You may have heard this word mindfulness, it's become something of a buzz phrase of late. I'm gonna give you one simple, serviceable definition, which is this. 

Mindfulness is the ability to know what's happening in your head at any given moment, without getting carried away. But imagine how useful this could be. Just as an example, driving down the road, and somebody cuts you off in traffic. 

How do you normally react? I think most of us we normally react by having a thought, which is on piste. And then what happens next, you immediately habitually, reflexively inhabit that thought you actually become pissed. 

There's no buffer between the stimulus and your reaction, with just a little bit of mindfulness in that same situation, you might notice, my chest is buzzing, my ears are turning red, I'm having a starburst of self righteous thoughts. I'm getting angry. 

But you don't necessarily have to act on it, and chase that person down the road screaming at them with your kids in the back of the car thinking you've gone nuts. Now, you might be thinking, don't I need to get angry sometimes? Aren't I justified? would say yes, but probably not as much as you think. 

The proposition here is not that you should be rendered by mindfulness into some lifeless, non judgmental blob. The proposition is that you should learn how to respond wisely to things that happen to you, rather than just reacting blindly. And that, my friends, is a superpower. How do you get it?

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