Positivity: Mindfulness

Last week I talked about attitude shifters.  This week is a step back, into the notion of mindfulness.

What is mindfulness?  Mindfulness is self-awareness.  It is knowing what you are thinking, how you are feeling, and who you are intent on being.

It is continuously amazing to me how easily we lose sight of mindfulness.  We get caught up in all the things around us, the attitudes and feelings of the people we surround ourselves with, and that in turn often overtakes our own mindfulness.

Why is this important?  When someone is telling you about their bad day, when you are reading about the awful news from around the world, when you are bombarded with stories of oppression and greed and people doing bad things to people – your mood, your attitude your feelings are directly affected.

The idea of Positivity is to try and view life from a more positive perspective.  Negative begets negative, and positive begets positive.  If you are looking at life through a dark and unpleasant lens, you will see mostly the dark and unpleasant things.  If you see life through a clear lens, you are now able to see it all.

Mindfulness is not about blindly seeing nothing but positive and happy and such, it is about being aware of your thoughts and feelings.  It is about taking into account your surroundings, your mindset, your situation, your present self.  Being mindful is the first step towards being aware, and being aware is how you can choose to live more positively or more negatively.

How do I be mindful?  The simplest and easiest way is to ask yourself direct questions.  What am I thinking?  What am I feeling?  How am I feeling?  Where is my mind?  What am I thinking about?  What am I focused on?  We are constantly asking our friends, families, coworkers, even random strangers “How are you?”  But it is infrequent of us to direct that question inwards, and thus we lose mindfulness.

This is not an act of selfishness.  Quite the contrary – you can do more for others around you when you know who and what YOU are about.  Being mindful begins with the self…but mindfulness of the self allows for greater mindfulness of those around you.  When you are more mindful of those around you, you will have a better idea of how you can help others in whatever ways you can.

Positivity is finding a positive place, a positive attitude.  Being mindful of what you are thinking, feeling, saying and thus projecting will allow you to break from negativity more easily, and to free yourself to be in a better, more positive headspace more frequently.  It is my belief that more Positivity in the world can only make the world a better, healthier, more balanced place for everyone.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action.  Greater mindfulness leads to greater awareness, which is how you can be more focused on Positivity.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

This is the third entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.