The real meaning of mindfulness, and how to become less reactive, more creative, and less distracted
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I’ve been meditating for years, and yet for most of that time, all my efforts felt fruitless.
I felt frustrated because I could never focus on my breath for more than a few seconds, let alone stop my thoughts completely — which, according to so many instructors and articles, was the goal of meditation.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I was doing it all wrong.
What Mindfulness Really Means
Buddhist meditation teacher and neuroscientist John Yates Ph.D., aka Culadasa, explains in his book The Mind Illuminated that our conscious mind has two ways of knowing: attention and awareness.
What’s the difference between attention and awareness?
“Whenever we focus our attention on something, it dominates our conscious experience. At the same time, however, we can be more generally aware of things in the background. For example, right now your attention is focused on…