Is there a downside to mindfulness? Seems like an odd question to ask, especially when we place so much emphasis on it within New Thought.
Webster’s Dictionary defines mindfulness as the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis
Scientific studies confirm that mindfulness leads to performance, health, and well-being. That’s why leading companies like Google and Deutsche Bank implement mindfulness programs for their people.
In this short video clip posted on LinkedIn, UCLA professor and executive coach John Ullmen, PhD, explains the fundamentals of mindfulness and provides step-by-step methods that anyone can use. Every technique is confirmed by research and validated in practice to give you results for dealing with stress, anxiety, fear, worry, and self-doubt, and for increasing confidence, peak performance, and connection with others.
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In contrast, in his article: The Little-Known Downsides of Mindfulness Practice, published in Psychology Today in 2016, Utpal Dholakia, Ph.D. makes an interesting argument contrasting mindfulness and mindlessness.
Dholakia cautions that when meditators embrace judgment-free awareness and acceptance, their reality-monitoring accuracy may be impaired, increasing their susceptibility to false memories.
He goes on to point out that mindfulness practices often lead to the formation of fake memories which are a potential unintended consequence of mindfulness meditation in which memories become less reliable; that there is a tendency to escape from having to think about difficult problems and arrive at reasonable solutions.
So, what do you think? Is there a downside to mindfulness?
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