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Why Mindfulness? |
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Most people come to mindfulness because the stress in their lives has become unacceptable. They are looking for relief. Mindfulness is a good solution for many people. It has the same success rate as drugs and psychoanalysis, without the negative aspects of drugs.
Because we are all individuals and respond to different things non of these methods will work for everyone. It's up to us to explore different things and be open to what works for us and what doesn't.
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What's the Purpose of Meditation? |
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Why meditate?
One reason is to create the all day, everyday habit of remembering to notice when your mind wonders away from the present moment. So in meditation, when your mind moves off the breath or whatever sense experience you are focused on, and you become aware of it, you bring your mind back to your focal point and.... Bam! you have just strengthened your mind!!!
So the next time you hear a song bird singing its’ song and your mind wonders to what you had just read about song birds, you have a better chance of catching yourself and bringing your attention back to the pleasant experience of the song bird’s song.
It’s very similar to lifting weights. One rep of lifting a weight and you have strengthened your muscle a little, one time noticing your mind wondering and bring it back, you have strengthened your mind. WOW!!! What a deal!!!
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What is Stress? |
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Stress is created when there is some stimulus that is perceived as being potentially harmful to ourselves. This stimulus could be something coming to our awareness through our senses at the moment or it could be something that is happening in our lives that we are concerned with and are thinking about. This is a very important thing to know. Obviously anything in our environment that would be harmful to us we need to ramp up to meet the challenge. However, it is not so obvious that thinking about worrisome things can also create stress. This is were where we get into trouble with stress in our everyday lives.
Lets take a look at how the brain works in regard to stress. When we through our senses become aware of danger to ourselves or if we are thinks about things we feel to be dangerous to us. At that point the brain kicks in using hormones that it puts into the blood that do two things. First it shuts down all things in the body that will not contribute to our body physically reacting to things in the best and strongest way. On the other hand using hormones put into the blood amps up every part of our body to be sure it can function at it's highest ability. This has been called the fight or flight response. Being readied for fight or flight is great if there is a danger in the moment that we need to physically deal with. What is not so great when we are thinking of something that we can not deal with at the moment but continually are ruminating on the potential threat to us. The brain does not differentiate between something that is a problem that is in need of immediate action and a problem that might need a response in the future that you are ruminating about. If the stress reaction persists without using all the hormones that have been injected into our bloodstream. Over time that can cause damage to our bodies and certainly does not feel good to be stressed out. This is probably you are reading this blog. Here's how you get out of the fight or flight mode. When your senses focus attention on what's going on in the moment and the information gleaned from that is there is no danger here, you brain switches back to a normal mode of functioning and bring the body back to where it needs to be on a regular basis.
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What is Mindfulness? |
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So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness on one hand is very simple and on the other hand rather complex. It is a non verbal event which it makes hard to pin down verbally. I will give you some definitions by some individuals that have great understanding of what mindfulness is. But first I want to briefly mention how mindfulness helps to relieve stress.
Mindfulness is learning to pay attention to our senses and using our senses more often in a nonjudgmental way. As we get better and better at stepping back and taking a look at what is coming through our senses we can more quickly let our brain know that it's time to get back to normal functioning. |
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Can we define Mindfulness? |
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Mindfulness is a practice that tends to calm down your mind.
Again Mindfulness is hard to put precisely into words but here are some definitions of Mindfulness that might help you get an idea of what this is all about:
Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”
Mindful.org
“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”
White Wind Zen Community
“Mindfulness is wordless. Mindfulness is meeting the moment as it is, moment after moment after moment, wordlessly attending to our experiencing as it actually is. It is opening to not just the fragments of our lives that we like or dislike or view as important, but the whole of our experiencing.”
Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California at Los Angeles
“Mindful Awareness is the moment-by-moment process of actively and openly observing one’s physical, mental and emotional experiences.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“Mindfulness shows us what is happening in our bodies, our emotions, our minds, and in the world. Through mindfulness, we avoid harming ourselves and others.”
Sharon Salzberg
“Mindfulness isn’t just about knowing that you’re hearing something, seeing something, or even observing that you’re having a particular feeling. It’s about doing so in a certain way – with balance and equanimity, and without judgment. Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention in a way that creates space for insight.”
Sylvia Boorstein
“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.”
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Why Mindfulness? |
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The brain is just like a muscle. If you exercise it it will get stronger. If you repeat things you will create habits. Mindfulness makes you brain stronger and creates the habit of experiencing the moment. This will not make things that are stressing you out go away but it will change the way your body reacts to them is you choose to face your stressors and move you attention to the things your senses are telling you about this moment. That's what tells you brain I'm not in immediate danger, all is well. Which in turn turns off your flight or fight mode. It should be noted that if you choose to go right back to thinking about things that are bothering you, you will be right back were you started in the flight or fight mode. That's part of being the warrior.
Stress is not in it's self a bad thing unless it goes on too long. We need a little push sometimes to do the work to solve problems, but as we have said, there is a point were you just start thinking the same things over and over with no new ideas of solutions coming. That's when we need to put it away and let our unconscious mind work out some new solutions.
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Doing Mindfulness |
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There are three ways to practice mindfulness. One is formal practice - Sitting for a time. Everyday mindfulness -Where you try to bring mindfulness in your everyday life. This can have great benefits to your life. And the last is going to a retreat for an extended length of time. We will be focusing on the first two practices.
It should be noted that not all of the practices work for everyone or every situation. You should approach these practices with that in mind and be open to what works moment by moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn Created an 8 week course "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course" (MBSR) using mindfulness to work with stress. This course is being used world wide. It is equally effective in deal with stress as drugs.
There is an online MBSR training course is 100% free, created by a fully certified MBSR instructor, and is based on the program founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It is set up so you can take it at your own pace.
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Sitting Meditation |
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The Breath -
This is one of the mainstays of meditation techniques. We always have the breath with us. It happens whether we think about it or not, which is lucky for us, if we had to think about it we all would be dead. In any case this is NOT just thinking about breathing but a FEELING thing. You need to experience the feelings of breathing whether it be in the belly, at the nose, or where ever the breath feels the strongest to you. Then the drill is to keep you focus of attention on how the breath feels as long and you can. When you notice a thought or something disturbs your concentration or you find you have been off on a thought for awhile and didn't notice, all you need to do is simply give recognition to what ever distracted you and direct you focus of attention back to the breath. Can't be easier than that. However this might not be your cup of tea. The breath is not my favorite meditation focus. But that's ok. Things change and there may be times when you welcome the breath meditation. That's part of living your best life, being aware and open to things in the present moment without a lot of judgment.
To Begin
Sit on a cushion or straight back chair with a sense of dignity with your head, neck, and back erect but not rigid. Relax you shoulders and place you hands in your lap or on your knees. Close your eyes if it feels okay to you or pick a place on the floor in front of you or a wall and un focus your eyes.
When you feel comfortable take a three deep breaths being conscious of the feeling of that experience. As you breath become aware of what feelings are the strongest for you. That may be in the nostrils where the air is passing through or the feelings of your stomach moving in and out or anywhere else that the breadth feels strongest to you.
Follow the feeling of the breadth moment by moment going in and going out. When you notice that your attention has wondered away from the breadth, without judging yourself, gently bring your attention back to the moment by moment feeling of the breadth. If this occurs a thousand time you bring your attention back a thousand times. This is the practice of mindfulness. Observing your senses, noticing when your mind has wondered and without judgment bring you attention back to your senses.
This may seem easy until you realize just how active your mind is and how easy it is to wonder off of the present moment consciousness. But this is just like lifting weights in the gym. You lift the weights over and over building up you muscles over time. The process of paying attention to when your mind wanders and bring it back to the experience of your senses in this moment is like one repetition of lifting a weight. Your brian becomes stronger each time you do this simple act, building the habit of being in the moment and experiencing the moment through your senses.
Take a few minutes and try out this out.
Below is a link to a guided meditation using the breath.
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The Body Scan |
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The Body Scan is a great way to get into Mindfulness practice. It helps you focus on the feelings of your body, as well as your breath, and has the component of visualizing your breath moving through and out of your body .One of the first meditations used in the 8 week MBSR course is the Body Scan.
This meditation is generally done lying on your back on the floor. You can do this on a bed as well but you do have to watch out that you don't doze off. In this meditation you focus on the toes of your left foot and feel what there is to feel without judgment. The move to the top of your foot, then to the bottom of your foot, and continue up the body until you have visited every part of your body. You can do this any way you like grouping larger areas or dividing up areas into however many parts you are comfortable with or have time for. Here is a Body Scan Meditation on the web you might like to try
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Eating a Raisin |
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Mindfulness eating can be applied to anything we eat, any time. You can find a walk thought on how to go about the eating of a raisin mindfully.
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Walking Meditation |
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There are many ways of doing walking meditations. Some are very focused and repetitive and others are more free. The thing that unites them is that you are very focused on the movements and feelings of your body as you walk. If you would like to know more and hear a audio you can click on the link below:
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Walking Breath Meditation |
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This is kind of a combination of the body scan and the walking meditations. Since you are walking you will have a feeling of your body movement. Adding to this you can also focus on your breath, visualizing the air going in all the way down to your toes and back up and expanding out into the sky in all directions. Feel the lightness of your body as the air rises up and expands out into the area around you. Alternately breath out the top of your head or through your nostrils. Continue to feel your body movements as you follow your breath down to your toes and back up through the top of your head. |
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Empathy Meditation |
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Empathizing with something in your visual field or with someone can be a powerful way to help us to be more grounded. Empathy is "To Feel the way it feels to feel that way".
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Sound Meditation |
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As with the breath you can focus on the sound you hear or the silence you experience. Again we are experiencing the sound, feeling it without judgment Not necessary to identify the sound but just hear it as it is.
- You can choose some music to listen to or you can just listen to the random sounds around you. Here's a web site that talks about how to do that:
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- If you would like to do a guided meditation with sound as the focus here is a link:
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Mindful Yoga |
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Yoga is a great thing to do for your body as well as your mind.
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Experiencing your body doing yoga mindfully, moment by moment. This is a very good practice to focus your consciousness on the sensations of your body.
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Lying Down Yoga -
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Standing Yoga -
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Loving - Kindness Meditation |
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Compassion is an important element of Mindfulness. Sometimes it is important to focus your Mindfulness meditation on Compassion and Loving - Kindness. If you would like to find out more about Loving - Kindness Meditations or if you would like to hear a guided meditation click on the following link below:
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Mindfulness of Feelings of the Body |
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Feelings of the body -
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You may want to try this during a formal meditation focusing on the breath. Expand your focus of attention to experience the feelings of your bottom sitting , your feet touching the ground, then expand your awareness to your entire body. If you would like, you can keep the feelings of the breath going in and out as well.
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Focus on feelings in your body. Feel these feelings and see how they change over time. Again don't judge these feelings as good or bad but just experience them and notice how they change. Come to this with a beginners mind. Try to see the variations of what is and how it changes. Doing this may allow you to see how much our thoughts create our suffering above and beyond the actual pain we feel.
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Extending this further if you feel up to it, you might want to try seeking out a part of your body that is painful and just be with it without judgment for a while . Explore the feelings as a child might explore something new. Again if things are getting too painful for you back off and go back to focusing on your breath coming back to the pain at another time.
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One of the aspects of Mindfulness is not to take away pain that we have but learning to see and experience it without judgment so that we begin to see how much we can make our pain much worse by the way we think about it. Befriending your pain can make the pain feel much less bad. A warning here, you don't want to get into a habit of focusing on your pain. This can make the pain much more intense than it would be focusing on other things.
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This is true about every problem that pops up in our lives. How we deal with it, our attitude about it will determine just how it effects our lives to a great extent.
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You can also explore your emotions and how they reside in your body doing the body scan meditation.
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Focusing on a Word |
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Focusing on a word -
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Picking a word to repeat over and over works well for many people. Love, relax, compassion, etc. it could be a simple word like "relax," "serene" or "peace," or something more spiritual like "ohm" or "so-hum" (ohm is an ancient Sanskrit word meaning "nothingness" and so-hum means "I am that").
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Mindful Image Focus |
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Focusing on an image -
Focus your mind on an image that is emotionally important to you. It could be in your mind's eye or it could be right in front of you. See how long you can keep your focus on the photo without your mind wandering. Experience all the things and elements in the photo.
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Mindful Visualization |
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VISUALIZATIONS -
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Focusing on an image such as a Mountain or a Lake ( there are a lot of good meditations on both the Mountain and the lake online.), or you might pick something that is important to you, works for many people.
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Click below on the Mountain or Lake meditations
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The Mindfulness of Thinking |
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The Thinking mind -
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This is a somewhat advanced practice. If you are successful in this practice you will have the experience of the watcher of your thoughts and see them as just a part of your senses that come and go but not something you need to ruminate upon.
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This is Watching your thoughts and letting them go like bubbles in a boiling pot or writing on water.
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Balancing the Extremes |
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The Part and The Whole
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We need to balance out experiences between extremes. One set of extremes is the part and the whole. Visualize and try to feel the space in the room your are in or in the neighborhood you are in. You can do this with your eyes close of open, which ever works best for you. When visualizing the space outside of your visual range it is necessary to close your eyes. How far out can you visualize that space? Can you feel it?
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W hen we look at an atom, the space inside is very interesting, because the distance between the nucleus and the first electron is much larger that you might expect. If the nucleus was a basketball in size, the distance to the closest electron would be about 25 miles. There's mostly space within atoms and with in the universe itself. Try to experience the vastness and the emptiness of everything around us.
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These experiences can help balance out our preoccupation with the parts of life.
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Focusing on Stillness
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Stillness
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Stillness is something you can do anytime or use it as a formal practice.
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This is another way to balance out our experience of life. Noticing that everything around us has some aspect of stillness within it. This can be very calming. Most things are still and unmoving. Even in a hurricane there is stillness around us. Inside, objects around us are still, unless of course we are in an unprotected space.
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Mindfulness Guided Meditation |
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There are many many Guided Meditations with a Mindfulness themes Google Guided Mindfulness Meditations you'll find your fill. Below is a link to a site that has several different guided meditations on different subjects. Check it out. If you want to find out about Mindfulness from the person that created the MBSR course in the 70's Google "Jon Kabat- Zinn" in You Tube, you'll find some very interesting offerings.
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Informal Mindfulness Practices |
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Informal Mindfulness practices can be any everyday thing on which you choose to focus your attention.
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Brushing your teeth
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Washing your hands and face
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Walking anywhere
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Taking a shower
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Waiting in line
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Getting dressed
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Sitting at a stop light
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Watching TV - when you use your peripheral vision to experience the TV and the environment around the TV.
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Cooking or making food.
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Driving - Paying attention to your driving. Experiencing the car changing direction when you turn the wheel.
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Trying to experience the whole of space in the room you're in.
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Consciously using your peripheral vision - This can be done anywhere you might be. We tend to focus on things most of the time and it's a good idea to balance out our experience of the particular and the whole.
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Empathize with your own body language
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Changing what you are looking at fairly quick rate. - Focusing your eyes on one thing then focusing on another object taking in the visual information and moving on to the next thing in your environment without lingering too long on any one thing. Not thinking about what you are seeing, just experiencing. It is very important to feel the special special relationship between yourself and the items you are viewing. A variation of this is to look at two things creating a sensed feeling of a triangle between you and the other two things.
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Minute to Minute Focus |
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Our focus of attention is like a movie. It goes from minute to minute forever being in this minute, changing from minute to minute. Watching where our focus goes and how things change over time without judging is a very useful Mindful practice.
In being mindful of the moment we should recognize that our focus of attention can only be in one of 3 places in any given moment. We can be in the past, we can be in the future or we can be in the past. There just isn't anywhere else to be. Can you think of any other place we can be? We can move so quickly from one to the other that we don't even notice. We can start out in the present moment and not notice that we move to thinking about the future or the past. Usually we don't notice because the subject of our thinking hasn't changed, just our focus has changed. If you start mindfully paying attention to where your mind goes after you experience something in the now.
Let me give you an example, we get a painful feeling in our foot, and immediately our focus goes to what is going on. What did I do to make that happen? How long will it hurt? In those couple of moments we went from experiencing what is happening in the moment to the past, "what did I do to create this," to the future, "how long will it last."
An alternative to this scenario is to take a Mindful approach to this pain. The pain as bad as it might be, forced us to be in the present moment. Here's where formal Mindfulness practice comes in. The pain was a stimulus. Our formal Mindfulness practice is to notice when our focus moves away from the breath. Our everyday practice is to notice when our mind wanders from the present moment. So when we have that pain stimulus we can mindfully choose to keep our attention in the present moment with the feelings we are having. Take whatever actions might be necessary or just be with the experience. But what attitudes do we bring to this type of experience? Do we go to judging good or bad? Wishing things were different? That the pain would just go away? Does our focus move to the future or the past? Or do we let it be what it is and explore the feelings as they are, and not as we think they are.
In Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn writes, “As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel.” To help keep your focus in the moment, you may want to open your focus to include your breath. Breathing in and our of your pain is a good way to experience it. Including experiencing the feeling of relaxation as your body naturally relaxes as your breath leaves your body. Focusing on letting your experience be as it is without judgment it is the mindful moment to moment practice.
As you move through life moment to moment things will attract your attention. If we approach each moment for what it is and not for what we want it to be or are afraid it is, we can step away from knee jerk reactions and choose to be in the moment. If action is called for then take action in a mindful way. |
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Mindfulness
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Mindfulness |
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