Mindfulness - Part 1

This is yet another fascinating subject with so much information readily available,  I felt  I would not do it justice in one article so I will talk into this over 2 articles.

With many businesses back in full swing or at least operating again in some shape or form, with many children returning to school again, there needs to be a certain focus on our health and well-being but that seems impossible as there are so many challenges, so many issues, so many problems to solve…

When we feel stressed and overburdened, it can often seem like we’re living on “autopilot,” disconnected from the here-and-now and our present experience. 

One remedy for this is mindfulness, which involves direct and non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. You may have heard of mindfulness as a form of meditation, but it can also be a general awareness of your own life’s experiences.

“When you are mindful, you are awake to life on its terms – fully alive to each moment as it arrives, as it is, and as it ends” - M.Sanderson Phd

A Definition of Mindfulness 

Mindfulness is “awareness without judgment of what is, via direct and immediate experience.”  

Some examples of being mindful to give you an idea:

• You eat dessert and notice every flavour you are tasting, instead of eating the dessert while having a conversation and looking around the room to see who you know. If you’re being mindful, you’re not thinking about “is it good or bad to have dessert?” you’re just really having dessert. 
• Having gotten rid of any anxiety or self-consciousness, you dance to music and experience every note, instead of wondering if you look graceful or indeed foolish. We’ve all heard: dance as if nobody is watching…
• Thinking about someone you love or someone you hate, you pay attention to exactly what your love or your hate feels like. You’re not caught up in justifying the love or hate to yourself; you’re just diving into the experience, with full awareness that you’re diving in. 
• You walk through a park, you actually walk through the park. What does that mean? It means you let yourself “show up” in the park. You walk through the park aware of your feelings about the park, of your thoughts about the park, of how the park looks, the smells,  the trees, any animals, the greenness of the grass, any flowers, or just the sensation of each step you take. This is different than taking a walk in the park and not “showing up” – instead, walking through the park while you are distracted by thoughts of what you’ll have for lunch, or the feelings towards a friend with whom you just argued, or worries about how you’re going to take care of this month’s bills. 

If you stop to think about it, you’ll realize that very few of us devote ourselves to living mindfully, meeting each moment of life as it presents itself, with full awareness, letting go of our judgments. Instead, we do things automatically, without ever noticing what we’re doing. We are always ready to judge ourselves and others. We regularly do two, three or more things at once. We frequently get so caught up in our thoughts and feelings about the past or future that we’re lost in them, disconnecting from what is happening right now, in the present, right in front of us. 

There are lots of rewards for living this way –we can get a lot done quickly, think of ourselves as efficient, and be seen by the world as productive and smart. In highly industrial or technological societies, a high value is placed on doing a lot at once. In fact, people sometimes make fun of each other by saying, “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you do two things at once?” ..but at what price?

We also live without awareness because sometimes living with full awareness is very painful. We avoid painful thoughts, feelings, and situations when we are afraid, angry, ashamed or sad because we’re convinced that we can’t do anything to change them, and… we’re also convinced, we can’t stand to live with them. 

For instance, have you ever avoided bringing up a problem in a relationship with someone because you’re afraid the person will get mad at you, attack you, or even leave you? You keep avoiding bringing up the problem because you feel so scared. So, you get yourself off the fear “hook” temporarily by not talking about it. In the meantime, you’re ashamed of yourself for not speaking up. You get more and more annoyed with the other person. 

You try to ignore what he or she does that bothers you, but the problem gets worse and worse. Finally, you just give up, letting the relationship run into the ground. Maybe the problem could have been solved; maybe not. You will never know if you don’t at least give it a try.

There’s an important distinction to make between the unavoidable pain of having a problem with a person you love, versus the suffering you cause yourself by letting fear control you, judging yourself for feeling afraid, assuming nothing you’d try would work instead of trying out solutions, feeling guilty about feeling angry towards someone you love, or judging that person for causing the problem in the first place. 

There are many ways mindfulness could help with the above example, I have provided you with just a few ways below, which I hope, will act as a catalyst for your journey into this intriguing subject.

1.    You could use mindfulness skills and bring your full attention to the feelings of annoyance, instead of pushing them away or trying to talk yourself out of them. Maybe you’re afraid you can’t stand to feel annoyed, but actually, watching how you feel inside, you realize, “hey, it’s just annoyance for a few minutes. I CAN stand it.” 

2.    You could use mindfulness to become a great detective and notice exactly how and when you feel annoyed. Maybe it’s when he or she had three cups of coffee before seeing you; maybe it’s when both of you are tired; and maybe it’s when he or she’s had a bad day at work. In this way, you use awareness to get specific and clear about what contributes to the problem. The more specific you get about what caused the problem, the better chance you have to solve it. Ask him or her to drink less coffee or switch to decaffeinated coffee; make plans to get together when you’re rested; don’t meet on bad work days. 

3.    You could use your mindfulness skills to watch your mind generate thoughts like “It shouldn’t be this way; why can’t we just get along! Real friends don’t have problems”. Listening in on your thoughts, you realize that your expectations don’t fit with reality, so you work on changing your expectations. 

4.    You could use mindfulness skills, as you talk through the problem with you friend, to bring your full and open awareness to whether or not you experience your friend listening to and understanding you or defending herself and criticizing you. If she’s really listening and caring, you might notice relief inside and decide to keep working with her on the problems in the friendship. On the other hand, if you notice that she is dismissive or non-responsive each time you talk about a problem, you might notice that you are sad and disappointed but not willing to put more energy into a friendship that makes you unhappy. 

To summarize, mindfulness is awareness, without judgment, of life as it is, yourself as you are, other people as they are, in the here and now, via direct and immediate experiences. When you are mindful, you are awake to life on its terms – fully alive to each moment as it arrives, as it is, and as it ends. Of course, in order to build and maintain mindfulness requires specific skills that are practice over and over. That’s what I will talk into in my next article.. 

The link to the video about this article: https://youtu.be/2ujp2IYtsZw

Jan Robberts