Mindfulness

Awareness or mindfulness is a process of paying attention to what is happening in the here and now.  It is the opposite of trying to change things and is instead the clear noticing of experience.  MIndfulness is becoming increasingly popular in the field of both psychology and medicine for its capacity to help people to understand their lives better.  Also current brain research indicates that  mindfulness practise can alter brain function.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of marrying mindlfulness practise with the healthcare professions, defines mindfulness as "...paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally."

Yoga for the Mind relies on mindful awareness to help individuals become more aware of the mental processes and patterns that occur in the mind. As we shed light on our memories, thoughts and feelings we are often able to let go, or at least gain some distance, so that we are not completely overwhelmed. Within the Yoga for the Mind program mindfulness is used in conjunction with yoga asana.

The reasons for combining these two complementary practises are as follows:

1) In physical yoga practise it is easy to bring one's attention to the body.  As Yoga offers postures which are often challenging, we are naturally pulled to the present moment experience as we need to focus on what we are doing just to hold them. 

2) Through yoga practise we are able to relax, which makes it easier to see what thoughts and patterns are moving through the mind.  So yoga assists in the process of being mindful. 

3) Mindfulness has the capacity to create physiological changes in the brain such as increased cortical thickness in the brain and increased neuroplasicity (the ability for the brain to wire in different ways). When the curative properties of mindfulness are coupled with the physiological curative properties of yoga, Yoga for the Mind believes that the accrued benefit of the two techniques offers an extremely powerful healing practise, which exceeds the benefit of using just one or the other.

More about mindful awareness

Most of us spend our lives remembering the past and planning the future. Seldom are we really conscious of the here and now. This is ironic since only the here and now exists, and yet we usually ignore it. Even more frustrating is that being absorbed completely in the here and now is usually quite relaxing and yet we habitually get lost in overwhelm about the future or less than pleasant past memories. In actual fact, if we could just be present we would feel much lighter and life would seem less difficult., as the saying goes... "The past is history, the future is a mystery, the here and now is a gift that's why we call it the present!" Still being in this present is very, very hard. We are taught to look forward, and to draw our identity from the past. It is what our society does, it is a cultural norm. Rarely is the mind trained to be satisfied with what it has at a particular time. We are taught to strive and to fix ourselves, and be better and more worthy, so that sometime in the future we can be good enough and hopefully avoid reliving pain that we experienced in the past. Essentially, we feel this need to be some ideal in some future time and we constantly judge ourselves against this image. Such a thought process can be very painful, leading to a dishonouring of who and what we are now. Luckily this type of thinking does not need to rule our lives. We can learn to let go of this way of perceiving ourselves and the world, not by unbecoming what we are, but rather by starting to be with present moment experience in an open way. This allows us to start honouring the actual and divest ourselves of the painful ideas of what we want to be but don't feel like now. It also lets us let go of some of our worries about a future that has not happened. This does not mean it is un-useful to wish to improve and grow, but rather that a mind state which insists we need to grow in order to be more valuable as people is not conducive to happiness now or later. As we start to be more present something quite remarkable happens we become naturally more relaxed and peaceful, because we are being with whom we are and sowing the seeds for self acceptance. Therefore, we need to cultivate this mental faculty of being present in order to create more internal wellness. This practise of being present is called mindfulness, or the practise of being aware. Mindfulness brings us back to the present moment. Often being in the present is quite difficult and requires a bit of trust. It is hard to stop habitually thinking about how to fix the future, or heal from the past. The irony is that we are in the not present we are rejecting what we are experiencing. This act of rejection, although often used as a way to avoid pain in some future time, by spending all our time there actually causes suffering. It is a kind of self rejection. When we really come into the present, it means we are beginning to take steps towards self-acceptance. Additionally when we are present situations are usually easier than we thought. 

One of the best ways to become present is to return to the breath, another way is to become aware of sensations in the body. If we want to be present with mental experience we can simply become aware of the form of what the mind is doing rather than the content. For example instead of getting deeply involved in worry, simply note mentally that worry is in the mind. This not only brings us present in terms of the mind but also has a visceral palplable affect on our being. In 2005 Sarah Lazar and a team of scientists did brain scans on long term mindfulness meditation. (To read this study in full please go to http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1361002) They found that long term meditators had increased cortical thickness in the brain. Cortical thickness is an indicator of a capacity to modulate mood and behaviour. When the cortex is not strong, the brain is often run by the limbic part, which is more emotionally based and plays an integral role in survival. However, when the cortex is thicker it indicates an increased ability to be able to regulate our behaviour, this liberates us from always being subject to old habits and patterns and offers us the capacity to make new choices and act in innovative ways that may be more conducive to our well-being.