There are so many breakthroughs happening today in brain science. Simultaneously, there is a flood of new understanding about why the practice of mindfulness is important. While scientists are exploring the mysteries of the brain, individuals in all walks of life are investigating ways to expand the mind.
Just as we “mind the store” or “mind our baby sister” or “mind our manners,” so it is important to mind ourselves. In doing so, we create over-view-awareness. The importance of “over-view-awareness” is that it helps us open up our field of consciousness. Practicing mindfulness leads to an awareness of inner flow and complexity. It also enhances the ability to tune into parts of the overall picture. It is this back and forth between expansive focus (over-view-awareness) and specific focus (tuning-in) that creates balance. And being in a balanced state leads to the possibility of (1) making choices that match who we are, (2) acting in ways that help us know who we are, and (3) being able regularly to “change our mind.”
Picture yourself walking down an immense green tree-lined avenue, with amazing flowers and foliage, and all kinds of unusual creatures, some flying overhead, some walking or crawling on the ground, some swimming in streams nearby – flora, fauna, human, and other beings. There you are in the middle of it, in awe of the immensity, the vastness and variety. When you focus on a part of the buzzing, blooming, bountiful world, you become curious about it. You wonder if it is friend or foe, and what your relationship to it might be. At the same time, your attention causes it to become enlivened. It registers your interest as you tune into its existence. At this point, you may not yet know whether the tie between you is a marriage, a temporary love affair, or a blind-date-gone-wrong! You may trust and move towards it. Or you may make the connection while realizing it’s a temporary one. Or you may hold back, unsure. If you stay interested, a repeating cycle of attention is begun, and the building of a pattern (aka a habit) keeps the connection alive. For better or worse.
Meanwhile, your living computer, your brain, is noting what is happening. It is becoming interested. Before you are aware of having done so, you’ve sent it a signal or a series of signals, indicating that you want to know more about what you are tuning into (if you do). Your brain begins building neural material to help with the task. If your attention stays steady, your brain creates a pathway of neurons, which are now firing and wiring together, enabling your explorations to proceed. Simultaneously, word is going out, all over your bodily systems, how do these new pathways fit with all the other ones so far built? Will this new neural material harmoniously coexist with what has formed up to date? Also, does what you are taking in fit with the way your human systems operate, especially those that keep track of overall system well-being?
It is all about attention, where we place our focus and why. If a person is conscious and “mindful,” she will register more fully and accurately the nature of the connection she is making, at the time she is making it, and the possible effects it may have. In this sense, the practice of “mindfulness” becomes a necessary part of self-care and growth.