How about having a glass of wine? Red, smooth and dry; you watch it being poured into a glass, then you smell it and taste it holding it in your mouth for a second and then, very quickly you are being carried away to some memory, some other place at another time, with different people in a different season. The sip of wine has pulled you out of the here and now and moved you to Italy or France or some other wonderful reality…
But it can transfer you to less pleasant memory; drunken parents, broken relationship or heavy hangover… A drop of wine can provoke a story in either direction, towards a feeling of safety and relaxation or towards discomfort and stress.
Mindfulness can take you out of either and bring you back to the present. Mindfulness does not pay attention to a story. But we love stories, those pleasant and funny particularly. An apprehension about losing a story may stop you from learning mindfulness. This is misunderstanding; mindfulness is simply a tool that will allow you to choose what story to follow or not and will give you power to leave it if it is not helpful and supportive. You will stop identify yourself with any story. They will entertain you, but will lose power to control you. You will get closer to your life, to the experience and richness of it. That’s mindfulness.