What Happened to Mindfulness?

We forgot how to be here.

When did we stop being present? Our minds are pulled in so many directions, yet, present in none.

We listen to music while we drive, podcasts while we walk, a film while we eat. We clean with something playing in the background. We scroll while we talk. We text while we pray. We no longer allow ourselves to simply be in the moment, in the task, in the present.

We’ve lost the art of mindfulness.

We are letting mindlessness slowly eat at our brains. We say we’re multitasking, staying productive, winding down. But maybe, just maybe we’re running. Running from silence. From stillness. From the discomfort of being fully present with ourselves. What are we so afraid of hearing when everything else goes quiet?

Technology, for all its good, has smothered the sacredness of presence. We do not even listen to music mindfully anymore. We half-hear lyrics. We’ve trained our minds to crave stimulation, constant motion, not stillness. It is really no wonder our attention spans are paper-thin. We've conditioned ourselves to exist only in fragmented moments, strung together by noise and distraction. We reach for our phones in silence like it’s oxygen. We say we don’t have time to pray, to reflect, to rest, but what if what we’ve really lost is the ability to be still? To sit with ourselves. To sit with God.

Maybe you don’t need a show playing while you eat. Maybe the meal is the moment. Maybe the quiet drive is what you need. Maybe folding laundry in silence is when you realize, and appreciate the peace you are fortunate to have. Maybe God has been waiting for you in the stillness, but the volume of your life is turned up too high to hear Him.

When my siblings and I were younger, my mum had this custom: every now and then, she’d ask us to sit and reflect. A pause. To take stock of our lives, our choices, our decisions, what we want out of life. In retrospect, I realize how precious that practice was. And it makes me wonder when you last sat down with yourself and reflected. Not in passing thought, not during a podcast or between text messages. But really sat still, in silence, with no distraction.

We are not meant to be everywhere at once. We are not meant to be constantly stimulated, entertained, or distracted. Give yourself to rhythm, to rest, to still mornings (I love still mornings). Be fully present in the now.

“Wherever you are, be all there.” - Jim Elliot

Let’s practice paying attention again. To the sound of our own breathing. To the taste of our food. To the weight of silence. To the nearness of God. Because mindfulness is really about presence. And presence is where we truly ‘live.’ Presence is where we remember who we are. Presence is where God often meets us.