A key skill for sustaining mindfulness in daily life is being able to distinguish between our experience and our interpretation of our experience. Experience is simply whatever is happening in the moment — a sound, a taste, a body sensation, an emotion, an interaction, etc. Interpretation is the mind’s reaction to our experience. One way to understand this difference is that when we are directly experiencing a moment of life, we are “within” it; when we are interpreting it, we are “outside” it. 

Once you begin to recognize that interpretation is only your view of an experience, it becomes possible for you to begin to release your compulsion to interpret every moment. Ideally, your goal is to create a new habit or “default setting” for responding mindfully rather than reacting unskillfully to all types of experiences….You can begin to break your habit of automatically interpreting every experience by practicing being mindful of your experience within the experience. So when an unpleasant moment arises, be interested in the direct experience of what happens. You might say to yourself,  “I’m just going to be interested in this,” and then watch what happens. Just be in the moment and let the experience form.

Philipp Moffitt, Maintaining Mindfulness in Daily Life