What is ‘Mindfulness’ and what makes it trend?
Eckhart Tolle (Mindfulness author) identifies mindfulness as an ‘Awareness – conscious connection without thought, he also identifies awareness as the greatest change agent.
It is simply about becoming more aware of our internal state and external environs.
He had laid emphasis on this new wave of mindfulness with the books – The Power of Now (1997) & A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005).
He says “People don’t realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memories or anticipations in your mind”. Also that we should “Realize deeply that the present moments is all you have to make the NOW the primary focus of your life”.
Being conscious of our experiences, thoughts, and feelings in the present moments is what he calls “The Power of Now”.
If you are not familiar with the book, here’s the short introduction to it.
Be careful! It may change your life.
Mindfulness meditation (concentrated focus to enhance awareness) has stormed the world in several fields, yielding daunting results. Schools, hospital, manufacturing industries and corporate firms have taken to the trends.
There are daily increasing the availability of mindfulness-related apps on mobile stores, over a thousand new books released in just the last few months on Amazon.
Mindfulness in comparison to other trending well-being techniques, among the general population, booms the fastest worldwide for the past 15 years.
The same trend you can observe in the past 15 years in the United States when compared to another trending complementary & integrative healthcare practices.
To highlight uniqueness of mindfulness, these are some of its successful implementations below;
Health-related:
❖ Boosting mental health
❖ Increasing mental focus through its emphasis on the recognition of distractions and mind patterns
❖ Enhancing the release of in-built stress
❖ Addictions (creating a crave to quit the addiction)
❖ Providing cost-effective ways of treating anxiety, pain etc
Education-related
❖ It is becoming a part of activities at top universities as Harvard, Oxford or Monas. It is noted as more than just happiness or well-being technique but is also used mainly for its high-level stress reduction and improvement of connectedness (communication) and work and academic performance of students and staff.
Humanity
❖ Improves our emphatic behavior both virtually and in-person.
Workplace-related
❖ Having been proposed as a part of the business world, corporations have aligned with the mindfulness trend in the form – Capitalism consciousness – producing leaders who are becoming more attentive, creative, compassionate, resilient and thanks to this providing high success growth rates. Other activities engaged in involves the imbibing of meditation activity time into work time. Mindfulness has been implemented by leaders globally to proffer solutions to recurring challenges faced by workers (increasing anxiety and unhappy work life).
❖ Top companies and their employees as Google, former CTO of automobile companies as electric car NIO & Motorola, and Padmasree Warrior, former CTO of Cisco systems have identified with the booming effectiveness meditation.
Food-related
❖ The need to become more aware of our present activities has caused consumers to become more in control of their consumption rates, which has positively affected the rate of food waste worldwide
Mindfulness is making people more awakened and more keen to tackle global challenges (devaluation of nature -pollution, deforestation, conflicts etc) and to derive solutions.
As Tolle says, “Accept – then act, whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it”.
This is a powerful tool that makes you accept the present moment as it is (as you can’t change what already is) and then to take mindful action.
Worldwide, we are becoming more mindful everyday. Everyday more and more people starting to understand, that the only moment when we can change something is the present moment.
Mindfulness is all about being present. The action can be only taken now as we can’t change the future (as it’s only a mind projection).
By doing our best now, we are coming to the best next moment, which is also now. By being the best version of yourself now, you are creating your great future (which will come to you as now).
Additional Information and References:
● https://www.mindful.org/meditation-is-the-fastest-growing-health-trend-in-america/
● http://publications.ieu.asn.au/ie1/news3/recent-years-mindfulness-meditation-has-found-its-way-i
● http://www.monash.edu/counselling/mindfulness.html
● https://thriveglobal.com/stories/the-list-of-benefits-of-mindfulness-continues/
● https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/trends-and-insights/consumer-trends-shaping-future-today-mindful-impact/
● https://www.huffingtonpost.com/flynn-coleman/yoga-meditation-and_b_2855336.html
● https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/wellness/2018-food-trend-1-mindfulness