Dispositional Mindfulness: Noticing What You Notice
Dan Tomasulo
Positive Psychologist, Keynote Speaker, Best Selling Author, Academic Director
Many forms therapy and spiritual practice speak of mindfulness. Dispositional mindfulness (sometimes known as trait mindfulness) is a type of consciousness that has only recently been given serious research considerations.
It is defined as a keen awareness and attention to our thoughts and feelings in the present moment, and the research shows that the ability to engage in this prime intention has many physical, psychological, and cognitive benefits.
Mindfulness meditation is different. It has taken the Buddhist practice of mindfulness and introduced it to the western world as a form of preparing and training. Those who practice mindfulness meditation are often encouraged to have a “sitting practice,” where they have set aside time to meditate.
In the West, this practice is considered a means to an end. We will be calmer, have lower blood pressure, better relationships, and less stress if we use this practice. While all this is true, the mindfulness aspect of this practice — the essence of this style of meditation was not designed as a means to an end — it was designed to be a way of conscious living.
Mindfulness, when viewed in this way, becomes a quality in our life — a trait, not a state we enter into during practice.
Don’t get me wrong — mindfulness meditation and the wide variety of training programs and opportunities are all valuable exercises. But the original intention of mindfulness and the science now surrounding dispositional mindfulness may be at the very root of how we maintain hope, perseverance, and mental health.
Here is a sample of the research outcomes from nearly 100 studies using dispositional mindfulness:
- Lower levels of perceived stress
- Lower use of avoidance coping strategies
- Fewer depressive symptoms
- Greater perseverance
- Less anxiety
- More hope
- Reduced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder
- Improved adaptive coping strategies
- Reduced rumination
- Less catastrophizing about pain
- Diminished neuroticism
- Improved executive function
- Decreased impulsivity
- Increased emotional stability
This is an impressive list as the intervention we are talking about is a non-judging awareness of our thoughts and actions. The non-judgment is an important aspect of this practice. Cultivating a witness, a self that views our own experience with a benevolent prospective, has importance and impact.
This means that even before we attempt to change our thoughts, there is value — exceptional value — in simply noticing them.
This wobbly space between perception and response becomes clearer once we are given permission to examine the gap. Dispositional mindfulness is an invitation to widen that gap simply by noticing it exists. As we step back from our moment-to-moment experience we are cultivating our mindfulness, which then opens the way to responsiveness and the possibility and potential to shift our perceptions for the better.
As the Beat poet Alan Ginsberg suggested, one way to enter this gap is to “notice what you notice.” The practice is simple enough. As you survey your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a present moment try to do so without judgment. This pause for thought is, in itself, the very dispositional mindfulness that research is showing has so many benefits.
In essence, the practice is strengthened when we catch ourselves thinking.
Positive Psychologist | CREATOR Mastery Coach | Positive Leadership | Facilitator & Consultant ~ Enhancing your strengths & creative resources is the keys to excellence & wellbeing ~ for individuals & teams
3 年Great Article! Thanks for the useful summary ?? As writing therapist & free writing passionate I fully agree how important this "awareness gap" is - for our well-being, clarity & focus.
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3 年Dan, I agree. I am a mindfulness mediation practitioner, and I also practice what you are calling “trait mindfulness,” having first started noticing what I notice through doing inquiry in The Work of Byron Katie. I am currently also taking my first Mindfulness-Based Stress Resuction (MBSR) course. What IS true across all of these practices is that they teach us to notice our thoughts and what they are presenting us. I agree that a “notice what we are noticing” practice can be applied to every moment of lives, and it takes discipline just like a “sitting” practice. If we realize that the thoughts we grab onto to as they come into our mind lead to our emotional responses which lead to our actions/reactions, we can understand how what we notice, and think about and believe onto what we notice, determines the outcome of our lives. We can much more conscious about what outcomes we create by just noticing what we notice, consciously choosing the thoughts we want to believe. Thank you!????
Spot on Dan Tomasulo and thanks for writing this piece. The every day usage of the term mindfulness practice does not do justice to the depths or history of the practice, and frequently it’s not even accurate. In fact, the very idea of a focus on the destination (illumination, enlightenment, lower blood pressure, less stress, whatever) is anathema to progress. Those outcomes/benefits may indeed occur, but Mindfulness of the present isn’t a means to a future end; it just is.
Bilingual (Spanish/English) Entrepreneur - Change Catalyst Cross Cultural (ICF Certified). Program Designer. Creator. MA Industrial Relations - University of Minnesota.
3 年This present moment, smooth as a wooden slab, this immaculate hour, this day pure as a new cup from the past– no spider web exists– with our fingers, we caress the present;we cut it according to our magnitude we guide the unfolding of its blossoms. It is living, alive– it contains nothing from the unrepairable past, from the lost past, it is our infant, growing at this very moment, adorned with sand, eating from our hands. Grab it. Don’t let it slip away. Don’t lose it in dreams or words. ODE TO THE PRESENT by Pablo Neruda
Safety Manager at Ameresco | EMT, Workplace Safety, Health & Safety
3 年Mindfulness let me gain control of my life by showing ways how I can better control my environment around me to make it better for me. It showed me the better I take control of my health and body the mind will follow.connecting spiritual within mindfulness practice just comes afterwards?