Mindfulness is about finding peace and contentment within, whilst living in a society, where stress and rushing around appear to be the norm. It can help to teach you how to free yourself from stress, anxiety, exhaustion and in some cases depression. Mindfulness techniques centre on a form of meditation or focusing your full attention on something, such as your breath, as it flows in and out of your body. By focusing on the breath, it allows thoughts to be observed, without getting caught up in them; they just come and go, giving you a choice on whether to act on them or not. Thoughts can be observed without judgement, as you realise that YOU are not your thoughts and feelings; so by just observing negative thoughts for what they are, you can let them drift on by without being dragged into the cycle of negative thinking. Ultimately, it begins to put you back in control of your life and encourages compassion for the self.

Mindfulness is not just about meditation, it also helps to break unconscious habits of thinking and behaving in a negative, judgemental or critical way. Free from this way of thinking and behaving, there is space to allow a more effective way to solve problems, a more intuitive way, which leads to a happier and more conscious way of living. Mindfulness practice does not require a lot of time each day, nor is it complicated; once you have learned the basics, you can do it anywhere. Living in the here and now releases us from the anger/sadness/guilt of the past and the anxiety/fear about the future. There is only one moment in time that we can experience and that is NOW, with practice you can use meditation to develop compassionate awareness, leading you to achieving a more meaningful, values driven life.