ABSTRACT
One common misconception is that mindfulness is a relaxation technique. Authors can see from this definition that it is not; if a person is tense and brings a friendly interest to sensations of tension is being mindful. A lack of awareness in the present moment means living life on automatic pilot. When on autopilot, a person will not be present to what is actually happening in the moment, as he is somewhere else in his head. Often carried away on a stream of thinking, his mind gives him thoughts for much of the time; this is normal and is just what the human mind does. Language-based ways of processing experience are helpful for activities such as planning, analysing and goal setting and are often described as the ‘doing’ mode of mind. The mind is often scattered and lost in thought because it is working away in the background, trying to fix and sort things out.
