For a few years now, mindfulness has been on the rise: from schools to the largest multinationals, from wellness magazines to scientific journals, the benefits of a "mindful way of life" are constantly being recognized and promoted. The very experience of a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world that we are collectively facing with Covid-19 represents an incredible opportunity to explore mindfulness in its full potential, individually and collectively, in private, professional and global domains.

Establish an anchored and focused attention to deal with uncertainty and anxiety 

The first practice of mindfulness consists of training our attention to come back here and now, where everything is happening, by using simple, accessible and natural support – the air that enters and leaves your lungs and the feeling of your feet on the ground. Just gather your attention, settle in the present moment and anchor yourself in the body – the gateway to consciousness. Do it again and again in the midst of the flow of 50,000 thoughts a day that are sure to exert their power of seduction.

Explore with curiosity and openness the usual trends and reactive patterns to find the freedom of choice

Once you have anchored yourself in the body, it is easier to open your awareness to recognize and explore with curiosity your habitual tendencies: what emotions are present? How do they manifest in the body? What are the associated thoughts and reaction patterns? What are other possible responses? Again, the current situation with its share of constraints, discomforts and judgments, in the way it exacerbates the best as well as the worst in us, can be a real opportunity to explore our inner landscape and act towards a desired change.

Cultivating the qualities of an open heart

By becoming aware, as much as possible without judgment, of the impulses that run through you with each experience and of their deeply universal nature, the practice of mindfulness opens the field of the heart in all its qualities. You are able to feel the joy of simple things, like a ray of sunshine confined in an apartment; to offer kindness to oneself and others; and to alleviate the pain wherever it is. And above all, you can sense the inner space to accommodate what presents itself, in pleasure as in pain, to ride the waves of experience without being carried away by them.

Mindfulness therefore gradually gives us back the power to see experience as it is, resilience to welcome what there is, and freedom to choose the way in which we wish to respond to it.

Sincere and consistent practicing of mindfulness leads me to one question:

Can we take this opportunity to see the Covid experience as it is, let ourselves be questioned about our habitual ways of functioning, and consciously choose the desired path and take the small steps that we want, for ourselves and for the world?