Mindfulness means to purposefully pay attention to your experience in the present moment. While meditation is one of the most popularly used forms of mindfulness, it is not the only form of mindfulness. Mindfulness does not mean that we need to sit cross-legged, it does not require us to pay strict attention to our breathing, it does not require us to watch our thoughts like clouds passing through the sky. In fact, it doesn't even require that we keep our eyes closed! Again, any of these may be a part of a mindfulness practice, but they do not define mindfulness.
I utilize mindfulness as a tool to help you explore your present experience. I will often begin our sessions by prompting the client to become more mindful, to ease into that type of consciousness that allows one to have greater awareness of one's thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. From this place, we can start to pay attention to ourselves. We can discover that it isn't just our thoughts that have a lot to say, but our emotional and physical bodies are constantly giving us information too that we often go through our day unaware of.
By listening to our entire self, we can begin to develop a greater understanding of the habitual patterns that get in the way of our living life to its fullest. More importantly, from a place of awareness we can begin to change these patterns.
