Mindfulness and meditation seem to be “in” lately. Everyone’s doing it – celebrities, athletes and sports teams, schools and universities, and well-known corporations. So, you may ask, “What’s in it for me?”

I am not the biggest fan of the word “should.” Anytime someone tells me I should do this or that – I feel that what I am doing right now is not enough. So I won’t tell you that you should or should not incorporate this practice into your life, however, I will provide you with information so you may decide if this is something that may benefit you.

Mindfulness is described as:

paying deliberate attention to the present moment
non-judgmental moment-to-moment awareness
an effort to remain present
openness, curiosity, & noticing

Meditation is where we practice these skills of awareness and concentration by sitting quietly and focusing on one mental object for any length of time – usually the breath. We soon realize that our minds are like disobedient puppies. We are trying to focus on one thing or another and then – squirrel! – and we go chasing that furry mess of entertainment for as long as we allow it to captivate us. We are conditioned to operate on auto-pilot so that our minds may be free to run wild. We eat our breakfast while driving to work and listening to music and we scroll through social media at red lights. We make dinner for our family, talk on the telephone, reprimand Johnny for leaving his cleats by the door (again), and make mental notes all the while of what we still have to do that day.

Our minds are powerful. Creative. Fascinating. We come up with delicious fantasies about what we will do, say, wear, and feel in the future and we ruminate on what has already happened. So you might be thinking – yes, I do all of that, I am VERY busy, and I barely have time to read this article, let alone incorporate something else like meditation into my life. That is up to you. I will make absolutely no promises, by the way, that meditation is some panacea. A cure-all for stress and everything suddenly becomes sunshine, butterflies, and rainbows. Quite the opposite.

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

Henry David Thoreau

It will, however, expose your deepest fears, desires, motivations, and dreams. It will bring you clarity of your internal environment and provide just a little more space for you to create the habits and mindset that you want. You will form a new relationship to yourself and others. It will show you parts of yourself you don’t love, but it will hold your hand through the process of deconstructing your neuroses and the distress that arises from seeing yourself and others so clearly.

We do not have to be at the mercy of our wild minds. We can learn to be happy and peaceful in the midst of chaos, loss, and change. Stress doesn’t have to weigh us down and act as an energy vampire, nor do we have to accept certain thoughts about who we think we are. This is your life and you were blessed with a beautiful mind. Get to know it. The core beliefs you possess about yourself, your life, and the way things should be become the lens with which you experience the world around you. If you’re ready – take a closer look.