On the face of it, there may be similarities between cultivating mindfulness and meditation but as we take a closer look at these two approaches and how they impact self-healing and physical and mental health, we will begin to notice a clear distinction between each of these practices and where each one is coming from at its core. One being goal orientated and the other reconnecting to our primary nature of feeling.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness, as the word implies, is to focus our thoughts and actively engage our thinking to be aware of the present moment. It’s mentally training ourselves through techniques, to direct what state we want to cultivate, eg. Telling ourselves we are peaceful and in a state of non-judgment.
Cultivating mindfulness in everyday life could be beneficial if, for instance, your thinking is scattered or you’ve got a wandering mind, and you are not able to concentrate on the task, for example, focusing on, say, driving. This is practical and necessary when it’s a mechanical process.
Where this can be an interference to sitting still in meditation is that we are constantly engaging in thinking. When we are telling ourselves we are calm and at peace, or observing our thoughts to reduce mental chatter we are removing ourselves, through intention, and creating something other than what is going on within us at that moment. This is a disconnect from the way we are feeling. There is no depth here, we are not allowing what is there to be felt in the subtle sensation level in the body.
Meditation
Meditation is the integration of body and mind, which becomes more and more apparent the more we practice this simple but profound approach. There is no need to impose any active focus on adjusting or changing what is arising from the tensions held within the body. We are doing nothing more than sitting still so the natural processes of what needs to happen, can happen, without interference or direction from our thinking.
Examples of Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness
- Breathing Awareness: Take a few minutes to focus solely on the rhythm of your breath—feeling the rise and fall of your chest, the air entering and leaving your nostrils.
- Mindful Eating: Paying close attention to the taste, texture, and smell of your food, savoring every bite, and being thankful for the nourishment it provides.
- Active Listening: Fully concentrating on what another person is saying without formulating a response in your mind or allowing your thoughts to wander.
- Observational Walks: Taking a walk and fully immersing yourself in the environment—observing the colors, sounds, and sensations around you.
- Single-tasking: Focusing on one task at a time rather than multi-tasking, giving full attention to what you’re doing at that moment.
Meditation
- Reconnect: Understanding when you’re disconnecting from the body into thoughts, ideas and outside influences.
- Feelings: Understanding and differentiating between feelings and emotions. It emphasizes sensing and understanding feelings in the body.
- Senses: Emphasizing the role of lived experiences and how our feelings shape our sense of self. It alludes to the idea that thinking cannot replace the fulfillment provided by our senses.
- Natural Intelligence: Touching upon the idea of innate intelligence that surpasses all thinking. It stresses experiencing life through our senses.
- Maturing Your Meditation: The essential nature of meditation, allows individuals to deeply feel sensations within the body, enhancing the overall quality of life.
- BodyMind: Immersing in the concept that body and mind are inseparable, and dissociation from either can lead to problems.
The key differences between Mindfulness and Meditation
I have been practicing meditation for 23 years and have also done meditations where I would concentrate on visualising a peaceful place or focusing on the flame of a candle. In those visualising and focusing meditations, I initially felt comforted or relaxed but I didn’t seem to get to what was disturbing me deeper within. I just did not know how to get to that point, or with being okay to go there.
Because natural meditation is not goal orientated for a desired outcome there is nothing to achieve or fix. So, what is the point of it then, you might ask?
The benefits of Meditation over Mindfulness
This is where meditation goes much deeper than thought-guided meditation. It is exploring and discovering the unknown aspects of ourselves that we haven’t allowed ourselves to go to or be in, to their end. When we feel scared, sad, angry, or depressed for example, we usually go into some sort of reaction in which we tell ourselves it is not acceptable, or it feels wrong to feel these states, therefore we cut off and suppress the fact that we are feeling this way. Meditation allows us to see ourselves as completely natural in how we feel, being connected to the body’s felt sensations.
A daily practice of even 10 to 15 minutes to start with, building/increasing up to an hour of sitting over time, will have immense ongoing benefits to feeling connected to a deeper sense of you. And that will just keep growing. The beneficial impact on mental health and physical wellbeing is knowing how to be with pain, anger, sadness, or whatever is going on for us; this is true responsibility and acceptance of yourself.
Mindfulness is not going to give us the depth of really discovering that there is nothing we need to adjust or focus on because there is a fundamental misunderstanding that we can fix psychological conditions by thinking and analyzing our way out of them. We are attacking ourselves when we try to change the way we feel and think.
There are more profound reasons as to why we feel the way we feel and only a body-based understanding, which is what natural meditation is, will uncover what is going on with depression for example.
Therefore, mindfulness is a hindrance not a help to the natural process of accepting ourselves as we are because there is an imposition of thought on what is organically happening within us, which can lead to more confusion and misunderstanding of the real condition we are in. This is not beneficial to mental or physical health and well-being.
Meditation in Everyday Life
The Undo App is a meditation app that gives us a deeper understanding of body and mind. Allowing us to understand how to respond to the challenges that can present themselves as a result of our beliefs and reactions, which in turn can cause us to get stuck. This body of understanding in Undo is second to none, it is unique in the way it gives us the help we need with each step of our meditation and our lives.
Simply meditating first thing in the morning just allows that connection with yourself before starting the day. I found it has a stabilising effect. It’s important to not create any ideas about what is going on but to just feel all that is going on.
If you are at work or in a stressful situation, being still and quiet for even a few minutes can have a beneficial effect on how you approach any situation.
Undo has so many different short and longer guided meditations on a variety of issues you might be dealing with, from procrastination, anxiety, sadness, etc., and is available anytime you need it. I have found their guided meditations to be helpful when I have felt stuck or confused.
The real change that happens is a freeing up that allows me to move through confusion, for example, by connecting with the confusing feelings and understanding how to respond to those by simply feeling them. Rather than getting stuck in the thought reaction to them by trying to think my way out.
The New Way to Approach Meditation
Undo is a new way to approach meditation. The whole presentation of the app is uniquely fresh with amazing graphics, but the content is truly an offering of rediscovering of ourselves through this body-based meditation that takes thinking out of the limelight when it comes to knowing ourselves. True healing and well-being happen within the intelligence of the body, not from our thinking. Undo explores this relationship in great detail.
In conclusion, mindfulness can only offer techniques based on thinking your way through how you approach yourself and situations in life. This is just imposing instructions on yourself in order to create a state to feel relaxed or happy etc.
But you do not get to truly understand yourself, as you are without that imposition.
“I know how natural meditation and the tools and knowledge of Undo have absolutely changed my life and well-being in relationship to myself for the better, so I wholeheartedly recommend you check out the Undo App and experience for yourself the benefits and unique insights of this new approach to meditation.”
- C.I
