From Mindfulness to Heart-fullness

Mindfulness: a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

The expression ‘mindfulness’ has the word mind in it. Yet, it incapsulates the awareness of our body, feelings and environment that we operate in. How come that we are always so mind-centered when it comes to self-discovery? The mind is just a massive processing machine that allows us to understand unitive experiences (as an after-thought, mind you) as well as minding idiosyncratic agendas. We have to be mindful to have a choice in this.

Feelings denote single wants; whether we are hungry, whether we want to be together with someone, whether it is too hot, or whether we are afraid of something. Fears, desires, cravings, wants—it all gets entangled in a single story, ‘I like that’, ‘I hate that’, ‘I am not sure about this one’, when behind it are countless subtleties and contradictions all mashed together in one simple story line which changes all the time by the way.

When we say, ‘be still and know that I Am God’, we have the illusion that we somehow could meditate ourselves into Heaven. It doesn’t work that way, the mind becomes still when all these sub-programs, pain bodies and inner conflicts have been solved. Mindfulness has to tackle thoughts and feelings in unison to unravel these lingering problems of the past, conflicting aims presently, and irrational wishes for the future.

Being mindful is great detective work. Not only do we monitor the thought that pops up to the surface from the depth of our subconscious, but we also track how this thought is related to the thought we had before. How do we feel when this thought pops up, and how has it been primed by the environment that we operate in. A over-stuffed mind translates into a weak heart as fear and confusion encapsulates it.

Mindfulness restores our mind back as a processing center, allowing the energy to flow freely within our body and in interaction with our environment. We are conflict free and we understand what we truly want and what we really say ‘no’ to. Mindfulness restores the full power of our heart, to call the shots without self-imposed fear, without inner conflicts and without confusion about which direction to go.