Mindfulness Is Not About Relaxing. It Is About Meeting Yourself.

I have spent a weekend practicing and contemplating mindfulness. How being in the moment, paying attention, and staying aware - of your thoughts, your feelings, everything around and inside you - is a very good thing to do. It brings you closer to yourself.

Interestingly, the entire purpose of mindfulness is not necessarily to relax, but rather to become more aware. In that way, being mindful can, in fact, be rather distressing. What if you suddenly become aware of uncomfortable feelings, sorrow, jealousy, fear or loneliness? The point is that only by becoming aware - by being mindful and attentive to ourselves - can these things emerge. And suppressing difficult emotions is not going to benefit you. You need to live through your feelings to come out whole on the other side.

Now, if you live in 2026, in a modern society, perhaps in a city, if you have a smartphone, and if you are constantly bombarded with ideals of how life should be - through movies, images, social media, the people around you, or people you admire (or disdain) - then maybe you are a little bit like me.

I find myself spending too much time on my phone. I even need it just to log into my computer at work (yes, two-factor authentication of course), and messages always seem to pop up. I also find myself trying to do too much. I have obligations. I need to do my work, and then I want to investigate interesting topics. I ‘want to’ scroll through LinkedIn or Facebook (or at least I do). I need to keep up with school messages for the kids, and so on.

In other words, I spend very large parts of an average day outside my emotions and outside my body. My mind is running at full speed almost all the time. It has become a habit. It is my default. And by now, it is much easier for me to stay outside my body - to think, to rationalise, and then think some more - than it is to silence the world and tune inwards and simply do nothing for a moment.

And with all that thinking going on in my head, I am starting to feel exhausted. In not silencing my mind, I am losing myself.

For example, recently I have spent considerable amounts of time thinking about my career and my work life. What do I want to do in the future? What do I want to do next? What do I need to do to get there? What options do I have? Should I take another training or education?

While I believe I approach these questions sensibly - considering my strengths, my preferences, and what I need to create the life I want to live - I am, in fact, overlooking my core needs: the ones my emotional landscape is trying to tell me about, if only I would listen.

Now, 2026, smartphones and AI-age, entertainment on demand, speed at work - I suspect many of us have unlearned how to feel ourselves.

The problem is that we are not meant to live in our minds all the time. We are bodies and souls too, and we cannot neglect either part.

The weekend spent practicing mindfulness made that beautifully clear.

And what I learned is that mindfulness is not (only) about meditating for 45 minutes a day with an empty mind. If you can do that, go for it. Most of us will not be able to, nor can we realistically commit that amount of time.

But two minutes a day (maybe 5 if you have practiced for a while ;-)) watching a candle burn, noticing your breath, really looking at the food you are about to eat, or - one of my favourites - really looking at the leaves on the trees while going for a walk, smelling the air, feeling the wind... that is mindfulness.

This weekend, I have learned that mindfulness is the conscious, non-judgemental, loving, and kind direction of your awareness.

What a definition.

"Conscious," because you do it actively.

"Non-judgemental," because every thought and observation is welcomed.

"Loving and kind," because we are not merely conducting cold observational research. We are directing warm, compassionate attention towards the subject of our awareness.

And then, what do you do?

You listen.

You observe.

You silence everything.

You stay in the present moment.

Of course, thoughts about the past or the future will come flying in. They always do (don’t blame yourself for it). Mindfulness simply asks you to notice those thoughts and gently redirect your awareness back to your chosen object. Sometimes you will notice your wandering mind quickly; sometimes not. Both are perfectly okay.

What I experienced this weekend is that mindfulness helps me stay connected with myself. It helps me make better choices in my life. And it helps me bring a different energy into the world.

And regarding my racing thoughts about career development?

Well, I came to rediscover a few things that truly nourish me - things I had forgotten about.

What is your experience with mindfulness? What benefits has it brought into your life?

(With gratitude to the mindfulness teaching at ICA Berlin, which inspired many of the ideas explored here.)