Mindful travel is a relatively recent phenomenon that unifies the functions and benefits of Mindfulness with the experience of traveling.
The resulting combination is a path that allows for great progress in learning emotional management and modulation of attentional focus in many life situations, and which has been shown to be particularly effective when dealing with stress and anxiety problems. If you want to know what it is, keep reading.
It is possible that you know several people in your immediate environment who in their daily lives put into practice exercises of what is known as Mindfulness (or Full Attention, in Spanish). There are those who do it as part of a treatment applied to a health problem, and there are also those who simply incorporate it into their daily lives as a well-being resource that helps them maintain a correct emotional balance in the face of life’s challenges and changes.
And in recent decades, Mindfulness has become a powerful tool that is increasingly used in various areas: it is applied both in the context of psychotherapy and in the world of Work and Organizational Psychology, and even in centers. educational, since several Mindfulness exercises are so simple that they can be applied to children’s classes. It is no coincidence: what was initially developed as a psychological intervention model to treat stress problems, today has been adapted to cover various needs.
origins
Mindfulness has two facets: one of them is the most pragmatic and operational, and it is Mindfulness seen as a set of mindfulness techniques. modulation of attention focus and emotion management, which despite being similar to relaxation techniques, are not exactly the same; The second is Mindfulness as a philosophy of life that gives us a way of interpreting and analyzing the world and the problems and opportunities it brings us.
This last facet is reflected in a wide variety of actions beyond the specific moments in which we propose to dedicate a few minutes to Mindfulness; However, it should be taken into account that Mindfulness is not linked to any specific religion or ideological system.
In its origins, Mindfulness emerged as a technique inspired by Vipassana meditation, which is linked to ancient practices linked to Buddhism and Hinduism; However, it has been developed as a set of practices unrelated to any form of mysticism, dogmas of faith or symbology, through scientific research that can verify the objective effects of using Mindfulness in the face of specific needs and problems. That is to say, although Mindfulness is inspired by religious practices, it has been designed as techniques of a secular nature and can provide benefits to people of all types, regardless of their religion or lack of it.
This methodology to achieve states of relaxation and focus has acquired great popularity around the world for more than 30 years thanks to scientific research and rigorous dissemination work by various psychologists and neuropsychologists.
One of the fathers of Mindfulness as a therapeutic resource used in the fields of medicine and psychology is Doctor Jon Karabat-Zinn, who created the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University School of Medicine. of Massachusetts.
This is one of the most used programs today for reduce stress and other associated psychological disorders through the practice of Mindfulness at a scientific and reproducible level
Goals
As we have seen, although the origins of Mindfulness are found in Buddhist and Hindu meditation, currently the usual practice of this technique is unrelated, in most cases, to any religious or spiritual content.
The main objective of Mindfulness is focus attention on the here and now of the person achieving a deep state of consciousness, emotional balance and self-knowledge that is not weighed down by obsessive thoughts, unfounded fears, catastrophic predictions and other psychological phenomena that feed anxiety or even physical pain.
When this practice is trained enough, it allows the person to separate from their thoughts and identify and neutralize all negative or blocking thought patterns; It is not about eliminating them completely, but about seeing them for what they are and letting them move through the state of consciousness, so as not to give them more power than they have and let them become extinct on their own, leaving us only the relevant information that they carry with them.
Therefore, practicing Mindfulness is neither completely avoiding physical or emotional pain (a strategy that in most cases has the opposite effect to the desired one) nor leaving the mind “blank”, since the latter is impossible and trying to achieve it alone. brings frustration. Is about assimilate sensory and mental experiences from a constructive logic and acceptance of life
How to learn it?
Currently you can find various centers that offer Mindfulness courses throughout Spain, where instructors specialized in teaching practice Mindfulness techniques starting from scratch or for advanced levels
These Mindfulness courses are highly recommended for anyone who wants to improve in various areas of their life or their mental health and increase their performance and emotional well-being both on a personal and professional level.
However, It must be taken into account that although Mindfulness is reflected in various exercises and practices (that is, there is no single way to put Mindfulness into practice, which is part of its positive qualities because it adapts to various contexts), there are some learning processes that are more complete than others. It is one thing to spend four minutes closing your eyes and applying a simple Mindfulness exercise, and another thing is, for example, Mindful travel.
What is Mindful travel?
In short, Mindful travel consists of taking advantage of the potential that travel gives us to learn to be in the present moment in an environment that encourages this type of learning: environments that greatly facilitate the task of “disconnecting” of the old dynamics of thinking and experiencing emotions and that tie us to the past and predictions of the future.
That is, in Mindful travel we use to our advantage the influence that certain spaces have on our mental state, so that they participate in the process of generating Mindful Attention and direct our attentional focus towards the present moment.
Why do these spaces affect us in this way? Mainly, because on the one hand they have been selected to provide us with moments of calm and tranquility, with stimuli that induce us to a state of relaxation, and on the other, they keep us away from the stimuli that we associate with our daily lives or with our past, so that we do not expose ourselves to constant reminders of what stresses us, worries us or makes us have a hard time.
Thanks to this mental “reset”, we learn to take the first steps in managing our attention in a place that facilitates it, so that when we return to our lives, we do not depend on being in a specific place to practice Mindfulness and we can do so. apply in a much wider variety of situations.
Do you want to take advantage of the potential of Mindful travel?
If you are interested in participating in the Mindful travel experience, we invite you to embark on the Mindfulness and meditation programs of Trips that Change Lives directed by coach Félix Cuellar.
This platform organizes trips to selected destinations to carry out Mindfulness programs with the support of instructors with extensive experience in this field.
