What’s the Difference Between Mindfulness, Meditation and Hypnosis?

What’s the difference between mindfulness, meditation and hypnosis? While they can sometimes seem similar—especially mindfulness and meditation—read on for a quick summary of each one to see how they stack up to each other.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is all about awareness. It’s about being an observer of your mind, your body and your thoughts. Imagine a pair of binoculars on a stand at the seaside – you know the ones that are fixed in place looking out to sea. They’re not focussed on anything in particular, they’re just there, just available. If you happen to look through them at the right time, you might notice a ship on the horizon, but you don’t follow it, you let it go. You might notice a seagull swoop across the sky through the lenses, but again you don’t follow – you just observe in a detached way.

We can do exactly the same thing with our minds and our bodies as we learn to tune in to our experience and notice what is going on. We might become aware of a feeling, a sensation, or a thought – but we don’t chase it, study, or engage with it. The point is to simply be – to observe – to be aware – and to be truly present in the moment.

Meditation

Meditation is about focus – about tuning in to something with a specific and single-point of attention. Rather than the unfocussed binoculars, meditation is like a camera where we can zoom in and focus on an object in detail. This might be a word or mantra, a candle flame, or most commonly, the breath. All of our attention is trained on this for the moment. And while our attention may wander off, which is entirely natural and normal, we simply bring it back again to our object of focus. Meditation can also be mindful because we don’t engage with thoughts or feelings that may pop up – we let them go and return to the meditation.

Hypnosis: Your Built-In Virtual Reality Simulator

Hypnosis harnesses the power of your mind to make changes in your life. Using your imagination, you can become immersed in any scenario or suggestion you wish. Your body, brain and senses are focussed and working together to bring to life scenes and situations – as if you’re in a movie of your life – allowing you to experience something as if it’s really happening. This is immensely powerful and can be used to make improvements in how you think, feel and act not just in your imagination – but with a real and tangible impact on your real life too.

And, just as you’re able to practise mindfulness or meditation in your daily life to become calmer or more relaxed – you can also practise self-hypnosis to help you feel and act in whatever way would be helpful to you.

How would it be if you could sleep better, feel calmer, manage your chronic pain?

What if you didn’t bite your nails, weren’t afraid of spiders, or speaking up at meetings?

What would life be like if your possibilities were limitless? What would make the biggest difference to you? That’s the power of hypnosis.