Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

a mountain peak in lotus position meditating while listening to the wind. And for some people, that form
of mindfulness is perfectly fine, but it’s not necessarily beneficial for the rest of us. Instead, mindfulness
has become a tool that can be used to improve all facets of an individual’s life. In this section, we’re going
to explore what mindfulness is and develop an understanding of what we will call in this book “mindful
communication.”
Several different definitions have appeared trying to explain what these terms mean. Let’s look at just a
small handful of definitions that have been put forward for the term “mindfulness.”
1. “[M]indfulness as a particular type of social practice that leads the practitioner to an ethically minded
awareness, intentionally situated in the here and now.” 15
2. “[D]eliberate, open-minded awareness of moment-to-moment perceptible experience that ordinarily
awareness.” 16
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present moment [and] can be contrasted with states of mind in which attention is focused elsewhere,
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here, being openly and kindly present to our own immediate mental, emotional, and bodily experiencing,
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10. “[A] multifaceted construct that includes paying attention to present-moment experiences, labeling
experiences.”
What we generally see within these definitions of the term “mindfulness” is a spectrum of ideas
ranging from more traditional Eastern perspectives on mindfulness (usually stemming out of Buddhism)
to more Western perspectives on mindfulness arising out of the pioneering research conducted by Ellen
Langer. 25
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