Be Mindful and Be Happy

Be Mindful and Be Happy

Your body and mind are interconnected with each other. But many of us don’t see that subtle and intricate relationship. Being present, or more consciously present in your body moment by moment, enables you to live not only in your physical body but also inside your wholeness (including your mind) as a human being.

Your present moment relationship with yourself, with others, and with the world around you depends on your mindfulness, which is deliberate and purposeful awareness of your body in the present moment. It is this acute awareness or mindfulness that connects your body and mind in a unique way. Once they become connected, you mind will intuitively know what your body needs, and your body will then respond to your mind accordingly.  

Mindfulness is your path to better health and greater happiness. If you are mindful of what is happening to your body, you begin to develop the language of your body; that is to say, you begin to understand what is wrong with your body before it develops into a health issue. Likewise, It affects also your mind, making you see what is really happening in your mind.

Mindfulness is a basic human capacity that can be cultivated and strengthened with consistent daily practice. Essentially, you become acutely aware of what is happening to your body in the present moment: that is, you direct your attention in a casual and nonjudgmental way to the present moment.

Remember, your body is yours only, and is always with you. Finding the moment-by-moment relationship with your body is your path to better health and greater happiness. The present moment is always here and is timeless. This unique relationship helps you become more caring and more compassionate towards others; gives you clarity of mind, such that you can see what is really important to you in your life, and allows you to let go of everything peacefully and willingly. Remember, life happens only in the present moment. The past is gone forever, and the future is uncertain. However, we are so easily distracted by thoughts of what happened in the past and thoughts of what may happen in the future, based on thoughts of the past  that we lose sight of what is most important to us—that is, what is happening right now in the present moment. Mindfulness is directing our minds gently back to the present moment so that we may feel richer, more down-to-earth, and much more alive.

Mindfulness is purposeful attention to the present moment. Practicing mindfulness is your path to the present moment. Anything you experience after coming into presence through mindfulness may become richer and more meaningful to you. This is how and why mindfulness can give you better health and greater happiness. In mindfulness, you recognize your thoughts as they occur, but you pay nonjudgmental attention to them; in other words, they neither distract nor disturb you, and you just observe them, like watching a movie about you unfolding before your very eyes.

If you are mindful of what your body and your mind are experiencing in the present moment, you will soon learn to become mindful of others, which is the beginning of compassion and loving kindness—a quality that enriches life. If you are mindful of others, you will also become mindful of everything else in life, such as your breathing and your eating. Breathing comes so natural that many of us are not mindful of how we breathe, so many of us do not breathe right. As a result of incorrect breathing, we get less oxygen to our lungs, cells, and organs, and thus leading to health deterioration. Likewise, eating becomes second nature to us that many of us are no longer mindful of the eating process: we simply shuffle and stuff food into our mouths, mindless of chewing and digesting the food we are eating. Indeed, in our daily routines, there are so many things that we are mindless about, because we have taken them for granted. Mindfulness is re-directing our attention to what we are doing at the present moment to re-establish the vital link between the body and the mind.

Learn mindfulness from an expert who provides a useful guide to harness the power of your mind with mental training tools and techniques to perfect the art of mental transformation. Are you living your life, or your life living you?

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau