Mindfulness and its links with health, wellbeing and inner beauty
Mindfulness has become a popular topic lately. What is it? If you turn to the dictionary, it suggests that Mindfulness is “the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something” or “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”.
Yes…. this blog post is for you! You are probably considering your beauty and health regime, so it is important to have inner beauty as well. Mindfulness helps to achieve greater inner beauty.
Mindfulness works by; noticing your thoughts, working from a place of non-judgement of yourself, self-compassion and working with your breath. Mindfulness on the back of it being adopted by modern psychology, can be incorporated into your daily health and wellbeing rituals.
Being mindful, is about paying close attention to your thoughts, being aware when you may not be kind to yourself through the thoughts that enter your mind and being self-compassionate. In the book titled ‘Mindfulness, Acceptance and Positive Psychology’ by Kashdan and Ciarrochi, there is discussion of the seven foundations of wellbeing, as well as the importance of self-compassion.
So, therefore, it’s important to look after your wellbeing as a whole – and mindfulness can be incorporated into your wellness routine. Therefore, I’d encourage you to consider implementing Mindfulness, meditation or some kind of self-care into your day to assist with your inner beauty. Self-compassion allows us to have more peace and it radiates out into the world.
The mountains of research into mindfulness proves that you’ll feel better if you implement some self-care, especially mindfulness, into your daily routine. If we turn to Buddhism, mindfulness is one aspect of meditation, or the state of clearing one’s mind in order to be able to meditate.
Therefore, Mindfulness can be both important if you are wishing to meditate and a form of meditation too. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a practising Buddhist and psychologist, brought mindfulness to psychology with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) counselling and psychotherapy modality. Out of this has become a rich array of research into mindfulness and its uses for general health and wellbeing.
So, Mindfulness really came from the Buddhists and has been practised for thousands of years by the Buddhists and other religions who use meditation in their practices. So, you can’t go wrong!
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like: The Art of Mindfulness
About the Author:
Renee McDonald is a counsellor, psychotherapist and coach. She is passionate about helping people have a better life. Renee has over 15 years experience working in therapy and the community and has her own private practice, Butterfly Courage.