Mindfulness Quotes

— More Than Just Mental Masturbation —

Mindfulness quotes seem to always leave me at somewhat of a cross-roads.

I find there is an air of pompous that hovers around someone who is espousing phrases as if they have all the answers. Often, I just feeling like saying out loud:

“Oh, shut the f*#& up!”

It can just seem like mental masturbation.

And yet, I like reading mindfulness quotes! They often usher me to be more mindful…

…for a while, at least.

Any person might get the “warm and fuzzies” after reading a couple, too. In this way, mindfulness quotes are quite popular, particularly on various social media platforms where…

…people endlessly scroll on a
self-feeding cycle of dopamine release.

However, when the scrolling ends and the lights go out we are faced with our same reality and, often, our lives carry on as if nothing changed.

Mindfulness quotes consumed in this way give the reader a sense of mindful meditation without actually having to sit down to meditate themselves. It gives the reader a chance to “peak”, so to speak, and then be done with it.

It’s voyeur meditation.

To make the act of reading mindfulness quotes not-so-useless, it’s important to take a step back, re-focus and ask: what exactly is mindfulness?

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness, the noun, as a strict definition is:

1. the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.
   “their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition”
   and/or
2. a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

That second one seems more related to our discussion here.

What Is The Importance Of Mindfulness?

In simple terms, one perspective of mindfulness is paying full attention to something. Doing something slowly enough to be actively purposeful. In the learning field, it’s often referred to as deep practice.

However, it’s a mistake to think of mindfulness as nothing more than a kind of internal stress-ball; like a technique in your tool-bag for dealing with the struggles and realities of daily living.

As Sam Harris said, mindfulness, at its core, could be considered more like the Large Hadron Collider:

It’s a tool for making fundamental discoveries
about the nature of the mind.

One such discovery, for example, is that the sense of self we all carry with us throughout the day in every interaction is just an illusion. And that breaking through that illusion is more important than, say:

• stress reduction
• managing anxiety
• emotional well-being
• lengthening ability to focus on a task
• reducing age-related memory loss
• promoting kindness
• improving sleep patterns
• decreasing blood pressure
• reducing negative emotions

All of these are valuable and important. But they are secondary to the core of mindfulness.

Can Mindfulness Quotes Help Me?

The enemy of mindfulness, or any meditation practice, is being lost in thought. That is, thinking without knowing you are thinking.

Thoughts themselves are not a problem.
They are necessary and indispensable.

But most of us, most of the time, are just lost in thought. And thoughts, more often than not, are negative. We are judging ourselves and others.

So it’s not very pleasant!

Mindfulness quotes can act as a wake-up call, a kind of slap in the face to get our attention back on track.

The Trap With Mindfulness Quotes

The trap with mindfulness quotes is forgetting their role as that slap in the face just described. One slap (sometimes two!) is usually enough – you don’t need to keep slapping yourself in the face!

How To Make Mindfulness Quotes Practical

In terms of a meditation practice, mindfulness quotes can act as a spark to dust the link you have with being still. Dusting the link simply means making and taking little snippets of time during the day to come back to your breath.

Even if it’s just one big breath.

Ideally, any mindfulness quotes should be supported with a regular, daily meditation practice. I’m not talking about sitting for hours on end, or even one full hour.

12 minutes of meditation is the Goldilocks zone of meditation.

It’s just enough to go deep inside and just little enough not to be daunting. You feel good at the end and are left wanting more.

How Can I Stay Mindful All Day?

A strong foundation is formed with just 12 minutes of regular morning mindful meditation practice.

The direct effect from this is you find yourself automatically or unconsciously coming back to your breath throughout the day. You don’t get so attached to the thoughts passing through the mind.

If you combine this strong foundation with a kind of mindfulness-spark that can be used to cut through any strong BS you might be experiencing – kind of like a reset – then you have basic and easy-to-implement tools to stay mindful throughout the day.

How To Apply Mindfulness Quotes
To My Daily Life?

You can apply mindfulness quotes to your daily life where they become something much deeper than just mental masturbation with the following:

• 12 minutes of daily meditation, same time/same place
  (with or without guided audio meditations)
• 1 mindfulness quote per day
  (any more than that and you’re just slapping yourself in the face)
• any technique to remind your body of your breath
  (something to spark you at a visceral level, not intellectual)
• just a little patience
  (yeah, yeah)

You are perfectly capable of doing all of this yourself. But maybe you need a little nudge. Totally understandable.

I’m offering a little nudge with a FREE course I put together. Write your email in the form below and you can continue with no obligation…