Mindfulness: The Self-Aware Consciousness
Previously, we discussed the nature of time and how it relates to the conscious mind. Without a concept of the past, present, and future, we would not be able to make alterable decisions that impact our own future; in an attempt to actualize our future selves. We briefly stated that actualizing is the process one undergoes in order to become their future self. In order to start that process, though, one must have an understanding of mindfulness, what it means to be mindful; in other words, accepting reality and living in the moment.
Being mindful is the practice of being awake to the world, the environment, your mind, and everything you do in this moment. Why is it important? It is so important, because it is the only thing under your control. Remember when we talked about the ability to affect the outcome of the decisions you make throughout the day? All of those decisions happen in the present time. We cannot alter the past because it has already happened. An aspect of mindfulness is realizing that the past is no longer under our control, and we must move on from those desires to wish things had been different. An actualized individual is one that recognizes their past, accepts the decisions they made, yet realizes the present is still alterable. Knowing this gives us the power over the future as well, inherently.
“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
So, how do we begin to accept reality? First and foremost, an actualized individual is compassionate to his or her self-experiences. Everything that has led you to your current moment, has made you into the person you are now. We never want to “move on” from those experiences, because they are essential to your personality, your intelligence, and your overall sense of self. Being compassionate to your self-experiences is all about acknowledging every success and every failure as a critical and core part of your being, accepting them into yourself, and knowing that it all lead you to today. Acceptance is not about being happy with your past, for how could one be happy if their past entailed an overwhelming sense of failure? Instead, we acknowledge that these incidents, good or bad, simply happened. The actualized individual recognizes the power of the present in that now is the time for change. Now is the time to alter our decisions and take control of our conscious mind.
In a future article we will discuss how we take control of our conscious mind, the obstacles that the mind will put in front of us as we attempt to actualize, and the different levels of mental functioning.
