It is not easy to explain how to improve mindfulness. One of my attempts is here: https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/meditation-1
One major problem is that mediation is not exciting, especially at first. Sure, you are alive and you know it, but so what?
When people are searching for meaning, or trying to clarify their identity, when they feel purposeless, useless, worthless, it can be difficult for them to feel that they are made in the image of God. They could console themselves with the fact that they are alive and imaginative, that they have a past and probably a future and furthermore, they are aware that they have a past and a future. To use a modern, even postmodern, maneuoevre, they could turn Buddha on his head (he probably won't mind), and verify that they are alive by seeing their wants, their desires, that they know full well they have.
If they are told to sit, upright and stil, while concetrating on their breath, while a timer ticks off 5-10 minutes, they dismiss the idea. How could that possibly help? Worse, if they try to follow the directions, just two or three minutes will produce boredom, fidgeting, itches here and little pains there. Common, but wrong sense, will tell them this is a very dumb idea. It isn't, but they have deep trouble believing in the effort. Those who give it a genuine try find that their minds keep jumping to other subjects and not their breath. Many people taking the mind's natural jumping to be evidence that they are not the sort of person that can meditate.
So, alternative words that may help are valuable. There is a very large body of research results that show meditating for 5 or 10 minutes can give a better, more accurate, more complete sense of self, identity and conscious aliveness. Soldiers, athletes, many different religions, physicians, lawyers - all sorts of people have verified the worth of the practice. It gives a better, more sensitive, more accurate sense of what is going on with one's mind.
I have written about Eckhart Tolle. He has several books about focusing on the personal awareness of being here now. His first book was "The Power of Now" and in it, he writes: "Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is the essence of meditation."
People nod in agreement when you tell them that the past is over and the future has not arrived yet. Still, it takes a little practice to sit and feel each breath, each beat of your heart, each tick of the clock, as time literally passes, as we literally pass through the present again and again.
Just feel the time passing and steep yourself in your life.
