I see mindfulness as keeping my attention primarily on what is going on right now at this very instant.  So if i were being completely mindful right now, I would have my attention fully on what I am typing, and my attention fully on the process of trying to figure out what I wish to say, and how I wish to say it.  I may also be aware of the sensations within my body right now, the current mood I’m experiencing, and the sensations of the keyboard against my fingers.
I see day to day mindfulness as throughout most of the day having my attention fully on what I am doing, and what is in front of me. Some examples of how I fail to be mindful throughout the day include getting lost in my thoughts (a big obstacle I am working on right now in my life), getting lost in worry, and getting lost in anxiety.  When I lose my mindfulness such as losing myself in my thoughts, most of the time I would rather be focusing on what is right in front of me.  I may be talking to my girlfriend, when suddenly a thought of worry will appear in my mind and my instant reflex will be to start thinking about that worry and how to solve the problem that the worry brought up.  The whole time I’m dwelling on this worry I have lost all attention to what my girlfriend was talking about, and deep down I find listening attentively to the one I love and what she has to say is much more important than dwelling on some worry that I probably can’t fix anyways, or a worry that will probably work itself out in the end.

I also find mindfulness to be a state of being aware of your thoughts, emotions, and sensations; to be aware of what you are going through and doing.  These things tend to fall into the background, and you can build habits of suppressing certain thoughts and emotions without even realizing it. We have so many habits, from what we do throughout the day to how our mind thinks, and becoming aware of these helps us to notice which ones are actually unhealthy. As an example I’ve started to notice that on weekends I’ll lay in bed, scanning through apps on my phone trying to find some entertainment, but ultimately being bored, and this will consume up to 2 to 3 hours. Yesterday I caught myself and decided instead to start my day and get out of bed early, because lounging on my phone wasn’t bringing me satisfaction.  I ended up having a great day and packing more into it than I would have if I wasted that time perusing meaningless posts on reddit, twitter, instagram, and facebook.

I have found the best way to practice and reinforce mindfulness is through mindful meditation.  A simple beginner meditation for this is just sitting down, and focusing on your breath for a set amount of time, and every time you lose focus of your breath, gently bringing your attention back to the breath.  This process of returning your awareness to your breath reinforces that mental behavior and I’ve noticed throughout my day to day life I’ll start going down a worrysome thought spiral and then habitually bring my attention out of it and to my breath.  If you do wish to try this practice I recommend starting with just 5 minute sessions every day and slowly increasing the time as you see fit.  I’ve found that consistency is one of the most important things to work on.  Just making sure each day you do a session of meditation.

I wish you the best and hope I helped some 🙂

Love,

Chris