Hi All! Looking for feedback on my recent post. I teach mindfulness to school-age kids and stress reduction to teachers. Often, people put my work in the category of yoga, so I took this nitty-gritty detail and wrote a post on it today for LinkedIn. Any feedback will be helpful. Thanks!

Why Mindfulness is yoga and how it’s different….

When I teach about Mindfulness, I present it as so many things. It’s an understanding through knowledge of what it is, AWARENESS, which in itself is a whole extensive category of topics. Then, there’s practicing it, which is another line of skills that takes time to integrate into daily life.

Mindfulness is something we have to chip away at. There is no end goal and it’s an ongoing type work. Sometimes when I speak about my program to a school, they say, “Oh, we did a training on that.” Or, “We practice a Mindful Minute in the morning, so we do mindfulness.” There is often someone who thinks I’m solely a yoga instructor, which isn’t entirely false, it’s only a part of what I do, it’s not all-encompassing.

I understand the confusion, this is why I love teaching what I teach. Let’s tune in…..

Yoga is a practice of awareness of the body and breath, bringing connection between our bodies and minds. Is that mindfulness? Yes, of course, but there are so many other ways to explore our inner landscape and how to relate to ourselves and the surrounding world.

When I present mindfulness, I often refer to it as a remembering. We often have to remember to be mindful because the distractions and stresses of daily life often take us away from the present moment and brings us into a journey of our minds. Oftentimes, our minds are running on an operating system, patterns, and stories that don’t serve us and simply shifting perspectives can bring us to less stress and better wellness.

So, can we use our bodies through one modality, yoga, to bring ourselves to the present, and enhance our wellness? Absolutely! But, we have to look at yoga as a branch of mindfulness. A practice, that needs consistent fine tuning. Both yoga and mindfulness are practices. A skill, way of being, talent that we can define and refine over and over again through constant engagement and curiosity, bringing ourselves right back to the present, time and time again.