What Mindfulness Helps You Prevent

Losing Your Sense of Purpose

The more mindful you are, the more adept you will be at maintaining awareness of what’s most important to you. Keeping your attention and focus on the present moment helps prevent fear, doubt and worry from creeping into your psyche. Becoming consumed with periods of time that are not happening now (past + future) can be a destructive way of thinking because those thoughts are often worrisome, regretful or fearful in nature.

While It is instinctive and healthy to be inspired and motivated by the past or future, it’s helpful long-term to actively cultivate your capacity to redirect your attention to right now.

Living in each and every present moment encourages your connection with the fulfilling feeling of living a purposeful life. It allows you to tap into your full potential and all that you have to contribute, versus robbing your potential by having your attention elsewhere.

Depression (Including postpartum)

Similar in nature to losing your sense of purpose is experiencing depression. A quick route to depression is to constantly wish your life would have gone differently or that there’s no hope for the future.

Staying mindful will help you engineer habits that serve your overall positive self-feeling. Participating in activities (daily) that make you feel alive and empowered will serve as a motor away from depression and negative thoughts.

For instance, if you love running and you know it leaves you feeling good, then make it a point to run every day. The same idea could apply to anything that makes to feel alive; whether it’s painting, making time for family and friends or practicing photography.

Dysfunctional Relationships

Many dysfunctional relationships stem from an underlying sense of unfulfillment with one or both individuals involved. Going through traumatic events leads some individuals to “take out” their frustrations or trust issues on their significant other; when a more restorative route is to work on healing yourself before you look to someone else for that fulfillment.

If you have experienced a string of dysfunctional relationships in your life, it’s worth entertaining the idea that you need to invest more time looking inside for that fulfillment that you’re seeking, instead of searching for it outside of you.

Emotional Eating

There are a multitude of ways that people choose to mask pain, hurt or disappointment that they have experienced in their life. Some choose substances like drugs or alcohol, while others simply look to food. The problem is not eating in itself, rather it’s when eating is happening and the purpose is not to fuel the body properly.

Many emotional eating habits are brought on by a focus on negative thoughts. Staying present and mindful of the good in each second can prevent you from going down that path of thinking, which can alter or eliminate those destructive eating patterns.

TD4