...so let’s spend just a few minutes explaining what mindfulness is, and what it isn’t. Because in the past few decades, mindfulness has gained tremendous popularity as both a formal practice as well as a way of being, of living. And as with anything that gets mass marketed, some products out there are authentic, and some are knock offs. Mindfulness was initially introduced to the Western world and more specifically to the medical community, by Dr. Jon Kabbat-Zinn, a pain medicine physician at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.