So, what is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is about having full awareness to the present moment. This involves engaging fully with our five senses and noticing the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations of that moment, without judgement and without trying to change reality.
Sound complicated? – it’s really not; let me explain.
How much time do you spend worrying about things that have happened in the past, or things that might happen in the future (the dreaded ‘what ifs’). The problem with doing this is:
1) We can’t solve hypothetical worries (future) or past issues as they are not there in front of us and…
2) It takes us away from the present moment, which tend to be less painful or distressing than what we are imagining.
You see, our attention plays a big role in how we feel. If we are thinking about something constantly, we are going to experience the feelings associated with that thought. The more we think about it, the bigger the feelings get.
We have to remember that thoughts are thoughts, and they cannot hurt us, but they can keep uncomfortable emotions going for us – e.g. If you have an argument with mum then spend the rest of the day thinking about times in which mum has upset you in the past, you might have thoughts like ‘She always does this, why doesn’t she get it’ ‘She doesn’t care, she doesn’t give a s**t about how I feel’, which then maintains or increases the feeling of anger you already had; and may lead you to engaging in impulsive behaviour (which in the short term reduces the distress, but is not a long term fix and often leads to increased distress e.g. self-harm, screaming at mum, sending a nasty text etc.). Sorry, I know that’s a long paragraph but stay with me…
Mindfulness can help us to get better at noticing where our thoughts are at, which can help us ride out those difficult, uncomfortable feelings. It can also be used as a short term distraction technique, as a way to ground us, or as a method to show ourselves that we can cope if feeling overwhelmed. By practising mindfulness, you can prove to yourself that you can ride out those feelings without engaging in the behaviour and you can tune in to where your brains, urges, thoughts, feelings are at.
Much of our suffering in life, is when our mind has taken us off into the future (‘what ifs’), or back, into the past (‘if only’)
‘Every moment is a fresh beginning’
T.S. Elliot
How to 'do' mindfulness
Mindfulness is about consistently bringing your attention (by engaging in all five senses), back to the here and now.
The goal is not to clear our minds, the goal is to notice our minds wandering, and bring it back to attention (as many times as needed).
To be gentle and not judge ourselves whilst doing this (‘ohhh this is not working’, ‘why can’t I do it’, ‘this is too hard’).
If you can notice where your heads at, and bring your full attention back to the mindfulness task at hand, you are doing it! And strangely enough, if you practice it consistently, it becomes easier and easier to do it in your daily life; especially at those times when our mind is leading is into a pattern of thought, emotions, or behaviour that is unhelpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6T02g5hnT4 – type in ‘mindfulness is a superpower’ on Youtube. This is a decent quick explanation of mindfulness! Disclaimer – meditation is not the only way to be mindful.
Meditation is not the only way to be mindful, it is one way, but you can brush your teeth mindfully, cook mindfully, watch a movie mindfully, it’s just about being fully present, engaging the five senses, and noticing when your mind drifts off and consciously bringing it back to the task at hand. Sometimes, we watch a film whilst playing on our phone and eating a bag of popcorn at the same time! This is being mindless, on autopilot, not noticing what we are doing or paying full attention to one thing at a time.
• Being mindful gives us more choices and more control over our behaviour (ideal – instead of seeing urges go from 0-100 before we know what is going on, we begin to notice the onset of our emotions in the 0-10 range. When we have awareness of what we are thinking and feeling, we can make a choice whether or not to act on them).
• Mindfulness reduces suffering and increases pleasure. Think about it… if you can learn how to focus fully on present moments, you are less likely to be worried about upcoming exams or what you ate this morning. If you are truly participating in the moment, you can laugh out-loud without being conscious of worries about what people will think, you can enjoy life more, when you are not living in your head, but living life with eyes wide open. Where attention goes – energy flows! If you concentrate on negative thoughts or emotions, they will become bigger! It’s hard not to focus on them, I get it, but with hard work and practice, you can focus elsewhere and reduce your suffering.
• It can help us to make important decisions without responding to the text out of anger or responding to feelings of anxiety with avoidance or behaviours (e.g. cleaning, handwashing). These are decisions driven by your emotions, not by you.
• It can help us focus our attention and be more effective and productive.
• It can help us to increase compassion for ourselves and others. Being aware and non-judgemental – instead of calling ourselves ‘a stupid failure’ you’d say, ‘I performed poorly on that chemistry test as I’ve had a lot going on mentally this week, now that I’m feeling healthy, I can do better on my next test’. Note the contrast in emotional reaction for each statement.
• Being mindful can lessen pain, tension, and stress – there’s loads of research about this.
Practise and be patient with yourself. Try your best to do one mindful activity per day from the list… You can do one more than once if you want. The only thing you need to do, is do it with your full attention, if you’re doing it and you notice your mind is elsewhere, do not get annoyed or give up, just say to yourself, ‘Oh, my attention drifted there, I’m just going to bring it back to the task’. If you do a mindfulness task and you have to do that 10000000x, then you are still being mindful as it is all about noticing and bringing it back.
Your attention/mind will drift – that’s part of being human, it’s just about noticing and bringing it back!
Do not get annoyed at yourself! If you were teaching a puppy a new trick, and the puppy wasn’t getting it straight the way, you wouldn’t say, ‘Stupid puppy, why don’t you get it!’, you’d be patient, so be patient with yourself. Our brain is the puppy.
