Mindfulness

Hello from guest blogger, Lisa Robinson! Is mindfulness just a fad? It’s a concept that’s fairly new in our part of the world. However, its origins lie in Buddhism and ancient spiritual traditions going back more than 2,500 years. Is experiencing mindfulness immediately rewarding and leading to blissful happiness? Some sources seem to suggest that if practicing mindfulness doesn’t immediately change your life for the better that something is wrong …. with you. Ouch, it’s really not that at all. “Psychology Today” presents a much more realistic perspective here: https://ow.ly/Gzmju Practicing mindfulness can be difficult because it encourages learning to acknowledge difficult emotions and experiences instead of avoiding them. As a result, you can learn to live more consciously and focus your attention better. However, this does require practice. Like learning other skills, practicing mindfulness over time can help it to become a more effective skill for you. What gets me so excited about mindfulness is that practicing it consistently can lead to significant, positive changes in the brain. This can make it possible to experience better emotional regulation and resilience (and a whole host of other positive benefits). We once thought that the brain was unchanging, but scientific research has shown that mindfulness meditation can cause the brain to change. It's not a flavor of the month or a fad. Here’s an article from Mindful.org that tells about the science of how mindful meditation influences the brain: https://ow.ly/GAlyu Your