![]() It is essentially “awareness of the present moment with acceptance.” With mindfulness practice, we learn how to focus with greater strength on what is actually happening around us right now.Īt any moment our five senses are communicating reality to our brains, but it is up to us to choose to pay attention to this, rather than ideas coming through our imagination, some of which could trigger our sympathetic nervous response, even if we are actually totally safe in reality. This is why the research has been so surprisingly positive regarding treatment outcomes, and why mindfulness has become so popular. Exercising the mind’s focus muscle can help heal all of these. Many disorders are connected to the mind – not just psychological disorders but physical and spiritual disorders as well. The effects of strengthening this muscle are far-reaching. Focus is like a muscle, and mindfulness is how we exercise it. Mindfulness, then, is a practice that helps us become more aware of this tendency, and helps us learn how to focus our mind where we want it to go. We might feel flush, or tingly, and our minds become super-focused on the problem at hand. ![]() Our heart rates and blood pressure increase slightly and muscles tense up. Even if the response is subtle and barely felt, there are physiological reactions that occur as a result of where our minds are. When we present these “dangerous” situations to our brain by way of the imagination, our brains can react to some degree with the sympathetic nervous response, otherwise known as the fight-or-flight response. We tend to overuse this tendency by interpreting being late to the dentist, or having a messy laundry room as a “danger.” Or, we replay situations that might have not gone our way to figure out how things could have gone better in order to avoid future “dangers.” Researchers tell us that at a very deep level, our brains are constantly scanning our reality to figure out where potential dangers might be in order to prepare for them. More to read: How one sentence from a saint could change your entire life All of us turn away from the present moment sometimes, and some of us do it a lot. Or finding that we’ve arrived to a destination with only a vague recollection of how we got there. We’ve all had the experience of not really listening to someone talking to us. It is simply a new way to understand age-old truth. Mindfulness helps us to be more present to everything in our lives - from a trip to the grocery store, to relaxing with friends, to listening more attentively to a homily or meditating on the mysteries of the rosary. Instead of separating faith from the day-to-day of life, mindfulness helps bridge the gap so that we can feel the peace in our lives that should come from having a Father we can trust. Are you not much more valuable than they?”Ĭatholic mindfulness is a way to practically trust God more in our lives. Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns-and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Mindfulness, in fact, is simply a rebranding of a classically Catholic spirituality that has been around since Jesus told his disciples, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. ![]() The deeper we go into learning about mindfulness, the more it becomes clear that it is not a new fad. Lawrence’s “Practice of the Presence of God.” Awareness of the present moment is central to the mystical life and many saints have written about it. Abandonment is classic Catholic spirituality, and is also found in Br. This truth is also the premise to a spiritual practice called “Abandonment to Divine Providence,” explained in a book with the same title. We can only really know we are safe if we believe there is a God who loves us and takes care of us. That’s where Christian spirituality can come in. The premise for mindfulness is that we are actually safe in the present moment. Videos, courses, talk shows, retreat themes, school programs, even little gadgets to wear … all promising to help people be more “mindful.”īut what does that mean? Is it just another pop fad or the latest tentacle of New Age to make its way into the mainstream?Īctually, it’s more Catholic than anything else, though it was popularized for our day by a Buddhist doctor. You’ve heard of it right? It’s suddenly everywhere we turn. It sounds New Agey, but learning how to be really present is actually more Christian than anything else
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