It’s fair to say that most of the people I know are mindful. They are considerate about what they say around others, they pay attention to how they act and react in certain social situations, and they tend to be extremely cautious when it comes to solving a conflict. Still, I’d bet that if you asked any of these people if they believe that they understand mindfulness, they would respond by saying that they do completely, and have absolutely no idea what they are actually saying.

A couple days back, a close friend of mine introduced the concept of mindfulness to me. At first, I didn’t entirely understand it, but after reading a few articles here-and-there I finally managed to grasp the concept. On the surface, it seemed like a relatively easy thing to understand. Essentially, mindfulness is like meditation. The individual finds a quiet room, turns off his/her phone for at least ten minutes, and sits and allows their thoughts to pass through their mind. The idea behind it is that you are living in the present and allowing all of the things that may be consuming your head space to get out. The hard part? In doing so, you have to try not to pass any judgement - positive or negative - on the emotions you are feeling.

For example, someone who is achieving mindfulness may be thinking about how they’re not sure whether or not another person likes them, or if they can live up to all the expectations set upon them by their parents, but they will not prioritize either thought or cast emotions towards each thought. Rather than thinking, “ugh I feel so stupid for feeling this way, I’m obviously overreacting”, someone who has mindfulness would say, “Yes, this is the status of the current situation, moving on to the next.”

From my understanding, mindfulness is meant to act as a therapist for the individual trying to attain it, but not in the way that many would think. While therapy involves a large amount of talking about your emotions, mindfulness simply allows for you to let out everything that’s bothering you without casting blame in any one direction.

Imagine that inside your mind there’s a little box, and within the box are your thoughts/emotions about whatever situations you are currently facing. What mindfulness does is allow for that little box to be opened and all of those things to pass by you one-by-one. You don’t have to look deeply into each item or even analyze the contents of the box, you are just allowing for the recognition that reality is what it is, and that doesn’t have to be a good thing, or a bad thing.

Why does this matter to you, you ask? Let’s start with the fact that if you’re reading this, you’re probably a college student who finds yourself overwhelmed with work, school, family drama, and friend gossip. That being said, you probably spend far too much of your time wondering how you’re going to get everything done or whether or not you went about handling a situation the right way. Sometimes, this type of inner thought works. Other times, you have to pull a friend aside and play a little doctor-patient psychology game to lessen your stresses. Nevertheless, there are times when neither method is that helpful, and that’s where mindfulness comes in.

I’m not a fan of yoga or meditation. My form of relaxation is found in a quiet room with a grand piano and a Breedlove acoustic guitar, and yet I find myself intrigued by the idea of mindfulness. We spend too much time immersing ourselves in our problems, and we always think something has to be either positive or negative. That one stupid mistake we made, that awesome essay we wrote, everything has a label on it. With mindfulness, we don’t have to make things good or bad, we can simply live in the moment and allow ourselves to embrace reality and how we’re feeling without being so ridiculously overdramatic.

To all my readers out there, here is my challenge for you:

Set aside ten minutes out of your busy days, find a quiet space, put your phone on silent, and attempt the art of mindfulness. For many, it’s going to be challenging and you probably won’t get there at first (I know for a fact I’ll be one of those people) but perhaps in time, it will start to take effect and it may result in a better life and outlook for us all.