Did I Find It?

" I've been in my mind,
It's such a fine line
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold."

"When you live with yourself, you become more self-reliant and self-aware. Also, you realize what is important in your life." http://www.quora.com/What-is-something-every-person-should-experience-at-least-once-in-a-lifetime

I've been trapped in my mind for years. Was I doing "mindfulness"? "Mindfulness is "the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_%28psychology%29

From the American Psychological Association...

Empirically supported benefits of mindfulness

The term "mindfulness" has been used to refer to a psychological state of awareness, the practices that promote this awareness, a mode of processing information and a character trait. To be consistent with most of the research reviewed in this article, we define mindfulness as a moment-to-moment awareness of one's experience without judgment. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait. While it might be promoted by certain practices or activities, such as meditation, it is not equivalent to or synonymous with them...

Reduced rumination. Several studies have shown that mindfulness reduces rumination...

Stress reduction. Many studies show that practicing mindfulness reduces stress...

Boosts to working memory. Improvements to working memory appear to be another benefit of mindfulness, research finds...

Focus. ...Mindfulness meditation practice and self-reported mindfulness were correlated directly with cognitive flexibility and attentional functioning (Moore and Malinowski, 2009).

Less emotional reactivity. Research also supports the notion that mindfulness meditation decreases emotional reactivity. In a study of people who had anywhere from one month to 29 years of mindfulness meditation practice...

More cognitive flexibility. Another line of research suggests that in addition to helping people become less reactive, mindfulness meditation may also give them greater cognitive flexibility...

Relationship satisfaction. Several studies find that a person's ability to be mindful can help predict relationship satisfaction...

Other benefits. Mindfulness has been shown to enhance self-insight, morality, intuition and fear modulation, all functions associated with the brain's middle prefrontal lobe area. Evidence also suggests that mindfulness meditation has numerous health benefits, including increased immune functioning (Davidson et al., 2003; see Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004 for a review of physical health benefits), improvement to well-being (Carmody & Baer, 2008) and reduction in psychological distress (Coffey & Hartman, 2008; Ostafin et al., 2006). In addition, mindfulness meditation practice appears to increase information processing speed (Moore & Malinowski, 2009), as well as decrease task effort and having thoughts that are unrelated to the task at hand (Lutz et al., 2009).

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner.aspx

The person singing above suffered a serious brain injury, http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/01/neil.young/