Throughout my cancer survivorship journey, many people have asked me what mindfulness is. 
What does mindfulness mean? How does it help?

Mindfulness helps you direct your attention to your experience as it unfolds throughout life. It trains you to respond skillfully to whatever is happening; good or bad. It helps you slow down and it helps you know yourself better. Mindfulness teaches us to be more resilient and leads to self-acceptance and compassion for others. Mindfulness helps us perform better and ultimately leads to a more enjoyable life.

Yesterday, I was doing a deep dive into the endless void of Pinterest and found a simple and direct quote from Elisha Goldstein on 7 things that mindful people do. I thought it was a great and easy way to summarize for people, how to begin their mindfulness journey. There are hundreds of resources that relate to different mindfulness advice and practices, but the sheer amount of information can sometimes be overwhelming. Start small, like with this blog post, and work your way to finding your own mindful rituals. 

If you would like to read the entire article in detail, check it out here. Otherwise, I have taken some text extracts directly from the article on how to start your mindfulness journey.

7 Things Mindful People Do Differently + How To Start

1. Approach everyday things with curiosity
Curiosity leads the mindful person to get back in touch with the wonders and possibilities of life.

2. Forgive yourself; big or small
The simple phrase “forgive and invite” can be enormously helpful. When we get caught in an obstacle, we “forgive” ourselves for the time gone by, investigate the obstacle to learn from it, and then “invite” ourselves to begin again.

3. Show gratitude for good moments, and grace for bad ones
When you start paying attention to any emotion you start to experience that it is an energy that is “in motion.” It has a certain nature of coming and going and in experiencing this we can naturally hold them more lightly. This enables us to not get so wrapped up in the difficult feelings, but instead, hold them with gentleness and tenderness.

4. Practice compassion and nurture your connections
Compassion can be defined as noticing suffering with an inclination to want to help in some way. Repeated practice of intentionally paying attention to ourselves with curious and caring attention sends the implicit message to our brain that we’re worth caring about. 

5. Make peace with imperfection
As we start to practice being present we can’t help but see that we are not the only one who is imperfect. To be imperfect is to be human.

6. Be vulnerable
It takes courage to take the leap and be vulnerable, as we do this we begin to trust ourselves and others and in doing this we cultivate connection which allows us to feel safe and happy.

7. Accept and appreciate that things come and go
As we practice mindfulness, we come to understand that life becomes increasingly precious. We begin to put our phones down more often and open our eyes to the sacred moments all around us.