There is a lot written about the benefits of mindfulness. I believe that all these benefits can be achieved.
Changing your brain with neuro-placticity and increasing your cortical thickness is so beneficial. Decreasing cortisol and increasing DHEA in my brain will keep it running well.
That is so good to hear that a practice like mindfulness can do this.
So what.
I want to know how to do it and how to get it to benefit my life experience.
My practice has focused on how it increases my focus and performance. From competing in sports to interpersonal relationships techniques I’ve used have been enhanced with mindfulness.
In sports mindfulness helps me keep focused on executing my plan for the game. I don’t worry about the score or how skilled the other players are thanks to mindfulness.
With interpersonal and work relationships I can step back and not get caught up in other people’s emotions or statements. Being able to observe and work on a solution to issues whether it is an obstacle or a conflict.
Knowing about the benefits of mindfulness is helpful but only to the point where we our expectations start to become an obstacle.
If we practice mindfulness seeking a specific benefit that expectation of reaching that goal can become an obstacle.
Expectation can make us think that if we do certain techniques we will get rid of stress, things won’t bother us anymore, we will be calm and become enlightened.
When we still get stressed out or agitated we start to think, “I shouldn’t be this way because I practice mindfulness” and we create even more stress. This can create mistrust mindfulness and doubts in our practice. This can get us to resign ourselves to the suffering that we were trying to avoid to begin with.