Mindfulness and Self-Literacy

Mindfulness is strong medicine without side effects. Just like any medicine, for it to work, you must take it… and then you must keep taking it. I am passionate about mindfulness because it is the technology we use for “self-literacy.”

As we practice mindfulness, we are cultivating self-literacy. Think about it.

What would life be like it we couldn’t read or write or use a computer? What if we traveled to a foreign country, with language and cultural barriers that made communication nearly impossible? How difficult would it be to navigate through the many challenges we would face without access to that technology?

Mindfulness is the technology with which we read ourselves, and self-literacy occurs when we understand what’s going on in our minds and bodies. It allows us to skillfully calm our nervous system, to sense our deepest feelings, to be aware of our happiness, and to savor life’s wide-ranging experiences.

What could be more important than that?

“There is a moment between cause and effect, and in that moment lies our power.”

-Viktor Frankl

To what power is Frankl referring? It is the power of insight and the power of choice. Are we going to react or are we going to respond? Mindfulness allows us to capture the moment between cause and effect. When we are mindful, our eyes are open, we are awake. We see the moment, we understand it, and we respond wisely.

Mindfulness, resulting in self-literacy, is the power to untangle ourselves from our suffering. It is strong medicine… and it gets stronger the more we practice it.