What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the capacity we have to develop open, non-judgemental, conscious attention to and within the experience that unfolds moment by moment.

The tools of mindfulness have been shown to be effective in managing stress, burn-out, developing resilience, managing chronic pain and so on.

Beyond these benefits and the short- and long-term effects, mindfulness is a quality inherent in our experience of being human.

Some people sell mindfulness as a means of relaxation and well-being, but this is to reduce it to a simplistic method with little power.

The cognitive ability we have to focus our attention to experience an open and at the same time highly precise consciousness will enable us to rediscover natural and fundamental qualities which all too often are buried beneath layers of dissociative behaviour where the loss of meaning, the loss of centre, leads us to lose touch with ourselves, our experience and sometimes our life. In short, the loss of our inner integrity.

Many mindfulness exercises use the body and the breath as basic supports. These two inseparable elements of our lives are extremely important because, by nature, they are only in the present.

We can travel far with our thoughts, project ourselves into a multitude of imagined futures, or return endlessly to the past, but the body and the breath are always in the present. That’s why they are the basis for developing mindfulness.

During this training, we will incorporate our senses, our ability to see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Discovering or rediscovering the qualities of the senses.

Then comes the approach to consciousness, thoughts, emotions, moods and mental images, which through the experience of mindfulness will be revealed from another perspective: we are not our thoughts.

Touching our vulnerabilities, no longer being in constant inner conflict, discovering or rediscovering our inherent qualities.

Body, breath, senses, mind – cognitive capacities – everything is integrated in the practice of mindfulness.

Rediscover the natural integrity of our experience of being human. Natural qualities such as kindness, compassion, clarity, inner balance, mind-body connection and presence to ourselves and the world are often described by mindfulness practitioners.