Mindfulness – Why Now?
Mindfulness: Why Now?
Because You are here…… Now!
Mindfulness is starting over, starting over again and again so that each moment is experienced as the new moment it actually is. This means that we are truly present, truly present to whatever our experience is as it is happening.
This is a great tool to be in more charge of our lives because it provides us with the awareness to know exactly what we are experiencing right now. Take a moment to try it now, if you like, to see how much you can know about your experience of yourself in a deliberate and conscious moment of presence to yourself.
If you can notice the physical sensation of the phone or Tablet in your hand you can say to yourself I feel the smooth sensation in my fingers, making yourself consciously aware of it. Or a moment later you may become aware of your body in your chair or the movement of your legs if you are walking and you realise that you were not aware for a while. That too is present moment awareness.
You can also become aware in that conscious moment that it is time to slow down for the junction up ahead. In mindfulness you can experience yourself getting there and not just arriving suddenly as if you had not actually walked there at all. Mindfulness practice enables us to have this clear sharp fully experienced experience of ourselves and our actions at any and all times we choose to truly pay attention to the present moment and to the next present moment and the next one. Time and our experience of time are transformed in this way. Everything is more alive, everything can become a choice. Nothing is wasted or lost. We don’t forget anymore.
You have turned up to this page as a result of a conscious decision to do so. Turning up consciously is the first attribute of mindfulness. We may turn up in body but be elsewhere in mind or emotion. Or we may turn up in mind but be unaware of how we are in our bodies or feelings. We all have our automatic ways of being and acting. Our automatic pilot is always switched on, so much so that we don’t even know we have one. So, it rarely occurs to us to switch it off and to consciously decide how we will be and act. Doing this is starting over, turning up consciously and being in the only moment that actually exists, the present one.
From alarm clock to work contains hundreds of moments which are usually a blur. Imagine savouring every one of them. Imagine seeing the brilliance of Autumn leaves as if you were looking at them leaping out of a painting. Imagine feeling the silky cool softness of drops of rain on your face and being right there in that experience.
Imagination is not necessary, just being right there, awake, is. This enables us to notice the actual experience of the moment.
Then we can truly choose how to be, how to communicate, and how to act.
Mindfulness = Conscious Choice = Freedom.
Mindfulness is always Now, when we are aware. There is no Why Now?!