Mitra Manesh
Welcome to aram3. My name is Mitra Manesh, and this segment is about mindfulness.
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Mindfulness is this buzz word that has appeared on the cover of TIME magazine, and you hear in the boardrooms of corporations and classrooms of progressive universities.
So the trend and the fashion may be new, but the practice behind it is actually quite ancient, and it goes back to 2,400 years ago which started with the Buddha.
Here at Aram, we teach and practice secular mindfulness.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is being defined in many different ways but the one I connect to and teach from is actually this one: Mindfulness is kind awareness and acceptance of our present moment experience.
Here it is again: kind awareness and acceptance of our present moment experience.
Let’s just go through a couple of the keywords.
Present: Well I am here, standing here, experiencing this, but my mind may start to wander into the past and I go further, further into the past. If there’s especially something I don’t like, I start feeling, regretful, sad or even depressed because there is really nothing I can do to change the past.
Or I am here, and my mind starts to wander into the future. I am planning and over planning and over over planning, and of course, because there’s nothing I can do to make sure the future happens the way I want it to happen, then I start feeling nervous and anxious about it.
So, mindfulness and being in the present moment is an invitation for you to be balanced, to be here and basically meet yourself exactly where you are.
Awareness is the opposite of being on autopilot. When we purposefully show up for our present moment experience, that’s awareness.
The third word was acceptance and this is the one that many of us get stuck on because we say, “what about if I don’t like what’s happening right now for me, how can I accept that?”
Well acceptance is different than agreement, preference or wanting, or really even liking what’s going on. Basically it means meeting our self exactly where we are standing and realizing this is where we are.
But my favourite and last word is kind.
Kind: The present may not be pleasant sometimes, and this is a good time to bring a sense of kindness, to be okay, and also understand that this is a process.
This kindness also allows us to understand mindfulness as a practice. There is no mastery, we cannot always be exactly the way we want to be, so bringing kindness allows us to work with where we are and see how we are progressing.
There is a substantial body of science and research available in the area of mindfulness. The science is young and growing but very promising. However, my invitation to you is that you take mindfulness into the laboratory of your life, and see if and how it works for you. I think that’s the best way.
This is Mitra Manesh, wishing you presence, awareness and kindness.
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