Mindfulness Attitudes – Trust

The idea of ​​confidence in mindfulness attitudes focuses on self-confidence. How many of us have lost touch with or mistrust our instincts? The attitude of confidence is about having the courage to cultivate and develop self-confidence.

It may seem illogical in this technological and digital age of facts and evidence to talk about instincts, but when it comes to understanding ourselves and our well-being, listening to your inner self is a fundamental skill.

Think of the myriad of actions our brain controls that occur as a result of unconscious processing. The unconscious is a process that happens automatically and is not available for introspection. The subconscious, by contrast, is part of our awareness process that is not actively in focal awareness. Your nervous system, the five senses and the data that enters our brain, the processing of that data, all the unconscious activities without which we would not survive. The physical processes that take place throughout our body, respiration, digestion, hormonal secretions, the pumping of the heart, arteries and veins contract, electrical signals jump over synapses, all vital and life-sustaining functions, and all are carried out unconsciously. We don’t have to think about putting one foot in front of the other when we walk, or whatever movement we make. We are aware that brain injury (such as a stroke) can cause us to have to relearn these unconscious skills, so we know that our brains are responsible for processing our unconscious activities.

Now consider those times when you consciously want to do something, perhaps you stick to a New Year’s resolution, but how your unconscious self will overcome that willpower. You reach for sugar because you are behaving automatically. We know that one of the hardest things to break, once you’ve gotten rid of an addiction, is the habitual behavior that accompanies the addiction. The cigarette after dinner, the drink after work, not necessary actions but habitual behaviors that can be as difficult to overcome as the addiction itself. The change must occur at the unconscious level and that takes practice. Someone recently told me “practice makes permanent”. Instead of striving for unattainable perfection, we should try to embed our change at the deepest level to make them a part of us.

Developing a trust in yourself and your feelings is an integral part of meditation training. For many people, it is a leap of faith to start meditating, and I fully recognize that. This attitude of trusting yourself and your own basic wisdom and goodness is very important in all aspects of meditation practice. It is much better to trust your intuition and your own authority, even if you make a few “mistakes” along the way, than to always look outside of yourself for guidance. If at any time you feel that something is not right for you, why not honor your feelings? Why should I dismiss them or dismiss them as invalid because some authority or some group of people think or say differently?

If you think about it, there are so many things in life (both simple and complex) that are beyond our control, but we place our trust in them without hardly thinking or being aware of that trust, so why can’t we do the same with ourselves: our minds and our hearts?

By cultivating the attitude of trust, what we aim to do is become more fully ourselves. Therefore, it is important not to get caught up in the reputation and authority of your professors (or peers). If you feel that any guidance being given takes you away from who you are, trust yourself and take another path that feels good to you. It is impossible to become like someone else. The best you can hope for is to be more of yourself, so don’t compare yourself or aspire to be like someone you admire.

The confident attitude is about tuning into your deepest self. It is listening to yourself at a much deeper level than you are thinking. It’s about going beyond your mind, to your intuition and what you’re feeling, then trusting those intuitions and feelings and letting them guide you to be more fully yourself. It is not an attitude of ignoring common sense, trust is not blind or unintelligent, but allows your inner voice to be heard and considered in your decision making. It is at this deeper level that we make change happen, releasing the inner clarity that we all have. We are resilient by nature, but as we mature and are shaped by our circumstances and experiences, we can lose touch with the innate strength that exists within us. Practicing mindfulness can get us back in touch with that ability, and we can then choose to use it to recover from life’s challenges.