Myths: Mindfulness Is Meditation

Although mindfulness and meditation do bring similar benefits and are both intended to quiet and center body, mind, and spirit, meditation is something we do, while mindful is something we are. Meditation is an intentional oasis in which you renew and replenish yourself. In meditation, you quiet your mind, body, and spirit in order to reconnect with yourself and your Source. Meditation is an activity. Mindfulness is an intentional adjustment of attitude and focus: a way of being.

Meditation supports and encourages mindfulness by training our wandering minds to be quietly aware and deliberately present. Because of its complementary nature, many of the practices included in The Woman’s Book of Mindfulness are meditations. We do them to calm, center, and quiet ourselves and to diminish the tendency to become lost in thought. Such meditations strengthen the mindful muscles needed to develop the habit of mindful awareness.

Excerpted from The Woman's Book of Mindfulness by Sue Patton Thoele. Available on Amazon.