Choosing locations and pathways

The whole purpose of this site is to help you to choose your own approach to mindfulness.

You could select a location or pathway based on:

• Instinct — whatever location or pathway appeals to you (emotionally) at that moment (part of the mindfulness is to contemplate why it appeals to you).

• Need — whatever location or pathway seems to meet a need you have recognised in yourself (part of the mindfulness is to contemplate the relationship between the need and the choice you made).

• Curiosity — whatever location or pathway seems interesting, novel or unfamiliar (part of the mindfulness is to contemplate why you have not contemplated this location or pathway until now).

• Serendipity — pick a theme or pathway at random and see where it takes you (part of the mindfulness is to consider whether your choice was truly random).

What do you need?

There is evidence for a range of potential benefits to mindfulness practice and meditation.

The following recommendations should be treated with caution. Everyone is different and similar needs may have different, complex causes. Experiment with awareness. See what works for you.

As a general rule of thumb, it can be a good idea to start with themes or topics near the base of the wheel. It can also be helpful to start with more receptive mindfulness (observing and accepting) before progressing to active mindfulness (directed and purposeful). This is because it can be useful to have a better awareness and understanding of what is going on before you try to transform anything.

To become a calmer person

This could be helped by mindfulness practice that regularly includes feelings/motivating as a location or waypoint on a pathway. A focus on grounding, centring and deepening pathways may also help if you tend to overreact to external events. A focus on ascending, expanding and widening pathways may help if you tend to be overcome by impulses or excessive introspection.

To relax and decompress

This could be helped by mindfulness practice that centres around the base of the wheel (body/acting). Whether you focus on internal or external locations might depend on where the source of the stress is. You may want to spend some time in receptive mindfulness, noticing the physiological indicators of stress and noticing which internal and external triggers prompt stressful responses and which ones promote relaxation (external or internal safe spaces).

To reduce compulsive or intrusive thoughts

This could be helped by regularly including mind/thinking as a location or waypoint. Receptive mindfulness can be a useful first step — allowing the thoughts to come but taking a step back from them to recognise them for what they are rather than reacting to them or trying to suppress them. Later you could use more active mindfulness to start building helpful response patterns.

To boost focus and concentration

This could be helped by gradually increasing the amount of time spent on active mindfulness. Developing attentional control is a bit like developing muscle tone. Regular exercise that gradually builds and stretches you a little more each time is better than leaping in and trying an ultra-marathon from scratch. You might want to start by attempting to keep your focus on one thing and just noticing how long it takes for you to be distracted (and what tends to trigger the distraction).  Generally, we need to focus on external pathway phenomena but sometimes we need to pay attention to our own distracting thoughts in order to do that.

To improve memory and learning

Learning is about effectively converting external experiences into useable internal representations that we can recall when we need them, so pathways that involve both internal and external locations can be helpful. Sometimes, we fail to remember because we're not paying enough attention or because we're filtering out information from our senses. Sometimes, it's because we're not processing or filing the information with sufficient care.

To improve flexibility and adaptability

Developing cognitive flexibility is also about combining external and internal locations. It involves noticing our habitual responses to particular circumstances and allowing ourselves the opportunity to become aware of alternatives. This might be helped by regularly including knowledge/believing as a location or waypoint to examine the rules, assumptions and mental models through which you interpret and interact with the world.

To increase self-awareness

The obvious approach to increasing self-awareness is to concentrate on locations in the internal pathway. However, you may learn more about yourself by impartially observing how you react to events and interact with other people (external pathway). This may help you to take an external perspective (observe yourself from the outside).

To improve relationships with others

Regularly visiting the people/interacting location is an obvious start, especially if you combine it with feelings/motivating and knowledge/believing.