Mindfulness

D

But the ability to control your attention is not just about safety, it is about happiness. There is a plethora (a gosh-darn lot) of research on mindfulness practice and its effects on the human experience. Mindfulness practice has helped people:

• Decrease stress

• Improve health

• Improve the quality of life

• Decrease the effects of pain

• Understand themselves

• Improve relationships

• Increase personal power

• Increase the experience of Flow

• And much more.

Mindfulness practice helps you choose where to place your attention and increases your ability to sustain your attention. When you are attending to the present, the here and now, you will more fully experience whatever you are doing, whether it is having a conversation with a friend, listening to music, or eating a gelato.

Practicing Mindfulness

I will discuss two basic types of mindfulness practice: informal (everyday in whatever you are doing) and formal (time out of the day for direct practice).

Informal Mindfulness Practice

A

Mindfulness can be practiced in whatever you are doing right now, for it is about paying complete attention to whatever is happening right now. This type of practice is considered informal.

You can practice mindfulness while you walk, listen to music, play soccer, dance, talk to a friend, ride your bike, clean your room, or whatever it is that you are engaged in at present. It simply means that you are paying full attention to what you are doing.

I was just standing outside, under the eaves of my place, and watching the rain while I had my morning coffee. Two of my favourite things to do: watch and listen to the rain (while I stay dry) and have my morning cup of coffee. While standing there, I thought about how much rain we were having, about whether I would go ahead and go for a walk with the dog anyway, about why there are still water restrictions when we have had so much rain, and, while I was thinking these thoughts, I realized that I was half done my coffee and had barely tasted it. I realized that I was not noticing the smells and sounds of the rain. I was simply not paying attention to two things that give me great joy. That’s okay. I was back in the present from following my thoughts. I took a focused sip from my coffee and felt the warmth go through me. I opened my ears to the sound of the rain and inhaled the smells of the garden. Then I thought about how great mindfulness is and that I should write about the moment and then I started to write the moment in my head and then I was gone again. But that’s okay. That is the way the mind works. It is why mindfulness takes practice.

B

Many people find that they are more satisfied with the experience in which they are engaged when they pay full attention to what they are doing. They also find that they perform better with whatever they are doing, when they…

• truly and mindfully listen to a friend. Focusing mindfully on a conversation means that we are not engaged in our thoughts and rehearsing what we will say and worrying about what is being said, but giving our full attention to the speaker. In this way, we hear and see things that we may have missed: body language, a nuance of voice that shows stress, a deep concern...and when we simply listen with our whole being, we provide a place for our friend to process whatever is going on for them. That is really all most people need: to be listened to.

• mindfully listen to music. It is surprising how much we can learn about the world and ourselves by listening to what moves us or doesn’t move us in music. Why are some pieces of music so good that they can move us to tears, and others, which seem so similar in rhythm pattern and detail, simply do nothing for us?

• enjoy every taste, texture, smell, and overtone of a hazelnut gelato, right down to the crunch of that fresh waffle cone. Oh man!! I am going to get into my car and get me a gelato… I wonder if the pistachio would be better than the hazelnut. No. Better stick with a sure thing. And I think I will eat my gelato at the Gelateria rather than drive back with it while singing along with my Abba CD.

And this is important: Mindful attention puts us into a state where Flow is more possible.

Formal Practice

A

Some people find that formal practice helps them become better at their ability to pay close attention to the things they want to focus on, as well as helping to increase a sense of well-being and reduce stress. Some people call this formal practice meditation, but I prefer to call it practice, or training. To me, the word meditation brings up images of incense and chanting. I know that that is ridiculous…of course meditation is not about incense and chanting, it is just taking time to pay attention. But I am writing this and I get to call mindfulness practice what I want to call mindfulness practice, and if mindfulness practice is what I want to call it, then mindfulness practice it is. You can call it whatever you want.

What is formal mindfulness practice?

This is time you take out of your day, three minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour… it really doesn’t matter how long, to play close attention. During formal practice, you will tend to focus on one or more of these:

• Your breath

• Your body

• Your senses

• Your thoughts

• Your emotions

• Or whatever you wish to focus on.

I will sometimes find myself in a situation that has me anxious or fearful (such as when I am about to speak to an audience) and might, if I have my wits about me, try to take a moment out to focus on my breathing. I notice my breathing as it is, shallow or deep, fast or slow… I just watch it. I find that when I watch my breathing, it deepens and slows down. I don’t mean for it to deepen or slow down. It just does. Then I begin to notice where the tension is in my body, and I remember from my guided mindfulness practice (more on this later) that I can “breathe into” parts of my body. So that is exactly what I do. After a few minutes of this, I begin to notice that my anxiety has changed… it has become different – more excitement than anxiety. Anyway, that is my experience with it. That few minutes of formal practice helps me to be calmer and more effective.

B

Formal practice can provide some very interesting and useful information about the way our minds work and the habits we have.

Although we are capable of great focus and extended attention, it is not easy to do. When we focus on one thing, attend to our breathing or the sensations in our bodies, when we attempt to stay focused, our minds tend to wander. That is simply the way the mind works. No need to judge it or become angry that we keep losing focus, the mind simply tends to wander.

When you notice that your mind has wandered, you are back in the present and can bring your mind back to attending to whatever you were focusing on.

When the mind wanders, notice what your thoughts are and notice the emotions that come with the thoughts. Notice if you have been floating with your thoughts for a long time or for just a short excursion. I find that I will follow the drama of my thoughts for extended periods of time before reminding myself that I was supposed to be focusing on my breath or the sounds around me or whatever else I was attending to.

I may have started to plan something, or go over a conversation that I had, or a conversation I would like to have. I may start worrying about something I need to get done, or feel pride in a project I am working on. Either way, I am off in the whirling, and often convoluted travels of my thoughts... and that is just natural.

There are a few guided mindfulness practices available on this site. Try them. Some are short and some are less short.

Types of Attention

• Narrow attention – focused and sharp. Often, people experiencing Flow when engaged in writing, or dancing, or solving a problem, or any of a number of activities, are practicing a narrow attention. This attention is often to the exclusion of anything else. When coming out of a flow experience, people will often feel as if they have awakened from a dream. Time warped and they forgot everything else in their lives.

• Wide attention – open and spacious. A wide attention takes in everything but does not focus on one thing. Driving is a good time to have wide attention, as there can be so much happening at the same time; it would be difficult to drive safely while focused on one thing.

• Inside attention – focus on your body, emotions, and your thoughts. A good way to bring yourself back from a long excursion with your thoughts or from a stressful moment.

• Outside attention – attending to the world with your senses. A very good thing to do when you are attempting formal mindfulness practice. When I was focused on the smell and sound of rain early one morning, I was attending to the outside world with my senses. I was also smelling and tasting my coffee, which was outside attention. When I felt the coffee warming me, my attention turned inside.

• Self-awareness or meta-cognitive attention – when you are aware of which type of attention you are engaging in, you are being meta-cognitive. For instance, when you are angry and are observing the effects that your anger has on your thoughts and your body, then you are being meta-cognitive. When I stood outside thinking about this and that, I was not in the present. When I noticed that I was not being mindful of the sound and smell of the rain, or of the taste of my coffee, I became self-aware or meta-cognitive.

Introduction A

Find audio version below.

Mindfulness is about accepting whatever is happening right now. It does not mean that you simply accept a bad situation without attempting to improve your lot in life. Mindfulness is not about accepting injustice or suffering; rather, it is about living the moments to their fullest.

The past is the past, and we can do nothing to change it. We might learn something from the past; but often, our dwelling on the past is not helpful. If we had a difficult conversation with a friend, we might attempt to go over it and reflect about what went wrong. This might be helpful. But, we might be going over and over the difficult conversation in our minds, reliving it, feeding the flames of negative emotion with our thoughts, building the negative emotion and doing nothing to help the situation.

Mindfulness is not about simply accepting the disintegration of your relationship due to a conversation that went wrong. You will want to do something about this, and mindfulness might help. Mindfulness is about observing your thoughts and emotions with a sense of acceptance, but also with the sense that you are not your thoughts; you are not your emotions. The realization that you are not your thoughts or emotions can be very freeing, and can allow you to see things more clearly and to improve your experience.

Mindfulness during a difficult conversation is more about observing your emotions and noticing the effects they have on your body; listening with your full attention to your friend so that you can fully appreciate his or her point of view; afterward, watching your reactions and thoughts. Either way, that conversation is now past and you can do nothing to change it.

Introduction B

Find audio version below.

The future is the future, and although you can have some control of the future in your actions today, you cannot control everything that happens. Beyond planning for the future, many people’s experience of focusing on the future tends to be in the form of worry. I sometimes find myself worrying about something as banal as whether I will find a parking space or as (seemingly) important as whether I will do well on a presentation to an audience.

Worry is there for a reason. Our ancestors may have prepared for harsh winters or dry summers because they worried about whether there would be enough food. They may have felt uneasy or anxious about the coming season and did something about it.

Worrying about my looming presentation can have some value, for it might urge me to be better prepared and do a better job, but worrying about finding a parking space seems rather a waste of my time and energy. A parking space will be there or it won’t be.

Most people find that they worry about things that they really have no control over anyway. The future is the future.

“The present moment, this very moment now, is ultimately the only moment you have.” Shamash Alidina