Become a kinder person

Practicing mindfulness increases Empathy and lead people to act more altruistically. Meditation learned through live courses with a mindfulness teacher has a strong effect on altruistic behavior.

People who undergo a two-week, 10 minute-a-day meditation course using the smartphone app Headspace are also more likely to behave altruistically although the effect is not quite as pronounced.

Learn to forgive

Mindfulness brings many personal benefits to those who practice it, but these benefits may also extend to interpersonal relationships.

Mindfulness can improve relationships, and some research suggests that this may be true particularly when it comes to forgiveness, a known contributor to relationship satisfaction and closeness.

People with more mindful personalities, as well as those who practice meditation, are more likely to forgive others for perceived wrongdoings.

Mindful people tend to more readily forgive their partners for past offenses, and also tend to be more accepting of their partners overall.

Calm your neuroses

Neuroticism is characterized by negative affect, rumination on the past and worry about the future, moodiness and loneliness.

Practicing mindfulness is a powerful way for people to detach from common characteristics of neuroticism, including obsessive negative thoughts and worries, and challenges regulating one’s emotions and behavior.

Mindfulness reduces feelings of anger and depression among people disposed to neuroticism.

Unravel unconscious racial biases

While most people are not overtly racist, research suggests that nearly all of us may display some level of unconscious racial biases operating below the surface that influence the way we think about behave.

Meditation acts as an antidote to the mental automaticity – our tendency to think about, judge and react to things swiftly and largely unconsciously.

Restore your sense of wonder.

Powerful experiences of nature, art and spirituality can fill us with feelings of awe and wonder, a sense of amazement and joy in the face of that which is far larger than ourselves.

A mindfulness practice may actually prime the mind for these types of experiences. Awe involves … giving up your cognitive structures in order to accommodate the experience.

Mindfulness is paying attention and exercising non-conceptual Awareness, so you should be more open to the immensity that’s there.