there is a subtle but important difference between focused thought (Ekagrata) and concentration. While concentration can seem similar to focusing, it often contains emotional aspects which can distort the thoughts resulting in an overall unsatisfactory result. So take the opportunity to discover how to focus your thoughts without concentration as this can help you in so many ways.

When your life seems to be rushing by and everything around you seems to be happing too fast or out of your control, make the effort to stop for a moment. At that instant in time, with the world on pause, ask yourself, is it the world that is busy and hectic, or is it my mind? You might actually discover that the fact is, that your mind is overfilling your life with innumerable and quite often unwanted and frequently groundless thoughts or other contrivances. With some of these thoughts paused, you now have the opportunity to reestablish control of your mind to make your life truly less hectic.

Each of us have some form of stress which impacts on our lives. Appropriately recognising and dealing with it can lead to a more balanced and healthy life. There are many schools of thought as to the root cause of stress. However, a new way to look at stress, is that stress is purely a build-up of energy. As you experience life, your own thoughts and reactions can lead to an accumulation of energy within different areas of the mind and body. If this build-up of energy is not appropriately dissipated, the overload of emotional energy will cause issues for the human mechanism.

While we can still consider the traditional aspects of stress, this new slant on stress provides you with an opportunity. When you start to feel stressed, find a way to release the build-up of emotional energy so that it does not hurt you or others around you.

Some simple techniques can be utilised to help you destress by draining away these overloads of energy. One simple method can entail taking a few minutes out in meditation or mindfulness to seeing yourself near a lake or ocean, seeing the emotional energy draining away into the water. Another similar method is to stand on the earth, then think of the emotional energy being drawn away into the ground. Alternatively, if you are practised in breath works, then you can see these excess energies flowing out as dark clouds when you exhale.

Many times in life, we are distracted by things that upset us, cause worry or tension. If you were to closely examine your life, you would find many aspects appear to be out of your control. However, many people continue to try to change these seemingly immovable things in life.

 

To bring about some true and meaningful change, focus your intentions on the things in life which you can change, rather than dwelling on what apparently is out of your control.

No matter what is going on in your life, you can still choose to be aware and mindful. It is all about choices – you have the power within you to choose how to respond, rather than reacting. The power is within your grasp; pausing your mind provides the opportunity for silences and active intellect to take charge. You can then make informed decisions on how to react to any situation in your life.

Mindfulness can be applied almost anytime and anywhere, be that standing in a queue, sitting at your desk or carrying out household tasks. You can apply aspects of mindfulness through your breathing or observation of sensations in your body.

Mindfulness at its most basic principle is becoming aware, though few of us have considered the winder context this implies. As you work to apply Mindfulness all day, take the opportunity to grow your experience. As you can become aware of your breathing or sensations in your body, you can progress to become aware of your own thoughts. As you increase your awareness, observe how your thoughts arise within your mind and how your reactions can lead to seemingly unconscious thoughts. The more that you become aware of all aspects of your life, the more profound your mindfulness experiences will be.