Mindfulness – Medveten Närvaro

Att vara medvetet närvarande är en mänsklig förmåga som innebär att vara avsiktligt uppmärksam i nuet utan att värdera eller döma och kan tränas dels genom meditation och dels genom övning i vardagen. Att vara närvarande ger möjligheten att agera medvetet, i linje med sin grundläggande vilja, mot långsiktiga mål, i kontakt med och med respekt för sina egna värderingar. Med mindfulnessövningar, meditation övas förmågan att bryta ett automatiskt, reaktivt handlande som annars ofta tar oss bort ifrån det innehåll i livet som vi vill ha. (referenser se nedan).

Definition

It has been emphasized that mindfulness is both an outcome (mindful awareness) and a process (mindful practice) [4]. Mindfulness is to remember to pay attention to what is occurring in one’s immediate experience with care and discernment [7,8]. Kabat-Zinn [9) defines mindfulness as being aware in a certain way: Intentionally, in the present moment, and without judging. It refers to a ‘‘presence of mind’’ wherein attention, informed by a sensitive awareness of what is occurring in the present, simply observes what is taking place, whether external events or internal (psychological and somatic) experiences [7,10,11]. Mindfulness is a form of experiential processing [12]. Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through intentionally attending in an open, accepting, and discerning way to whatever is arising in the present moment [7].
Also the term meditation has been given many different explanations and according to Lutz et al. [6] there is still no consensus of what meditation is and within the community of researchers the opinion of what meditation is differs widely and problems arises when attempts are made to find common factors in this vast subject of meditation. It is meaningful however to look at the individual traditions and their effects, according to Lutz et al. [6]. Meditation has however been defined as [13] voluntary regulation of attention or Intentional self-regulation of attention by Kabat-Zinn [14]. Meditation in research is often divided into two categories: Open Monitoring (OM) or Focused Attention (FA) [6,15].

(extract from our article, Prerequisites for teaching Mindfulness and Meditation. For references click here).