The words mindfulness and meditation are thrown left and right everywhere and seem to be the cure-all to all human problems and health issues. People jump on the bandwagon and try the new flavour of the week as new mindfulness and meditation books and courses are sprouting everywhere, promising that it is the latest panacea. More often than not, people are left disappointed when they try it out on their own with the help of a book, an app or a podcast. Their lives are not changing, and they are left believing that it does not work. I commonly hear things like:
I can go on and on on the broken promises that many claim mindfulness and meditation will bring. SO here is what the problem really is. There is nothing wrong with mindfulness and meditation, these strategies DO WORK. The problem does not lie there. Do you want to know what the REAL problem is? Before I give you an answer, let’s start with an analogy: You go to the gym 3- 4 times a week. You do yoga every morning. You eat junk food or skip meals, go to bed at all hours of the night, and barely get six hours of sleep, you have no self-care routine. You are still stressed and overwhelmed, and it’s taking forever to lose weight. What’s wrong with this picture? Exercise and yoga don’t work? Or is it everything around it that is flawed? It’s no different with mindfulness and meditation. These are strategies to improve your life, but these tools have a limited effect if they are practiced in isolation. Just like when you are working out and doing yoga (even if the rest of your lifestyle is a mess), they will still be beneficial while you practice them and maybe moments after. But you won’t get the full benefits if you don’t transform the other areas of your life. What do I mean by that? Well, if you momentarily practice meditation and mindfulness, but outside of these practices your mindset is very negative, you make poor choices, hang out with toxic people, don’t stand up for yourself, worry too much about what other people think, put everyone first, are a people pleaser, accommodate everyone, have poor self-care, don’t ask for help, stay in an unhappy marriage or job, ignore your gut feelings, live in fear or guilt… Need I say more? I think you know where I am going with this. After all, you are all smart people. Mindfulness and meditation are disciplines to implement within more significant changes in your life. Let’s use another example. Research has shown that happy people have a gratitude practice. If you are only grateful for five minutes in the morning as you write in your gratitude journal, but throughout the day, you complain, judge, criticize and are a glass half empty kind of person…. Gratitude’s effects will be limited. Happy people don’t ONLY practice gratitude. If you live in gratitude from the moment you wake up till your head hits the pillow at night, you will reap the benefits of this practice. That means, when you complain, you will catch yourself and shift it and find gratitude even in a challenging moment. Sincere gratitude is not a five-minute practice, it has to become a way of life to feel its effects. Now back to meditation and mindfulness. First, meditation is an exercise of focussed attention for the brain. Every time you sit to meditate, you are creating neuronal connections in your brain. Studies have shown that people who meditate daily are more resilient than those who don’t, and it has a preventative effect on various psychiatric disorders and stress. Meditation is a workout for your brain. We need to take time out of our busy schedules to go to the brain gym. We can’t do this while we are doing something else. Now, mindfulness, what is that? Simply put, mindfulness is the act of being fully present and paying attention, without judgment, to whatever is happening inside you and outside of you. It is the act of noticing in the same way a scientist would observe how an experiment is unfolding without trying to control it. Usually, our minds are busy wandering to the past or the future. Living there is the source of our suffering. Mindfulness teaches us that, more often than not, what is happening now is all that exists. Only the present moment is real. The past, the future are just thoughts. They don’t exist. They are memories or fantasies. The here and now is where we live. And quickly, that moment is in the past to make a place for another moment. All there is, is now. This is what mindfulness teaches us. Children reach that state naturally. As adults, we need to re-learn how to live there. This is why it is easy to teach mindfulness and meditation to children, as it is their second nature. When we practice being present on purpose, there is no suffering in the present moment. Of course, there can be pain, that is without saying. But suffering is optional. Suffering arises when we create stories in our minds to narrate, judge, compare, resist, reject, try to control what is happening now. That is where suffering lies. Even being present to the pain can be easier than resisting it because, in that space, we are more likely to find a solution that can bring us more peace, moment by moment. Sounds like utopia? It isn’t. Meditation trains our minds on how to be more mindful. Just like lifting weights (an artificial gesture) will train your body to lift heavy boxes, develop a stronger core and back. And yoga might help you generate more flexibility, range of movement and even cope with physical and psychological pain. The skills learned through yoga and exercise improve the quality of our lives. Meditation and mindfulness improve the quality of our lives by teaching us how to be more present and to declutter our minds. The result is increased awareness, which leads to making better choices, and THAT is where the magic lies. Meditation and mindfulness without self-awareness and presence outside of these activities cannot transform our lives. But they sure are the first step to total transformation. We cannot change what we don’t see or acknowledge. Meditation and mindfulness train our minds to make better choices, slow down and not lose our way. If we apply the principles of meditation and mindfulness, we are closer to transforming our lives by noticing where the changes need to be made in the first place. Allowing us to pay attention to our intuition, or gut feelings, which are trying to tell us something. We need to listen. It helps us develop the ability to not lose our cool with our kids, our spouse, or the people around us. It teaches us to slow down so we can think before we react and act instead in ways that are in line with what matters most to us- our values. Meditation and mindfulness is the door you want to open to total transformation. It is not the end; it is the means to an end. Learning mindfulness and meditation on your own can be easy. Putting them into application in your day-to-day or troubleshooting is the tricky part. Don’t knock down these practices because they truly work. They will transform your life for the better. My clients can attest to this! You just need the assistance of an experienced teacher to put it all together. I can help. You can leave me a short voicemail for comments or questions. Connect here. Directly from your browser! Those who know me, know that I aim to serve, so please submit any suggestions of content you would love to see in there or in my newsletter. Wishing you all
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” />Hi everybody,
” />A Mindful Day 
Dr. Gina MadrigranoPsychologist, Transformational Coach & Parenting Consultant