Читать книгу The Mind-Body Cure - Bal Pawa - Страница 27

“Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention in the present. When you are mindful you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.”⁹ Bringing your attention to the present moment and remaining fully in the “now” is the foundation of mindfulness, and it’s a great way to pause the brain’s automatic playback loop of past fears and failures. Use all your senses to register what you are doing at that moment, whether it is breathing, eating, buying groceries, etc. Enlisting the senses to hyperfocus on something you can touch, smell, or hear magically turns off the stress response.

Try doing this with a raisin (or an almond). Begin by observing it visually. Really notice how wrinkled it is. Look closely at the color: how dark brown it is, how it has a slightly frosty tinge. Now pick it up. Touch all the ridges and squeeze it gently to test its consistency. Close your eyes and explore it with your fingers, and then lightly place it on your tongue. Feel the ridges on the raisin and notice how it makes contact with your palate, cheeks, or gums. Now gently bite into the raisin and notice the soft flesh in your mouth, savor the sweetness. Feel grateful for having this experience and being able to fully enjoy the raisin before you swallow it.

Being mindful is having a state of active, open attention in the present moment while observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. A heightened sense of awareness during mindfulness, using all your senses, allows you to re-create the memory of the raisin later without actually eating one. Your brain registers this experience so deeply on a multisensory level that when you recall it, your body will produce the same chemicals as if there were a raisin on your tongue. The same applies to your health. When you are in an illness mindset or your stress level is rising, you can slow down, be mindful, and allow your mind to re-create the memory of health and positivity.