ATTITUDES THAT STRENGTHEN MINDFULNESS

Practicing mindfulness goes beyond the meditation daily practice. It encompasses other qualities of the mind that support the meditation practice and foster spiritual growth, peace, and joy throughout our journey.  Some of the attitudes you can cultivate require to be aware not only of your thoughts but also of your words and mental states. Let’s mention some of them:

• Curiosity – we should contemplate every moment with curiosity to perceive it fully making questions to ourselves like: What is here that I am not aware of?
• Kindness – We should contemplate the reactions of others with kindness putting ourselves in their shoes. What motivated that negative reaction? Is there any suffering behind an aggressive situation?
• Acceptance – It is difficult. Acceptance doesn’t require that we like what we accept but we need to understand that even if we don’t like something, it is the way it is, and we can’t force things to change because it causes us stress, tension, and suffering. We don’t need to stop trying to change a situation but without forcing the outcome.
• Gratitude – It has the attitude of I have instead of I don’t have to be grateful for everything including to be alive, to breath, etc.
• Nonjudging – If we notice we judge everything, simply notice it and observe the effects of our own judgment.
• Patience – We are impatient by nature, so simply notice the way impatience make you feel and its negatively impact on your emotions. Observe how relaxing the breath, feeling compassion for your own self while looking closely at your emotion will build patience by accumulation of the times you exercise patience.

If you want to learn more on how regular meditation produce structural changes in your brain read our next blog post at www.ocipeace.org