Mindfulness and Meditation: What’s the difference?

Written by Lori Schlotzhauer of Health & Harmony Denver

We hear so much about mindfulness and meditation these days. The terms are often used interchangeably. Your doctor may say “you really need to start a mindfulness practice.” Or you see a report on the national news of how great meditation is for you. Seems confusing, doesn’t it? Oftentimes, when I share with people that I’m a Mindfulness Coach and Consultant, I watch their eyes glaze over. I would like to simplify what meditation and mindfulness mean to me.

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness has been around for over two thousand years, and it’s been defined in different ways over time. A popular current definition, from Jon Kabat-Zinn, is that mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment and nonjudgmentally.” In other words, mindfulness is a capacity of mind. It’s a way of relating to whatever is happening: paying attention, noticing, not judging, not thinking. I like to think of mindfulness as an “informal” practice. It’s the way we live our day-to-day lives.

Meditation, in contrast, is an activity. It’s a thing you do. Oftentimes it means that you’re sitting still, noticing the sensations of breath, body or mind, and coming back, over and over again, as the mind gets distracted. Other times it means paying attention while eating, or walking, or communicating. I like to think of meditation as the “formal” practice. There are many forms of meditation. But in general, you can think of meditation as an activity of focused mindfulness or focused attention.

Another way to think about it is that mindfulness is the mindset that is trained during meditation being applied to the rest of life. Mindfulness is a quality while meditation is a practice. Meditation is like “weight training” and mindfulness is living life with this newfound strength! By experiencing the “formal” practice of sitting in meditation, learning to focus and find a pause in our thoughts (notice that I did not say “to find a complete void of thoughts”!), we can hopefully learn to live a lifestyle of the “informal” mindfulness and bring that pause to situations so that we consciously respond versus unconsciously react.

Whether I am working with a private client or a group, I use Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other meditation techniques to prescribe a practice for them to do so that they can begin to show up more mindfully and with more emotional regulation because of that practice or even have less pain symptoms. They begin to see themselves and their life situations improve very quickly and they can begin to live a life that they never dreamed possible.

To download a free meditation go to healthandharmonydenver.com or to schedule an in-person or virtual consultation, email me directly at lori@healthandharmonydenver.com or call 720-218-9064.