Look inside

Your talents, beliefs, and values. If you start paying less and less attention to what makes you you, your talents, beliefs, and values, and start conforming to what others may or may not think, you'll dramatically limit your potential and your pursuit of mastery.

I KNOW BUT ONE FREEDOM AND THAT IS THE FREEDOM OF THE MIND  [Ref. Antoine De Saint-Exupéry]

Mindfulness is both a state of being and a skill. It's the state of 'awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgementally'. Mindfulness is also a skill that can be employed to bring the practitioner into that state of awareness. Mindfulness practice helps create space from our cognition and emotion so we can see things as they really are. We are able to recognize that we are not the thoughts we hold about ourselves. We are not the thoughts and opinions that others may or may not have about us. We are infinitely bigger and far more dimensional. We don't need to go somewhere else to access our awareness. Awareness is always available. We just need to develop the mental skills to drop into it. Broadly, there are two types of mindfulness practices.

• Contemplative mindfulness is simply about observing your thoughts without judgement. You watch how your inner thoughts and emotions work together. Single-point mindfulness places the focus of your attention on a single object, the most common being your breath. But the point of attention could be anything. A sound. A candle flame. A spot on the wall.
• Mindfulness practice enables us to become more aware of how frequently our minds ruminate about what others may or may not be thinking about us. We begin to recognize the underlying worry that shapes so many of our thoughts and behaviors. We become more skilled at working with those thoughts. We start to identify the triggers, conditions, and thought pattern that drive our desire for social approval.