Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
—Ferris Bueller
The word “mindfulness” seems to be everywhere these days. You may have even heard it before you picked up (or were handed) this book. And while you probably have a sense of what it is (because you’ve already experienced it), you’ll get the most from this book if we start this chapter with a definition that feels clear to you.
“Positive psychology” may be less familiar to you. We want to clarify that it’s much more than just finding silver linings, or skipping about in search of unicorns and rainbows. As we’ll see in the second part of this chapter, positive psychology is about down-to-earth, practical, scientific exercises for health, well-being, and happiness.
Both mindfulness and positive psychology help you manage depression. Mindfulness helps you manage your attention, and positive psychology gives you concrete tools for shaping your outlook and actions. This chapter will help you understand how, together, they make for powerful allies against depression.
We define mindfulness like this: paying attention…to the present moment…with acceptance and without judgment.
This definition has three parts, and we can look at each of them individually, as well as looking at them as a whole.
The first thing about mindfulness, and what might have made you cringe if you’ve ever had someone snap at you to pay attention, is paying attention. To understand what’s happening in your experience, even in depression, you need to tune in to what’s happening and get good information about your depression, rather than turn away from it. Scary, we know. To work with Sgt Mind and your depression, you need to pay attention to what it’s telling you, and how it’s telling you that—the signals it’s sending to your body and mind, and the way it’s influencing your behavior.
The idea of the present moment is not as new-agey as it might sound. Being in the present is really an opportunity to let go of the past, whether it’s thinking about scary or sad things, or just something dumb you said at a party. It’s also letting go of the worries about the future, whether it’s a prom date, the SATs, or the fate of the planet. In the present moment, you can just relax. The present moment also doesn’t last very long, and it’s the only time where you actually have any power to do anything. One other surprising fact from research in mindfulness and positive psychology is that what you’re doing matters less to your happiness than how much you’re paying attention to what you’re doing.
You don’t have to sit on a cushion or move to a mountaintop to practice mindfulness. You can practice mindfulness informally, just bringing present-moment awareness to anything or everything you do, which will in turn boost your happiness. All the things you already do on a daily basis—eating, hygiene, chores, walking, arts, performing, practicing, studying—can be done mindfully.
Some people say “with kindness and curiosity” instead. This part of the definition is a little trickier, and it asks for a different relationship than we tend to have to our thoughts and our experience. Usually, we are judging ourselves, our thoughts, and the world around us harshly. With mindfulness, we are trying to stay away from that. Whether struggling with depression or not, many of us hear Sgt. Mind telling us:
A lot of people, maybe even most people, including successful adults, struggle with self-judging thoughts like these. This is where nonjudgment of the thoughts can be so helpful, because it also means that you don’t have to believe everything you think, and it helps you realize that feelings aren’t facts. Those ideas may both sound strange at first, but hopefully over the course of this book they will start to make sense. Sgt. Mind tells you that what he thinks is true and that what you feel is always true. In fact, sometimes our thoughts and feelings are accurate, sometimes not. With mindfulness, we can see which ones are worth paying attention to, and which ones we can let go of. Carl Rogers, a famous psychologist, writes: “The curious thing is, when I accept myself exactly as I am, then I can change.”
The word “acceptance” is tricky. You may have thought of it as being about liking something. Here, we aren’t asking you to like your experience, just to notice it and try not to fight with it in this moment. If you fight the thought, it will stick around even more, like if we asked you to not think about a pink elephant. On the other hand, trying to hold on to positive thoughts or moods is also hard; if we asked you to only think about pink elephants, your mind would wander off soon enough. Worse, you might feel like more of a failure!
It’s also very important to understand that, when we talk about acceptance, we’re not saying that you should just suck it up and get used to tough emotions and difficult experiences. Acceptance is about openness and willingness, not stoicism. Rather than Sgt. Mind saying, “I need to get over this or control this,” acceptance is about willingness and saying to yourself, I’m willing to face this and go through it.
Acceptance, in the mindful sense we’re using it, is different because it comes out of an understanding that things will change, even if not always on the timeline we want. Sgt. Mind would like us to believe that bad feelings will stick around forever, but check in with your actual experience—are you still having that same exact bad feeling you had when you were in kindergarten? Probably not. Things change. When we watch our experience with mindfulness, we see firsthand that thoughts, feelings, and sensations all come and go.
It’s when you can’t accept what’s happening now, when you try to fight your thoughts, feelings, or behavior, or judge them harshly, that you feel worse about yourself, and exhausted to boot.
Mindfulness isn’t actually about adding something on; in fact, it’s about letting go of the stuff that’s in the way of our natural, contented state. You’ve probably already experienced elements of mindfulness in your life, even if you never used that word. This book will help you practice getting back to that mind state over and over again, building a clear path to get there, so you can find it more quickly when you really need it.
Try This:
Let’s do a quick visualization. Close your eyes and let your mind settle on a situation where you completely lost track of time. Maybe it was something that was so amazing, so awe-inspiring, engaging, entertaining—something that completely focused and absorbed you. Perhaps it was a sporting event you were participating in. A piece of music you were playing. A conversation with someone that drew you in completely. A moment in nature or with an animal. Whatever it was, let yourself dive into the memory of it—using all your senses to dip yourself back into it as if it were happening all over again.
That is mindfulness: full engagement of your attention in the present moment without judgment. But don’t worry too much about the words defining mindfulness. The experiences of mindfulness you’ve already had are the best definition.
Chris looks back on a few times in life where he felt so connected, even before he’d heard of mindfulness. Gazing into the embers of a fire at night, watching clouds pass by in the summer sky, or listening to the sounds of rain in the forest from the comfort of his tent and sleeping bag.
Mitch thinks of standing on a mountain in Vermont as a young man, a silent moment in childhood gazing out across the open expanse of a yellow cornfield against the blue sky.
And both think of the moments when their children were born.
What are some moments from your past where you have already felt some aspects of mindfulness?
What do these moments have in common for you?
You may not be able to go back to those specific moments, but you can cultivate a path to those feelings, to feel that way more often.
Try This:
To practice mindfulness meditation, whether for a few seconds or longer, all you do is rest your mind on something in the present moment, what we call an “anchor.” Your body or breath are often good ones, because while our minds are usually racing to the past or future, our bodies and five senses are in the present. Then, when your mind wanders, you notice where it has gone and gently bring it back to where it was. Again, notice that this involves those three parts: attention, present moment, and acceptance with nonjudgment.
Congratulations! You’ve just practiced three minutes of mindfulness meditation.
What did you notice doing this practice? What surprised you?
What happened to Sgt. Mind’s voice for you? Did it get louder or softer or not change at all?
Well, in three ways. By keeping your attention somewhere and bringing it back, you’re building the muscle of concentration in your mind and brain. This trains your mind to stay in the present moment and not get carried off by darker thoughts of depression.
By noticing where your mind went, you’re starting to know your mind better, to learn its triggers, patterns, and habits. These insights help you prepare for situations that might start an avalanche of depressive thoughts, feelings, and actions.
And by being gentle and kind with yourself when your mind wanders off, you’re creating a new habit of being a little nicer to yourself—sometimes called self-compassion—which is not something most of us are in the habit of doing, especially when we’re depressed. This helps quiet Sgt. Mind.
Some of the practices in this book emphasize awareness, concentration, and attention to the present moment. Others focus on insight, and still others on compassion and self-compassion, all of which are useful at different moments, and all of which can help you manage your depression.
So let’s take a moment to think about mindfulness in terms of depression. Once again, the definition of mindfulness: paying attention to the present-moment experience with acceptance and without judgment. And what would you say is the opposite of this definition? Being unaware or unclear about what’s actually happening at this moment, but still judging and shaming ourselves.
Sounds an awful lot like depression to us.
Try This:
STOP is a quick and easy practice to help you get in touch with mindfulness and see things clearly.
You can stop Sgt. Mind anytime you notice him sneaking up on you, or better yet, at regular times of day just to keep him away.
Write down a few times when you might use a practice like STOP with Sgt. Mind—for example, after a disappointment or before going into a stressful situation like a test, performance, game, or party.
There are many misunderstandings about mindfulness. It doesn’t require sitting on funny cushions or going on retreats or even becoming spiritual at all. Cushions or retreats might help some people practice, but you certainly don’t need them. For others, mindfulness may feel spiritual, but it doesn’t have to be. Mindfulness also doesn’t mean becoming passive. You can be very active and be mindful—it’s all about being aware of what is happening now. And one thing it’s definitely not is shutting off your thoughts and feelings by numbing yourself or checking out. It’s actually staying very much in contact with them, but in a more flexible, workable way than most people do when they’re depressed.
What are some assumptions you made about mindfulness when you first picked up this book? Think back to Sgt. Mind’s judgments when he first saw this book. List any reactions here:
Here’s a bottom line about mindfulness—are you willing to learn all you can about harnessing the power and opportunity that exists in every moment of your life? Yes, this book is about depression, but more than that, it’s about living life to the fullest, getting the most from each moment and experience that comes your way so that you can get the most out of life.
While mindfulness is about finding and exploring what’s in each moment, positive psychology is about making the best of those moments. At its most basic, positive psychology is based on the idea that there is more right than wrong with you. When you’re depressed, it often feels like the opposite, and maybe over time you’ve heard more from other people about what’s wrong with you than what’s right. By using positive psychology, you can discover and build on the strengths you do have, rather than dwell on the ways depression gets you down.
What evolutionary psychologists (yes, that’s a thing—they study why our brains and behavior evolved the way they did) have discovered is that humans are hardwired with a negativity bias. This means that we’re wired to more often notice the negative and to interpret things in negative ways. This made sense for our ancestors. In a more physically dangerous world, they needed to be scanning constantly for danger. Those who didn’t see it didn’t survive; those who were extra cautious survived and passed on their genes to the next generation. Psychologist Rick Hanson explains that our minds are like Velcro for anything negative and Teflon for the positives. That negativity bias is also known as Sgt. Mind, giving us twenty-four hours of all-bad news. Instead, we want to change the channel, to actually give us unbiased news, the good and the bad.
If we’re depressed, we’re even more likely to notice the negative and interpret things in negative ways. When we deliberately practice looking for the positive, we start to rebalance our perspective to fit the world we’re living in now. Finding this balance improves our well-being in daily life, and it helps alleviate depression as well by boosting our mood.
Positive psychology is not about pretending everything is great and ignoring the bad, annoying, or dangerous things in life. It’s about bringing more attention to the positive, and using specific, concrete strategies to overcome the negativity bias and see things clearly.
If you think about your depression as Sgt. Mind slipping his dark or dirty glasses on your eyes and distorting your vision, mindfulness and positive psychology can help you see more clearly and accurately. Mindfulness cleans the lenses so you can see more clearly, and positive psychology fine-tunes the prescription so you can see farther and more accurately.
Both take some work, especially at first, but over time, with the practices in this book, you can get into good habits about keeping your perspective clear, just like you clean your glasses when they get smudged. We’ve carefully picked practices that are the most powerful mindfulness and positive-psychology exercises to get the most effect, while still being short and simple. Sometimes small efforts make a big difference. That’s what we’re going for here, because we know that big efforts can seem extra big when you’re depressed.
In this section, we’ll get our feet wet with a few mindfulness and positive-psychology practices. The aim here is to get a sense of these and their effects for you here at the outset. Don’t expect them to fix things right off the bat. It will take time and practice. We’re just getting a taste of things.
Try This:
The body is one anchor in the present moment and can be a place to practice concentration and focus. When we are focused on one thing, it’s hard for distracting or depressing thoughts—Sgt. Mind’s ideas—to get in there and start making us feel worse.
While you were focused on balance with your eyes in front of you, were you thinking about anything else? We’re guessing you probably weren’t!
What happened to your balance when your eyes or mind wandered?
Did you notice any negative self-judgments?
When our minds are focused on one thing in the present, there is little room for depression (or anything else) to sneak in. Of course, if this exercise was hard, you might have heard Sgt. Mind kicking up the self-criticism—that’s normal. But as you look back at what you wrote, ask yourself, Do I have to believe everything he tells me?
Try This:
Sometimes when we are depressed it helps if we can lower our energy level a bit and relax. At other times, when we are feeling sluggish, we may want to raise our energy. This simple breathing practice can help in both cases; try it a few times. Ask yourself whether you need to lower or raise your energy.
Lowering energy: If you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed, and thoughts are coming too fast, try breathing in for a count of seven, and out for a count of eleven. Repeat for a few breaths. This practice lowers your overall arousal and helps you relax.
Raising energy: Often when we are depressed, it can be hard to feel like we have quite enough energy for what we need to do. This breathing practice will raise your energy and awareness somewhat. Try breathing in for a count of eleven and out for a count of seven, and repeat.
When are some times you can imagine using the 7-11 or 11-7 breath practices?
A lot of mindfulness teachers talk about training the mind like training the body. Formal physical exercise is going to the gym or sports practice for an hour; informal exercise is walking around and doing things like carrying extra groceries and taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
With mindfulness, you can sit and do formal practice for twenty minutes—maybe a walking or sitting meditation—or do informal practice by bringing your attention to the present moment and back to the task at hand as often as you can remember.
Informal practice can also mean finding moments throughout the day where you can do a simple, short practice that gets you in touch with the present moment, allowing you to step away from judgment, or just focus on the task at hand. No one needs to even know you’re practicing in those moments. It can be your healthy little secret.
There are all kinds of moments that can be reminders to come back to your body, your breath, or your mindfulness anchor. Choose one of these moments, and each time it comes up in the next week, try an informal practice like mindful 7-11 breathing or STOPping Sgt. Mind.
Basically, anytime you have the impulse to pull out your phone and check your messages or play a game, that’s a moment you can check in with yourself.
Mindfulness and positive psychology may not make your depression shrink down and disappear overnight, but they will make you stronger and wiser in relation to it. There’s a saying we like that goes “Ask not for a lighter load, but for broader shoulders to carry it.” In some ways, mindfulness gives you broader shoulders to carry your load, and positive psychology gives you new perspectives and skills for how to carry it.
In this chapter, we learned more about mindfulness and positive psychology and how they might help with your depression.
What have you learned from this chapter about how depression gets you down in your mood and checking out of daily life?
What specific strategies or ideas from this chapter might help you lift your mood up and move you in toward people and activities?
What one strategy, idea, or tool are you willing to put to use in the next twenty-four hours? Write it here, and commit to doing so.