You may have heard this word mindfulness. It's become something of a buzz phrase of late.
So I'm going to give you one simple, serviceable definition which is this: Mindfulness is the
ability to know what's happening in your head at any given moment without getting carried
away by it. Imagine how useful this could be. Just as an example, you're driving down
the road, and someone cuts you off in traffic. How do you normally react? I think most of
us normally react by having a thought, which is, "I'm pissed." And then what happens next?
You immediately, habitually, reflexively inhabit that thought. You actually become pissed!
There's no buffer between the stimulus and your reaction. With just a little bit of mindfulness
in that same situation, you might notice, "My chest is buzzing, my ears are turning
red, I'm having a starburst of self-righteous thoughts, 'I'm getting angry.'" But you don't
necessarily have to act on it and chase that person down the road screaming at them with
your kids in the back of your car thinking you've gone nuts. Now you might be thinking,
"Don’t I need to get angry sometimes? Aren’t I justified?" I would say yes, but probably
not as much as you think. The proposition here is not that you should be rendered by
mindfulness into some lifeless, non-judgmental blob. The proposition is that you should learn
how to respond wisely to things that happen to you, rather than just reacting blindly.
And that, my friends, is a superpower. How do you get it? The way to get it is through
meditation. I believe that meditation and mindfulness are the next big public health
revolution. In the 1940s if you told someone you were going running they would’ve said,
"Who's chasing you?" But then what happened next? The scientists swooped in, they showed
that physical exercise is really good for you, and now all of us do it, and if we don’t,
we feel guilty about it. And that's where I think we're headed with mindfulness and
meditation. It's going to join the pantheon of no brainers, like brushing your teeth, eating
well and taking the meds your doctor prescribed for you. Let me just close by saying mindfulness
is not going to solve all your problems, it's not going to render your life a nonstop of
parade of unicorns and rainbows. Nonetheless, this is a superpower, and one that is accessible
by you, immediately.