Back to Basics

Mindfulness is a practice. It is an action that is not meant to be perfected. While there is a field of awareness, our mind moves around attending to thoughts about almost anything in our day. We can see that our attention moves from a central focus (e.g., the breath) to thoughts that come to mind, which generally lead to the next thought, and then to the next thought and so on.

The process of Mindfulness is fundamentally recognising where our attention has moved to and then gently bringing the attention back to an intended focus (e.g., the breath). It is common for beginners to become disheartened with the practice due to perceiving that they must force the attention to remain on a single focus indefinitely.

Mindfulness is the process of recognising the location of attention, and bringing the attention back to your intended focus.

This focus may be the breath at the nostrils or belly, your big toe or the variety of sounds outside. Whatever you choose, it is completely normal for the mind to be distracted from your focus and attend to thoughts. 

This process provides the opportunity to practice mindfulness and train attention. Attention training, research suggests, has psychological health benefits across many domains of experience.

So next time you beat yourself up for a wandering mind, remember that the process of bringing the attention back to your focus is the practice of Mindfulness.