What is the “magic” behind mindfulness and meditation? (How does Mindfulness Work)
Whether it's on the long drive to the office everyday day, the mind of a high-performance athlete, or the executive in the board room - we all find ourselves distracted by the idea that something else should be going on or something else should be better; somehow, we should be better. We may also notice endless ruminations of thoughts that occupy a lot of our mental capacity and don't really get us any further. In turn, these thoughts can take us on a destructive journey away from our “true self,” where our highest aspirations reside.
You (like many others), have likely heard of mindfulness meditation and wonder, how does meditation help? Does it work for anyone? Will it work for me? Here’s how it works: if you’ll notice, when you do get caught in thoughts it's generally not the event itself (not what's objectively going on) that causes an internal disturbance, it's a worry about how it's gone in the past or how it may happen in the future, which all are outside the realm of things you can control. In meditation we refine the ability to pause and notice that your mind has wandered which helps us in real life when your mind has wanders from what's actually happening (objective reality) to speculative/imaginary thoughts about the future or past our and how things may turn out.
Our immediate reaction to things not going our way its to create false stories and narratives that somehow change how things are happening (we live in our thoughts). A meditation practice begins to train our ruminating mind to pause and notice without judgement, that we have wandered away from the present moment and are living in the future or the past.