Mindfulness: Learning to Sit With Yourself.

“The intentional awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions and senses without judgement.” 

Oftentimes we hear the word mindful or mindfulness and immediately picture someone sitting cross-legged, meditating in silence for hours. Although meditation is certainly one way to practice mindfulness, mindfulness is much larger than that. At its core, mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment with curiosity rather than criticism. This may sound simple enough, but it’s definitely anything but easy. Learning to notice what is happening within and around myself without immediately trying to judge, change, or escape it never came naturally to me. 

For much of my life, I struggled with impulsivity and a deep discomfort when it came to sitting with difficult emotions. Due to feeling anxious, overwhelmed, lonely and frustrated I would immediately try to escape these emotions as quickly as I could whether it be through scrolling on my phone, watching a show or eating junk food. Other times, I would react impulsively instead of pausing to ask myself what I was feeling and what I needed right now. 

Many of us become experts at avoiding difficult emotions because we have never really been taught to sit with them. Avoidance can look like distracting yourself with endless to-do lists, shopping, drinking, television, work, dating apps, and more. We are convinced that we can solve or distract our way out of difficult emotions. However, emotions are not problems to be fixed but rather experiences to move through. That is where mindfulness changed everything for me.

Mindfulness did not magically eliminate difficult thoughts or emotions but rather helped me change my relationship with them. It helped me learn that thoughts are not facts and sometimes come and pass away like clouds in the sky. I may experience anxiety, but I can recognize that this shall pass and that I do not need to immediately look for an escape route. 

This brings me to an important part of mindfulness: practicing without judgement. 

As humans, we often assign values to everything we do or think. We have expectations of ourselves and may label certain thoughts as “good” and others as “bad”. We may criticize ourselves for feeling the way we do and may tell ourselves things like : 

“ I shouldn’t be so anxious.”

“I should be over this by now.” 

“I should be more productive with my time.”

In therapy, we refer to this as “shoulding” ourselves. This essentially means that we are placing rigid expectations on how we think, feel, and behave. While these thoughts and feelings may come from a desire to improve, they often cause one to feel more shame rather than instill any hope or change. 

Mindfulness invites us to understand our emotions instead of fighting them. When we notice ourselves feeling anxious, instead of telling ourselves “I shouldn’t feel anxious,” we may replace this with “I am noticing anxiety showing up today”. Creating space between ourselves and the emotion we are experiencing enables us to understand them better through a lens of compassion and curiosity rather than criticism. 

Like any skill, mindfulness takes repetition. If you are new to mindfulness, start small. Start by noticing your breath when you wake up in the morning or paying attention to the warmth of your first coffee of the day. Pay attention to the feeling of your feet on the ground as you walk towards your car. These small moments may seem insignificant, but they teach your nervous system something incredibly valuable: you have the capability of staying present with yourself. 

Mindfulness may not remove every difficult thought or emotion, but it changes your response to them. Instead of being swept away by every wave, you begin learning how to ride them. 

And sometimes, that gentle pause between feeling and reacting is where healing truly begins.