Has there even been a time when you’ve been driving to a particular spot, parked up your car, and realized that you have no memory of how you got there? Or driven past the particular road junction that you ALWAYS take? Have you ever eaten dinner and not really remembered how it tasted?

You’ve been in autopilot. When we live like this, we move through life unaware and disengaged.

Or rather, life moves past US, and we merely stand in the flow. While it can be beneficial to ‘just let things be’, there also needs to be a healthy balance where you are not merely a pawn in some big universal game. Being present as life takes its twists and turns.

Mindfulness helps to make us more aware of the here and now, and to move away from automatic pilot. Research in the Harvard Gazette stated that almost 50% of us don’t feel particularly present in our daily lives.

When we are traveling on auto, we are numb to our feelings, our sensations, the touch, taste and smell of things. The little things that are often overlooked, but if we noticed, would give us a little glimmer of pleasure and a sense of actually existing in the midst of all of life’s busyness.

If we become more aware of our feelings and senses, we are less likely to be reactive to challenges (traffic jams, for example) and a bit slower to let the red buttons that we all have get pushed.

By taking a breath, acknowledging how things feel without speeding to get rid of that feeling of discomfort, we can open ourselves up to different experiences and a more positive and healthy response.