"I approached it with mindfulness," he tells Oprah in the above video.
The mark you leave doesn't have to be monumental in size, just mindful in approach; with mindfulness, the mark you leave can be inscribed more deeply on a daily basis.
Specifically, they wanted to know how much the partners approached their conflict with mindfulness, the moment-by-moment, "non-judgmental" awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sensations--an ability to notice and accept what we are experiencing in the present, without judging those thoughts or feelings as "right" or "wrong".
By approaching your work with mindfulness, you decrease the amount of energy you spend worrying about the past or the future, and you increase the amount of attention you give to present and positive experiences.
May we approach today's mindfulness practice with a spirit of devotion.
Tame your wandering mind with mindfulness.
Finding the right teacher is often difficult for people approaching mindfulness for the first time.
And research with mindfulness interventions suggests that training people to approach, rather than avoid, their emotional experiences can decrease fear of empathy and increase pro-social behavior.
Conversely, participants who found the initial exercises relatively straightforward and who were able to adopt a relaxed, non-striving, non-judgemental approach to mindfulness practice tended to enjoy the exercises and persist with them after completing the course.
Working with mindfulness and meditation in this way is only one approach toward depression that is showing encouraging results in studies for preventing depressive relapse.
In the comments below, or on the Living with Mindfulness Facebook page, share an experience about when your mindfulness practice helped shift your approach to a difficult life situation.
