Mindfulness
Mindfulness Training in Winchester, Eastleigh and Surrounding Areas
What is Mindfulness?
Every day we can easily get caught up in our thoughts , and lose touch with how we are feeling in our bodies, and tend to allow our minds to rule our thoughts, without being aware of things around us. Mindfulness helps to support us to reconnect with ourselves, and the environment around us.
Mindfulness allows us to be able to stand back from our thoughts and notice any patterns in our behaviours. We can start to train ourselves that thoughts are not necessarily facts, and we can have a choice about how to look at them differently.
Jon Kabat Zinn defines mindfulness as:
“Paying attention;
On purpose,
in the present moment, and
non-judgmentally.”
Mindfulness training can help us to bring our minds back to the present, with a sense of openness and curiosity. In other words we can learn how to be less judging of our thoughts and feelings. I can offer one to one mindfulness training. I also look at incorporating mindfulness strategies if appropriate when counselling clients.
Practicing Mindfulness
Have you ever driven a car and wondered how you arrived at your destination? Or have you eaten a meal not aware of eating, or the taste of the food, but rather your mind is elsewhere maybe on the day ahead, or maybe its dwelling on a past event. Sometimes we can feel pulled in all sorts of directions causing anxiety, or stress. Practicing mindfulness helps to be in the moment. For example, eating a meal we can bring our focus of attention using our senses of taste, sound, smell, sight in that moment.
The Benefits of Mindfulness
There have been, and continue to be a great deal of research in the area of Mindfulness. The research so far demonstrates that there are a wide range of benefits for example managing stress, anxiety, panic, and pain. There is evidence that people who experience a mindful way of living demonstrate less stress in their lives, and live life feeling more settled with themselves. Maintaining a regular mindful practice can allow our thoughts and emotions to be calmer, and we can experience life in a more accepting way. We can begin to see that our minds are great story tellers, and we can learn to be able to step back and make choices in the decisions that are important to us.
© Mindful Counselling
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