What Are "Mindfulness Skills?" (Part 1)

Moved To Meditate Podcast

In this podcast episode, I’m addressing the question: What Are “Mindfulness Skills?” We’ll be covering a list of learnable abilities and characteristics we are developing through mindfulness practice. What are these skills, and why pay attention to them?

A skill is something you deliberately train - it’s not just an innate quality, personality trait, or talent that you’re born with. We might also talk about some of these as “benefits” we gain from mindfulness, but thinking about it in terms of “skills” reminds us that these outcomes are learnable, and that we can grow through our mindfulness practice.

This topic is relevant to Mindful Movement because if we’re going to practice mindfulness beyond the traditional sitting practice, or in an alternative way to make meditation more accessible, we need to consider what it is that we’re attempting to cultivate. What is the essence that the techniques are designed to teach us? Basically…how do we know we’re still practicing mindfulness?

There are many creative ways we can experience and practice mindfulness. I’ve heard many people say “running is my meditation,” or “I find mindfulness in cooking, or art, or knitting.” I think that’s absolutely valid. Personally, I’m a big fan of practicing and teaching mindfulness through movement forms like Qigong and Yoga, and my hikes in nature are very connected to my mindfulness practice.

But, to use an activity (that’s not traditional meditation) to genuinely develop mindfulness, to truly progress and experience the benefits of practice, we need intention and some idea of where we’re going.

That’s where mindfulness skills come in. If we can identify some of the skills developed in traditional mindfulness practice, we can bring them into any meditation, movement style, exercise, creative activity, or daily life situation that we want. And, ultimately, this is great for any mindfulness practitioner (even the champion sitters), because integrating mindfulness fully into day-to-day life is truly the goal.

In this episode, I will talk about the first nine of these mindfulness skills. The rest of the list will be covered in Part 2, coming out in a few weeks.

• Being present (present-moment awareness)
• Embodiment (being in your body)
• Steady Focus
• Ability to shift attention
• Deep Listening
• Intention
• Non-judgment (suspending interpretation)
• Being with emotions without getting lost in them
• Decreasing Reactivity
• Acceptance (allowing things to be as they are)
• Recognizing impermanence
• Observing thoughts and tracking thought patterns
• Investigation
• Relaxing identification with emotions and thoughts
• Noticing habits that create more stress or suffering
• Letting Go
• Increasing kindness, compassion, and empathy
• Cultivating appreciation and gratitude
• Developing Patience
• Nurturing Perseverance

- I think this topic can help to flesh out our understanding of what mindfulness is, and why we might put energy into practicing it. When you see the scope of what we are developing in a full-spectrum mindfulness practice, you see that it’s not just another quickie technique, or superficial buzzword.

And, if you have another activity you consider your form of meditation - like running, or walking in nature, or knitting/crocheting, or cooking – I encourage you to reflect on which mindfulness skills you are developing. That way you can steer your activity towards a deeper and more expansive practice that truly gives you the benefits of meditation.

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For more links and resources mentioned in this episode, find the show notes at movedtomeditate.yoga/podcast.

Find more info on the upcoming Ease In To Meditation course at https://movedtomeditate.yoga/movement-based-mindfulness-course-ease-in-to-meditation/

Feel free to reach out through my website with any episode requests, topics you'd like to hear about, or guest interview suggestions. You can also connect with me on Instagram or Threads at @addie_movedtomeditate (for mindfulness, movement, pictures of Pacific Northwest nature, crocheting projects, and my adorable kitty, Mustache).