CHAPTER 3
It’s one thing to say that mindfulness is great and that it will help us with so many things, but it’s another thing to be able to practise it or apply it to our daily life. That’s exactly what this chapter is about. Applying mindfulness is incredibly simple, and if you’re confused about how to practise it by the end of reading this chapter then we haven’t done our job of explaining it very well at all. Actually, the more we learn about mindfulness the simpler it gets—perhaps it would be better to say that learning about mindfulness really just means dropping our unnecessarily complicated ways of thinking and living. There’s an old saying that is appropriate here: ‘When a wise man walks he just walks, when he sits he just sits, and there’s nothing else going on.’
What could be simpler than that? Just because practising mindfulness is simple, however, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Riding a bike is simple but it’s not easy—well, not until we get the knack, maybe after falling off a few times!
As we’ve mentioned, mindfulness is simply about being aware of what’s going on in our body and our mind, and paying attention to our life—to the external world as well as the internal world. Mindfulness is both a form of meditation (the formal practice) and a way of living with awareness (the informal practice). It is also the basis for us learning to think in a different way, and can help free us from our destructive thought processes, rather than try to change them. We will now explore the formal and informal applications of mindfulness.
Formally practising mindfulness meditation doesn’t actually require formality or rigidness, nor do we need to get esoteric about it. This really just refers to those times of day that we set aside from other activities to consciously practise being mindful. (The informal practice of mindfulness simply means practising being mindful within the flow of our daily activities, but we will discuss this later in the chapter.)
Mindfulness meditation is the cornerstone of our being able to apply mindfulness in all the other ways we will discuss throughout this book. It’s a practice that basically involves sitting upright and still in a chair with eyes closed and focusing on something.
The aim of mindfulness meditation isn’t necessarily to have a peak experience in the chair—to feel eternal bliss or universal empathy—although there’s nothing wrong with that! There’s also nothing wrong with experiencing deep peace or contentment while practising meditation, but the aim is to cultivate a greater sense of awareness when we get out of the chair and re-engage with our life after our formal practice. That practice might only take up 10–60 minutes of our day, but the rest of our day occupies something over 23 hours. What’s the point of trying to have a few peak experiences for a few minutes if it’s not also helping us to live the whole of our life in a way that helps us live better and longer?
The aim of mindfulness meditation isn’t to relax; although again, there’s nothing wrong with relaxing! In fact this is very good for us and it’s a common and useful side effect of mindfulness meditation. But as soon as we fixate on an expectation that we have to relax we can get very tense trying to make it happen.
We can return to the example from a famous modern philosopher here, and use this example as it’s probably meant to be used: to show us how not to live. Bart Simpson’s ‘Are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet?!’ mind madness will drive us all mindless if we let it, whether we’re travelling, mediating or otherwise engaged in living our life. Furthermore, we can miss the point that some of the most useful practice we will ever do will involve learning to respond differently to uncomfortable sensations, thoughts and emotions than we normally do—mindfully rather than mindlessly. Our habitual reactivity and non-acceptance of the things we find uncomfortable only makes our experiences of them worse.
So, to use an analogy, formal mindfulness practice is a bit like doing the work in the gym that helps us build up the stamina and strength that’s going to help us for 24 hours a day. Consider, however, that the mind will come up with almost every excuse under the sun to not practise mindfulness. We remember, ‘Oh, it’s time to practise my meditation!’ then the mind chips in with, ‘But I’ll just do this first.’ We probably won’t remember for another three days, then the mind comes in with, ‘I’m too tired to practise now!’ Too tired to do nothing? Does that make sense? Or how about, ‘It won’t work anyway, I’m too tense!’ But isn’t that the perfect time to learn to respond to tension differently? And then there’s, ‘I’m cruising! I don’t need it now, so what’s the point?’ Don’t we practise it so that the ability is there when we aren’t cruising but are taking on mental water faster than the Titanic? Let’s say we’ve developed a regular practice pattern, then the mind whispers quietly into our ear, ‘Not tonight!’ Pretty soon one night off becomes two and then three until we have to think hard to remember the last time we practised.
Then there’s probably the most popular reason of all that the mind comes up with for us to not practise: ‘I’m too busy!’ Now that’s a goodie because it’s the type of excuse the mind can use any time—it can always find something else more important to do. But what’s more important than finding peace? The mind is all about do, do, do. Doing is fine, but when we forget how to be then the doing has come at a grave cost. Being busy is a great reason to practise mindfulness because there is no efficiency without attention. Sharpening attention is like a woodcutter sharpening their axe—those few moments will save a lot of time in the long run.
The bottom line here is that there is no reasonable reason to not practise mindfulness meditation, but it takes some clarity of purpose, insight and determination to establish and maintain our practice. The mind is a creature of habit, even if those habits don’t serve us very well, so we shouldn’t be surprised that our mind resists moving from habitual to conscious mode, and tries to stop the merest suggestion of the light of awareness breaking through.
The formal practices of mindfulness meditation of 5 minutes or more can be compared to ‘full stops’ punctuating our day. How smooth would the flow of words in a conversation be without at least the occasional pause? Supplementing these full stops with regular short mindful pauses of anywhere between 15 seconds to 2 minutes might be compared to ‘commas’. Like a book, a day that is not punctuated makes no sense.
If you are new to mindfulness, a good ‘starting dose’ is to practise for 5 minutes twice daily. Before breakfast and dinner are good times because after food is a low point for the metabolism and sleep can occur more easily then—that’s a good power nap but it’s not mindfulness meditation. The duration of practice can be built up to 10, then 15, 20 and even up to 30 minutes or longer if required depending on your time availability, motivation, needs and commitment.
In many programs that use mindfulness meditation in the management of conditions such as recurrent major depression or severe chronic pain, the amount of practice is around 40 minutes a day. We can’t really say that the evidence confirms that 40 minutes daily will help us to recover sooner than 10 or 20 minutes a day will in such situations, but if tradition, clinical experience and the opinion of experts is anything to go by, we can expect that 40 minutes a day will help us better and faster than 10 minutes will. For lesser problems we may not need as much practice, but a good general rule to remember is that results don’t come without effort—even effortless effort.
Although we have said that meditation is best practised before our morning and evening meals, that’s a rule of thumb and not an absolute. If we forget then, we practise when we remember and have the opportunity. If our day is full of unavoidable emergencies, then we practise when we have finished dealing with them.
Commas during the day can help us be mindful for the whole of our day, including when we’re not meditating. Even pausing for long enough to take a couple of deep breaths can help us break our mindless build-up of unconscious mental ability and tension. A good time to practise our life-punctuating commas is when we are in between activities. For example, we might have just finished work and be in the car ready to drive home—take a few moments to be mindful. We have just completed one job and are about to pick up another—take a few moments to put some space between the jobs. We are about to go into an interview—take a few moments to be present. We are just about to have lunch—we could take a few moments to prepare to taste our food, and not just bolt it down without enjoying it or even noticing what we are eating.
For our longer practices of mindfulness meditation—our full stops—it can be helpful, wherever possible, to have a quiet place in which to practise without interruption. This doesn’t mean that mindfulness can’t be practised anywhere, anytime; indeed, it’s important for the practice to be as ‘portable’ as possible. If interruptions do occur then it helps to not be concerned, but rather just deal with them mindfully and then, if possible, go back to the practice. When sitting down to practise it helps to have a clock within easy view to help reduce anxiety about time. Just open your eyes when you think the meditation time might be up, and if the time is not up yet move back into the practice. An alarm can be useful but make sure it’s one that won’t jolt you out of meditation.
We can move into the formal practice of mindfulness by using the sense of touch, focused on the body and/or breath. We can also use another sense such as hearing, or a combination of senses. The important thing about the body and the senses is that they are always in the present moment, so they help to bring our mind into the present moment. Contact with any of the senses will automatically unhook our attention from the mental distractions that otherwise hijack our attention.
We recommend the sitting position for mediation because you are less likely to go to sleep in an upright position. In sitting for meditation, it is best if your back and neck are straight and balanced, which requires a minimum of effort or tension to maintain the position. If you have a meditation stool you can sit with your back away from the back of the chair, which helps your spine find its natural position. Lying down can also be useful, particularly if deep physical relaxation is the main aim of the practice, or if your body is extremely tired or you are in pain or ill. The ease of going to sleep while lying down, however, is not usually desirable, unless you are practising mindfulness meditation late at night or you need a power nap.
Having firstly read the rest of this section, removed any restrictive clothing and spectacles, and settled into your preferred meditation position, let your eyes gently close. You can practise with your eyes open, as the Dalai Lama does, but closing your eyes can help bring your other senses, which we tend to under-utilise, into play.
The body scan is the most widely used and generally the best mindfulness practice to start with. Begin by being conscious of the whole body and let it settle. Now, progressively become aware of each individual part of the body, starting with the feet. Let the attention rest there a while, feeling whatever is there to be felt. Then let the attention move to the legs, stomach, back, hands, arms, shoulders, neck and face, pausing for a while at each point. Take your time with each body part—how much time you intend to dedicate to the total practice will determine how long you spend with each individual part.
The object of this practice is to let your attention rest with each body part, simply noticing what’s happening there, what sensations are taking place, moment by moment. In the process we naturally practise cultivating an attitude of impartial awareness; that is, not having to judge experiences as good or bad, right or wrong, nor do we need to cling to the bits we like and push away the bits we don’t like. Even if there is not much sensation in one or other part of the body we simply notice that lack of sensation. It’s helpful to practise being at ease with our moment-by-moment experience just as it is, even if it’s uncomfortable. As we said at the outset, mindfulness is simple but not necessarily easy. We may soon discover that it is our reactivity to emotional and physical discomfort that amplifies our experience of it and the suffering it produces. There’s no need to change our experience from one state to another or to ‘make something happen’. Our state will change from moment to moment without us having to do anything—we just flow with it.
Observing our mind judge, criticise, worry or become distracted, for example, are simply mental experiences, like the physical sensations, to observe non-judgmentally as they come and go. As often as the attention wanders from an awareness of the body, simply notice where the attention has gone and gently bring it back to the part of the body you were up to. It’s not a problem that thoughts come in or that your mind gets distracted; they become a problem only if you make them a problem.
A sense of clarity or insight often arises during meditation, which might lead to a temptation to race off and start planning things or sorting out problems. As tempting as that might be, delay such activities until after the practice is over and then use the mindful state for useful work. Let the transition from formal mindfulness meditation in stillness to mindful activity be seamless.
Although it might not be obvious throughout formal mindfulness practice, we are not only practising attention. We are also practising qualities such as an attitude of acceptance, a spirit of inquiry, equanimity, patience and even courage. When we practise these qualities in the meditation chair we soon start to find that we take a bit of them with us when we get out of the chair.
Attending to your breathing is another form of mindfulness meditation that can be learned and practised. Just as the attention can be rested on the sense of touch through the body, one particular aspect of what the body does is particularly useful for mindfulness practice: the attention can be rested with the breath as it passes in and out of the body. The point of focus could be right where the air enters and leaves through the nose, or it could be where the stomach rises and falls with the breath.
Just as in the body scan, no force is required to be mindfully aware of your breath, and in mindfulness meditation there’s no need to try to regulate your breathing—let the body do that for you. It’s pretty good at it if we refrain from interfering with it. Again, if distracting thoughts and feelings come into awareness, just be aware of them and let them come and go by themselves. There’s no need to ‘battle’ with these thoughts or to ‘get rid’ of them. There’s no need even to try to stop these thoughts coming to mind, or trying to force them out. Trying to force thoughts and feelings out of our mind just feeds them with what they feed on—attention—which makes them stronger, and increases their impact. We’re simply practising being less preoccupied about them or reactive to them. They will settle by themselves and all the more quickly if we learn to not get involved in them. We don’t have to fight with the thought trains, or get on them. Similarly, we don’t have to breathe in a particular way to practise mindfulness, just to be aware of the breathing as it is.
We can also use listening to mindfully meditate—the practice of restful attentiveness is similar to the body scan and mindful breathing. Here we’re simply practising being conscious of the sounds in our environment, whether they are close or far away. As you listen, let the sounds come and go and in the process also let any thoughts about the sounds—or anything else for that matter—come and go. Keep gently bringing your attention back to the present when it wanders.
Sooner or later it tends to dawn on us that most of the time we’re listening to mental chatter, so the value of listening mindfully is that our attention isn’t being used to feed the usual mental commentary. It’s this commentary that is so full of habitual and unconscious rumination, worries and negative self-talk.
Any of our senses can be used for mindfulness meditation—even taste or smell. Wine enthusiasts may not think of themselves as practitioners of mindfulness meditation, but the focus and attention they bring to looking at, smelling and tasting a good bottle of wine is like a meditation in itself; similarly, the smell of coffee that the coffee enthusiast treasures so much is a moment of mindfulness. Sight can be rested with an object if we are practising meditation with our eyes open. Any of these senses can help us to come into the present or, as the saying goes, come to our senses.
Jon Kabat-Zinn popularised what’s called ‘the raisin exercise’. He used it to help introduce people to the concept of mindfulness meditation. In this practice he invites people to use each of their senses over a few minutes to investigate a raisin, as if they have never experienced one before. The practice ends with feeling the raisin in the mouth and then biting into it. It can be very revealing how much of a difference there can be between a common experience we generally take for granted and the same experience done with attention. You might like to experiment in this way yourself. If you don’t have any raisins you can adapt this practice for use with chocolates or vintage wine! Other mindfulness trainers we know, working in corporate environments, have replaced the ‘raisin exercise’ with the ‘Belgian chocolate exercise’. Needless to say, the main problem with the Belgian chocolate exercise is the temptation to put in too much practice!
There are moving mindfulness meditation practices such as walking meditation. These can be helpful if we feel quite unsettled or if we are finding it hard to pay attention during a sitting meditation. In this we pause before setting off on a slow and deliberate walk back and forth along a line (or in a circle or labyrinth) during which we aim to feel the whole experience of our body as it moves, from the tip of the toes up. We can practise returning to the activity as our mind wanders off. This can be a confronting practice because walking is a lot harder sometimes when we’re not doing it in our habitual way. We can also be confronted by our constant desire to ‘get somewhere’ (‘Are we there yet?’), so this process can be a great remedy for impatience. Then there’s the challenge of getting over feeling silly for walking so slowly. Maybe we can draw inspiration for our mindful walking practice by watching some of the walks developed by Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks—but then again, maybe not.
Other body-based activities such as yoga or Tai Chi also emphasise the importance of attending to our body as it moves, and not to other bodies, no matter how heavenly! In that sense these are really mindfulness practices as much as they are methods of training the body to be more flexible or balanced. Hence they provide benefits well beyond physical ones.
After practising mindfulness meditation for the allotted time, gently allow your eyes to open. After remaining settled for a few moments, mindfully move into the activities of the day that need your attention. The mindfulness practice isn’t finished when you get out of your chair—it has just begun! Move back into your day-to-day life with the intention of doing it mindfully, with the same quality of attention you brought to the formal practice.
Any activity done mindfully is a form of mindfulness. If we’re paying attention while brushing our teeth then we’re being mindful. If we really taste our food, listen to what our conversation partner is saying, or pay attention to what we are reading, then we’re being mindful. If, on the other hand, we notice that our mind has wandered off into its own little world while we’re walking down the street (and are about to step into a rut), and we drop our mental activity and come back to paying attention to the walking—feeling the steps on the ground, the breeze on our face, the sounds going on around us, the sights and colours—then we are practising mindfulness.
Practising mindfulness away from the meditation chair (or stool, cushion, mat, bed of nails, or whatever) as we go about our daily life is the informal practice of mindfulness. The active ingredient of being mindful is that we are conscious of what is going on but not in a self-conscious kind of way—so, paying attention rather than thinking about ourselves.
Let’s illustrate this with an example. A young mother told a story during a mindfulness class about being at the beach and wanting to be fully mindful, to be fully in the moment. She was trying so hard to pay attention to the experience and savour it that it was quite hard work and she didn’t actually feel overly connected. Her head was full of thoughts like, ‘Is this mindfulness? Am I paying attention? What should I be experiencing?’ Then her four-year-old daughter came up to her and wanted to play. Without thinking about it the mother ‘dropped’ her mindfulness practice and they started to play—building castles, being pirates and all the kind of stuff that kids like to do at the beach. This woman wasn’t deliberately practising being mindful but she said that on reflection she felt so much more connected than she had when she was thinking about being mindful.
When we’re really connected through our senses our mind isn’t thinking, or at least not in its usual noisy, distracted way. When we’re thinking, even about paying attention, then we’re not fully connected to our senses. Even when we’re practising mindfulness meditation and we notice that our attention is right with the breathing or whatever we’re paying attention to, and then our mind chips in with: ‘Oh, look at me, how mindful I am. I’m so connected, so present!’ We can back it in that that’s exactly the moment we stopped being mindful. That’s fine, we just need to drop the mental chatter and come back to the breath or whatever we were paying attention to.
Lesson number one: thinking about mindfulness is different to being mindful. Thinking about mindfulness or why we aren’t mindful can be as big a distraction from the present moment as worrying about what might or might not happen at work next week.
Mental chatter, whether about daydreaming, reminiscing, worrying or being mindful, anxious or depressed, is just a different form of what is sometimes called default mental activity. Default mode is when our mind slips into automatic pilot. Interestingly, or perhaps worryingly—depending on what attitude we take—the areas of our brain that are activated in default mode are the same as the ones affected by Alzheimer’s Disease later in life.[1] It may be that the long-term effects of all this distracted mental activity aren’t good for our brains. Equally interesting, and perhaps more comforting, is the research indicating that the practice of mindfulness helps our brain conserve its brain cells, particularly in the learning, memory and higher functioning centres.[2]
So, the informal practice of mindfulness is very simple. Just as we practise during the formal practice, when the attention goes off during day-to-day life we just notice in a non-judgmental kind of way and gently bring the attention back to the here and now—again by getting back in touch with our senses. No more thought is required.
Is mindfulness just about paying attention in a present-moment, non-judgmental way? Well, yes and no. Yes, it’s that simple, but further than that, mindfulness helps us to pay attention to our own mind and that means that over time we come to understand a little more about how it works. Our mind isn’t as different from other people’s minds as we like to think, so coming to understand our own mind better helps us to understand other people better as well.
Psychotherapy means therapy for the mind; cognitive means the way the mind thinks (that is, cognitions are thoughts). As we practise mindfulness formally and informally over time we come to understand a little more clearly what thoughts are driving us and what effects these have, such as driving us to mindlessness. It’s like when the lights go on we start to see things that were going on in the dark before.
One woman, for example, at about four weeks into a mindfulness course, started to notice how repetitive, angry and judgmental her internal conversations tended to be, whether directed at herself or others. She had never really seen it before, how repetitive it was, how unfair the judgments tended to be, nor how divisive an influence it was between herself and others. Because she noticed it in a mindful kind of way—as an interested observer and not by judging it—her thoughts from this stage on started to have a less significant influence on her.
One man working in a demanding professional position noticed how tense he tended to get over the things that were going on in his imagination. When something happened his mind would jump to a conclusion, his imagination would swing into overdrive and he would get worried, angry or apprehensive, depending on just what his imagination was doing. When he started to notice this, he created the opportunity to get back in touch with present-moment reality and respond to the situation, moment by moment, on its merits.
Another woman noticed, almost like a blinding flash one day, the thought going on in the background that had been the source of nearly all her stress and negativity: ‘I’m not good enough.’ She had never noticed it before but once she did she saw it popping up all over the place, causing tension and fear where none was due. She didn’t need to think, ‘I am good enough’; trying to replace the positive for the negative can be a bit of an exhausting tug of war in itself. Although the thought was deeply rooted in her past and upbringing, all she needed to do was notice the thought when it arose and not keep reinforcing it by getting taken in by it now. The past was being healed automatically and naturally by her choice to give her attention to the present moment and not have to relive and re-suffer the past.
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) was used as a foundation for MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) developed by the psychologists and researchers Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindal Segal under the guidance of Jon Kabat-Zinn. These two models for applying mindfulness are the two most widely taught and researched around the world. Other increasingly popular forms of psychotherapy such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) are very much based on mindfulness principles.
Basically, mindfulness teaches us to think differently. In the following sections we will summarise some of the key principles in the change of thought and perspective that mindfulness offers us. This is abridged from the complete Stress Release Program written by one of the authors back in 1991, when developing meditation as a basis for stress management for GPs, through Monash University and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.[3]
Our ‘stressors’ are the people, situations, events or circumstances that trigger our stress—our fight-or-flight response. If a venomous snake is just about to strike us and we get ready to run away then that seems like a pretty useful activation of our fight-or-flight response, but even an imaginary stressor will activate this response if we take our imagination to be real. Consider, for example, that the peak period for heart attacks is early Monday morning, around wake-up time. The day hasn’t even begun and the biggest demand so far is to throw off the blankets. Generally no stressors in the form of venomous snakes have slid out of the wardrobe, and yet we start reacting to all the stuff our mind starts projecting, about what might or might not happen in our imagined day at work. If there’s a heart attack waiting to happen then this is a pretty good trigger for it.
Reducing stress mindfully isn’t so much a matter of replacing a stress-laden perception with a falsely positive one, such as looking at life through rose-coloured glasses or trying to pretend that that venomous snake isn’t really there, or that it really loves us (at least enough to not bite us). If we’re looking at a snake then hopefully we’ll see it as a snake and respond accordingly before we get bitten. But if we see that the snake only exists in our imagination then there’s no need to run or hide, or even to worry.
So, taking imagination to be real is the first distortion of perception that comes with unmindfulness. Reality is a piece of cake to deal with compared to our imagination taken to be real. We can always respond appropriately to reality, but responding to our imagination is like fighting a phantom that never gives up.
Sometimes what we’re reacting to really is there, but we may perceive it to be bigger or more threatening than it is. A mouse, for example, is just a mouse, despite the fact that we may perceive it as a man-eating monster and scream and panic. The physical discomfort that we actually experience in the dentist’s chair is generally minor compared to the level of intense suffering we produce for ourselves. In fact, we have probably had that root-canal mentally a thousand times before we ever get to the chair. If pain isn’t amplified through the lens of fear and anticipation, or if it’s experienced as a part of something we willingly participated in like a sporting or other voluntary recreational activity, then it would barely raise an eyebrow, let alone our pulse. The remedy to all this unnecessary suffering is to simply pay attention to what’s actually being experienced, rather than blindly react to what we project on to situations.
When we are unmindful our thoughts unconsciously colour the way we see the world and its events. A simple comment from someone can be turned into a major criticism if it’s distorted and exaggerated by our insecurities and self-criticisms. Vanity can be equally unmindful and blinding and can stop us from seeing the fairness of someone’s criticism or the deceptiveness of someone’s flattery. The most unfortunate thing is that, being on automatic pilot as we often are, we may be totally unaware of this whole process. From the perspective of mindfulness, pleasant misperceptions, expectations and mental projections are just as distracting and problematic as unpleasant ones are. In mindfulness, all we ask is to see things as they are—no more and no less.
There’s an old story about how monkeys are caught. Pots with narrow necks are buried in the ground and inside them hunters place something tasty to eat. Then they wait. The monkeys soon discover the tasty treats and slip their hand into the pot, grasp the contents, and then try to extract their fist laden with goodies. Unfortunately for them the fist is now too wide to fit through the mouth of the pot so they scream, believing themselves to be trapped. Voila—a trapped monkey! Trapped by its mind. From our human position it seems obvious that if the monkey would just let go it would be free. Silly monkeys! But perhaps, for most of our life, we are like the monkeys, with the way we hold on to things and won’t let go.
To relax, mentally or physically, we don’t have to ‘do’ anything. We merely have to stop doing something—holding on. In this way mindfulness is about ‘non-doing’. Not holding on could be called detachment or non-attachment. Non-attachment is often misunderstood: it’s not about getting rid of, cutting-off from, or denying what’s going on, it’s about not being bound to it.
It is an understandable mistake to think that sensations, thoughts and feelings, particularly the ones we don’t like, have a hold of us. Mindfulness may well show us that it’s the other way around— we have a hold of them—because we identify ourselves so closely with them. The tension we experience, like the sense of being trapped and out of control experienced by the monkeys—is because we latch on to and pull against what is taking place. But all these experiences come and go if we let them. If we hold on then we feel imprisoned, influenced and even dominated by them. Control, on the other hand, naturally restores itself when we let go of attachment.
Experiences in the form of situations, sensations, thoughts and feelings come and go all the time, whether we want them to or not. This is the natural and inevitable flow of life. If we forget that simple truth then we will soon be in for some problems. Some experiences we engage with, and others we don’t, but being bound by our experiences is an unconscious habit, not a necessity. It feels like a great relief to let go, not because it’s foreign to us but because it’s natural. We become so habituated to tension that we have come to believe that tension is our natural state. We were not born anxious, preoccupied and distracted—we have managed to think our way into those states over a long period of time.
Some practical examples will help illustrate what’s meant by ‘holding on’ and ‘letting go’. Consider, for example, that, consciously or unconsciously, we have a self-image. It could be that we think of ourselves as being smart, kind or resilient. When that image is challenged—say we do something we see as stupid—we soon realise how attached to our ideas about ourselves we are. This will be experienced as tension and accompanied by emotional pain, mental agitation, embarrassment, fear and all the rest. If we’re a little less attached we may acknowledge the stupidity and be thankful for the useful if uncomfortable lesson we’ve learned. To preserve our smart self-image in the face of evidence to the contrary, we may desire to cover up the blunder, or justify it, or try to win the argument whether we’re right or wrong, rather than be thankful for being corrected.
The language we use is instructive. We don’t tend to say that we consider an opinion, rather we hold an opinion. If we hold on to it tightly then we’re much more likely to feel attacked if it is challenged, or deflated if it is proved wrong. This is fertile ground for conflict and loss of objectivity. Although this habit is common and happens to us all, if we are a little more mindful, we have the opportunity to choose whether or not we want to keep repeating it. If we really notice the effect we will likely choose a different way of relating to our thoughts.
We often hold on to desires whether they’re useful or not. For example, we might find ourselves wanting to eat more than we should and then experience the pain that comes with over-indulgence. We might try to maintain a larger mortgage than we can comfortably afford and then find that our life gets dominated by it. We can cling to relationships even when they are toxic, possessions that just clutter the house and memories—to the extent that we can’t be content in the present moment. We might determinedly stick to a fixed plan about how an event should go, even when circumstances unfold in such a way that makes it impossible. Clinging to the pleasant stuff can be just as problematic as clinging to the unpleasant stuff.
There are some common misconceptions about letting go. First, that letting go is about not responding to life, even when a response is called for. Mindfulness helps us engage and respond when we need to, but by first having let go of the tension and resistance that often gets in the way of that response. Second, that letting go is about giving everything away. We don’t have to literally give everything away, only our attachment to it. Mind you, if we give up the attachment then we might find that we do literally give a few things away as a result. Third, that letting go means getting rid of what we don’t like; for example, ‘If I let go of a depressive feeling then it will go away.’ It might, but it might not, or at least it might not for a little while. If this assumption is working away in the background then we can get very frustrated when the thing we don’t like is still there. Fourth, that letting go means becoming inert. On the contrary, in letting go we tend to become more able to respond freely and without the limiting effects of anxiety, worry or preconceived ideas. Like the monkey who learns to let go, we’re free again.
An important principle related to letting go is acceptance. Whatever is happening is happening. There’s no denying that. If at one moment there is comfort, peace, success or happiness then so be it. Enjoy it but remember that it will change. Equally, if there is an experience of pain, anxiety, failure or depression then so be it. Be patient in the presence of it and remember that it will change.
Life is constantly trying to teach us that experiences—pleasurable and painful—come and go whether we like them or not. As it says in ‘the serenity prayer’—‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference’ (Reinhold Niebuhr)—we should try to change for the better what we can change, but wisdom lies in being able to recognise the things we can’t change and therefore accept them. A crucial factor in how much impact an experience has on us is the attitude we bring to it. If we’re mindful while drying the dishes then it might help us not to break them, but if through inattention we break a plate then non-acceptance will only make us feel worse—it won’t change what’s happened and it won’t bring back the plate. It’s wiser to use our time and energy repairing mistakes and then, because we’re learning to be more mindful, resolve to pay more attention. Inattention costs.
Dealing with pain—or emotional discomfort for that matter—is another example. If our body has chronic pain then being at peace with it isn’t easy but it will greatly reduce the suffering associated with it. In fact, our emotional reactivity to the pain merely makes us ever more vigilant for it and sensitises the brain’s pain pathways to register more pain. Likewise with emotions: if a depressing thought or feeling comes to our awareness we may find that the non-acceptance of it leads to a cycle of rumination that merely imprisons our attention on it all the more.
Conversely, with acceptance and non-reactivity comes a growing ability for us to let the unpleasant physical or emotional experiences flow in and out while being less moved by them. This also allows our attention to gently come back to the present moment. One university student with a long background of depression found this to be the case after a few weeks of patient practice. The less reactive she was to these thoughts the easier it was to let them come and go. In one of those breakthrough moments it clicked that her thoughts had no grip on her. She said, ‘I believed that because I had a depressing thought I had to think it. Now I realise I don’t. I don’t have to do anything about it, in fact the less I do the better. It’s been very liberating for me.’
The present moment is the only moment that’s real—the past and future aren’t. The past and future never actually exist. We may habitually think they do, but they are actually always outside the reality of our actual experience, although in the present we may notice that the mind imagines and projects into what it imagines the future to be, or what it thinks the past was. Yes, the residual effects from past thoughts, feelings, actions and decisions may be with us now, but those effects are also only ever observable and experienced in the present moment, which is timeless, and therefore eternal.
One of the authors (the mindful one?) had an experience of being apprehensive about a significant public speaking engagement the following day. ‘Will it go well or will it go badly?’ While standing at the sink washing the dishes he thought to himself, ‘I hope I’m in the present moment tomorrow.’ All of a sudden, as if waking from a dream, it seemed ridiculous that practising absent-mindedness in the form of worrying about the future was going to be a good preparation for being present. ‘If I want to have a chance of being present tomorrow I ought to practise being present now, which means paying attention to the dishes!’ Life became simple again and a state of mind was being cultivated that might actually be useful if the speaking engagement actually eventuated the following day.
When we say that someone has ‘presence of mind’ we are describing a state of being focused, responsible, brave and capable. When we deal with a challenging situation with presence of mind we notice that a feeling of calm is a conspicuous part of that state. On the other hand, if we take time to investigate what’s going on in our mind when we experience anxiety, fear, depression or worry we will notice that this involves the mind unconsciously slipping unseen into a future that hasn’t happened, or a past that has already come and gone. In the meantime, our focus goes from what’s happening here and now, so we don’t enjoy the present moment and our experience of it is clouded by our mental projections. We take our imaginary world to be the real world, and the real world doesn’t get a look in. When our attention is on the here and now, our thoughts of the past or future aren’t in the picture and therefore can’t cause the emotional upset that they often do. Absent-mindedness is the opposite of presence of mind. If we are absent with or without leave then we are not here, now.
In our re-created past we tend to replay old events like replaying old movies: often embellishing them, ruminating on regrets, re-experiencing old hurts and criticising ourselves for old mistakes. Have you ever had an argument with a family member in your mind while you were driving home? There we are, outraged at all the things the person is saying to us (in our imagination, of course) and then in we go with all guns blazing. Then we wonder: ‘Where did all that come from?’ Maybe we’ve been on the receiving end of someone’s fertile imagination? When we mistake imagination for reality we’re merely arguing with ourselves and projecting our unreality on to others. If they have been unconsciously doing the same thing to us then we may find that when we arrive home we walk into a barrage of criticism and blame over which we feel unfairly accused. That’s not a good recipe for successful communication!
In our imaginary future we tend to imagine problems that never happen. This is sometimes called ‘catastrophising’. As Mark Twain said, ‘I’ve had a lot of catastrophes in my life, and some of them actually happened.’ We concoct anxiety and fear, dwell on rigid ideas about how things must turn out, and prejudge situations and conversations long before they happen, if they ever happen. Then we often become anxious about how to get things to go the way we assume they must, and feel frustration or grief because they don’t go according to those preconceived ideas. We prejudice events, which simply means that we judge them before they happen.
Mindfulness quickly teaches us how often the mind is distracted with thoughts about the past and future. In fact, if we have even a few moments in the present we should be very proud of ourselves—after a few weeks of practice we may realise that it’s the exception rather than the rule. Realising more fully how much of the time we are not present is not a matter for concern—it’s a sign of progress!
‘What about planning and preparation?’ you might ask. Planning and preparation can be as much present-moment activities as anything else can. If we plan or prepare then it’s useful to do it with attention, and not with worry or rumination. Planning and preparation are present-moment activities, but when we notice ourselves worrying, and all of the physical effects that come with it, we can be confident that the mind has slipped out of the present moment into what it assumes the future will be, and it will be off-task to boot.
Being in the present is something we tend to avoid. Living in the ‘here and now’ doesn’t mean becoming a hedonist who doesn’t care about the results of actions, nor does it mean not caring about the future, or having no plans or goals. It does mean that we let the future come to us moment-by-moment as we practise dealing with each moment on its merits, patiently directing our attention to what the moment requires.
A student of one of the authors had the experience of being so preoccupied about a future exam that he couldn’t focus on the study required to prepare for it. Does that make sense? We can be so anxious about the outcome of an interview that we go into it tense and unfocused. Who knows, even if we get the job we want so much, time may reveal that we were better off without it. A sportsperson can be so concerned with the outcome of a match that they lose concentration on the game or behave in an unsportsmanlike way that they will later regret. We can be so preoccupied about all the work we have to do that we feel exhausted before we have struck the first blow. We can keep replaying a past unpleasant argument to the extent that we distort current interactions and relationships to the point where we can’t move on.
When we’re not present we’re unable to clearly see and understand the thoughts and feelings that actually motivate our actions, and their consequences. The question is—are we going to keep living under the tyranny of our past or our imagination about our future, or are we going to live the life we are meant to be living, now?
Here we go; Shakespeare again. Do you know how Hamlet’s father, the king, was murdered? He had poison poured into his ear while he slept. What’s that got to do with anything, you say! Well, have you ever wondered what sort of poison is pouring into our ears every day without us noticing? Maybe we’re more like King Hamlet than we realise.
During day-to-day life, what do we spend most of our time listening to? It might be the birds singing in the trees, or the drops of rain falling on an iron roof, or the sound of children playing. It might be that we listen enthusiastically and intently to the conversations we are having, or the ambient traffic noises on the way home from work. Chances are, however, that it’s not! Mindfulness quickly shows us that we spend most of our time listening to our endless internal dialogue. When we’re stressed, worried, afraid, angry or depressed this internal dialogue has a particular tone to it and constantly reinforces and justifies itself. One of our favourite forms of internal chatter is to endlessly criticise, particularly ourselves. But if this were broadcast on a cable channel would we tune into it? Would we pay good money to listen to it? What would we call it: channel M for misery?
When we’re unmindful we have little choice or awareness of what we’re listening to. If we examine it we notice that the internal chatter is repetitive, and has a personal sound, as if it were ‘me’ talking to myself. But who is ‘me’, who is talking, and who is listening? In a more mindful and objective state, of course, we can start to view this mental chatter impersonally and we realise that our mind is just yabbering away to itself, trying to convince itself of something or other while we’re simply noticing, quite unaffected. That’s interesting. Mental chatter is just mental chatter. We don’t have to believe it, react to it, dissect it or even be interested in it. That’s a relief.
The internal chatter only allows us to give partial attention to what’s going on around us, including our conversations with others. Miscommunication is the source of much stress and it causes misunderstanding, conflict and loneliness. We may have noticed that when we argue with someone we usually don’t actually hear what they are saying. While the other person is speaking we generally listen to what we are going to say next, based on what we assume they are saying. This could, of course, be very different to what they are actually saying. We may not feel heard because the person we are miscommunicating with is probably doing the same thing. If we observe an argument objectively we may get the impression that neither person is hearing what the other is saying, and the simple reason for this is that they are probably not! We could be forgiven for assuming that in order to be heard we need to raise the volume which, of course, won’t work. Listening will work.
It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as that. Unmindfulness can include not hearing a person’s name when they’re introduced because we’re chatting to ourselves about ‘What impression am I making?’ A teacher tries hard to explain how to solve a vital statistics problem and the student, with glazed eyes, doesn’t get it because their attention is stuck on their internal dialogue of, ‘I hate statistics, vital or otherwise, and I can’t understand any of it! Why have I got to do it anyway?’
True listening means listening with attention and a quiet mind. It’s more than just hearing words; it includes seeing under the surface to what the other person is really experiencing. For example, if we fully pay attention we might notice the fear that generally hides beneath anger; the anger is just a cover. Even though a person may not say much verbally, if we are attentive we often understand an enormous amount about what their needs, feelings and grievances are under the surface and can be more helpful, compassionate or conciliatory, as needed.
To be less oppressed by negative emotions we need to recognise when we are listening to internal chatter and then redirect our attention back to what’s taking place in front of us. Effective communication begins with mindful listening.
There is an aspect of letting go, which we have already considered, that requires a special mention, and that has to do with our not getting so attached to emotions. Emotions are the powerhouse or energy store behind our thoughts, actions and physiology. Learning how to relate to and express them is what psychologists sometimes call ‘emotional regulation’.
We often get caught up with certain emotions no matter how much harm they cause to ourselves or others. Even when we do notice the effect of negative emotions we often replace one with another, like replacing anger with self-criticism. Something our experience may have taught us is that the more we fight with or dwell on these emotions the more they become like a black hole for our attention and the more they impact us.
Emotions, of course, don’t have a hold on us; we have a hold on them. Some we grip very tightly. The more reactive we are to them the more they wire themselves into the circuitry of our brain, making it more and more likely that the same patterns will keep repeating themselves. Rather than feeling trapped by this fact we should feel empowered by it because the reverse is also true: the less reactive we are to emotions, through acceptance and nonattachment, the less binding they are and the more they become unwired in our brain. As paradoxical as it may seem, the less we try to get rid of them or criticise them the more they will recede of their own accord. We may not be able to stop the trains coming, but we can decide which ones to get on, and the less we get on those unhelpful thought trains the less likely they will be to keep coming.
Negative emotions tend to get in the way of our natural disposition for positive ones. The negative ones can become so habitual that we can think they are more real than the positive ones. When we are less preoccupied by negative emotions we make space for the deeper, stronger and more useful emotions to surface. For example, the contentment that can come with mindfulness meditation will come by itself if we let it.
Sometimes negative emotions can be strong and persistent, like depression or panic. You might have noticed this. It’s often useful to seek professional help and support to deal with them, but where there is objectivity and motivation, our emotions, even strong negative or positive ones, can be impartially observed—just like our thoughts can. We can develop acceptance and the choice of whether to go with them or not, remembering that those we latch on to will be the ones that will habitually control us. The mindful approach to emotion doesn’t mean suppression or trying not to have these feelings, it just means adopting a different relationship to them.
Negative emotions are reinforced, justified and perpetuated by unreasonable and ruminative thinking. When we see their unreasonableness and destructiveness clearly we start to lose our appetite to keep feeding them.
Any emotion, of course, can have its time or place. A positive emotional state doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with everyone all the time or being at the whim of others. There may be times when we need to confront an issue or stand up for a principle with clarity and conviction. Here fear may need to be let go so that courage or resolution can surface. Even anger can have its place and as such it’s not always negative. It may be appropriate in a given situation and to suppress it would be harmful. Appropriate or ‘mindful’ anger, however, is born of a clear perception of a situation, isn’t excessive, lasts only as long as it is needed, isn’t venomous and never has any harmful intent in it towards ourselves or others. It is supported by reason, includes an emotional strength to deal with a situation, and doesn’t leave a residue after the event is over. We feel in control of it, not controlled by it. Inappropriate or unmindful anger, on the other hand, is the opposite of all these things.
It’s interesting that the person we punish most with our negative emotions is ourselves, although we aim them at others. This is a destructive way of reducing the unrest we feel. Other people, being in the same predicament, also take their negative emotions out on us, so the cycle keeps repeating. We don’t have to watch world politics for long to see unmindfulness on a global scale.
Forgiveness, from a mindfulness perspective, isn’t something that we have to employ. We don’t have to forgive if we don’t want to, but mindfulness encourages us to look at the impact of non-forgiveness. If we look at the cost of being unforgiving, we may realise how much it costs us and so we might like to then experiment with forgiveness. Opening our heart can be something we first experiment with in small situations and then in bigger ones. Nobody can do it for us. Over time, mindfulness breeds the self-awareness that leads to compassion and tolerance for others. Self-criticism isn’t a part of the mindfulness process, because it tends to be destructive. We can practise self-criticism if we want to but it doesn’t help much. Useful and objective self-evaluation is constructive, but criticism is disabling and energy-sapping, and it slows and sabotages learning.
Negative feelings tend to have their origins in, and are fuelled by, the past. We replay unpleasant memories and continually re-experience and reinforce the deeply entrenched hostility, negativity and stress that inevitably goes with it. The mindful way out of this predicament is to just observe emotional states impartially, be present, and exercise a moment-by-moment choice of which emotions to embrace, and which to let go. This is central to the management of anxiety and depression and other common but actually unnatural and potentially remediable psychological states, which we will explore in coming chapters.
It is surprising that with so many people around us we often feel isolated, lonely and at cross purposes with others. As obvious as it may sound, it’s easy to miss the fact that our own wellbeing is inseparable from the wellbeing of those around us, although we may be separated by things such as distance, culture or social status. Our interests are inextricably linked. In the words of the poet John Donne, ‘No man is an island’. African Ubuntu philosophy answers the question, ‘How are you?’ with ‘I am well if you are well!’
As we work ourselves into a negative stress spiral we become more and more self-centred—ego-centred—so our view of the world gets smaller and smaller until it has shrunk to just ‘me’ in my own private world. When we are mindful, often after a significant breakthrough in our stress insight, we tend to become more connected and attentive to the needs of others. Indeed, it’s hard to care for others when we don’t feel good about ourselves.
If we feel like we are constantly battling everyone else—and everyone is battling against us because they are thinking the same way that we are—then how can we feel anything but stressed and tired? If we asked ourselves, ‘Would we survive more happily and effectively on a life raft where people looked after each other or on one where people looked after themselves only?’ the answer would be obvious. Which sporting team is more successful and enjoyable to play in: the one with team spirit or the one where the players play for themselves only? Unfortunately, the ‘me attitude’ sacrifices our prosperity as well as our emotional and physical wellbeing. This is of immense practical importance if we are to understand how intimately our individual and collective wellbeing are entwined.
What are the barriers that stop us from being on the same side as others, even in our own team? How can these unnecessary barriers and conflicts between people be broken down? The natural life remedy is to pay attention, let go, listen and tune into our emotions. Mindfulness can help us focus and grow our perspective from the small claustrophobic ‘ego boundary’ to increasingly include the family as a whole, workplace as a whole, community as a whole, and eventually the universe as a whole. To find out if this way of living will help our happiness and others’ happiness we have to experiment with it and test it.
An essential aspect of expanding our broader self-interest and happiness needs to be mentioned—in the process of caring for others it is important that we still allow time for self-care. Mindful self-care isn’t selfish but is actually a vital aspect of being able to care for others in a sustainable and enjoyable way.
Let’s finish this chapter with a quote from the great scientist and philosopher Albert Einstein: