The Difference Between Making Sense and Sensing Mindfully

As we go through the day, our attention tends to be anchored in our imagination.

We think and plan and solve problems and make decisions. All of these activities are important and necessary.

Meanwhile, most of the available sensory perceptions — sounds, sights, feelings in our bodies — hang out unobserved in the background unless they signal some kind of problem. It’s a pretty efficient way to manage our attentional resources.

When you notice a sensory experience closely for a few seconds while letting your imagination hang out in the background, you’re exercising your attentional skills with mindfulness.

That never works anyway. Thinking is not the enemy of mindful awareness.

As Harvard psychology professor and mindfulness researcher puts it:

When you curiously observe sensory perceptions, your attention is temporarily anchored in whatever is actually happening.

Part of what makes mindfulness difficult to talk about is that while each repetition of noticing is simple, it’s not easy to take even short breaks from making sense of things to sensing them directly instead.

Children spontaneously explore the world like this, but adults have to practice coming back to their senses the way we did when we were young.

Why bother?

Because it’s surprisingly satisfying to notice what doesn’t insist on our attention sometimes and to really notice what it’s like to be alive more often.

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