Practical Mindfulness
What exactly is mindfulness?
The word mindfulness has become well established within our culture, and there is certainly no shortage of products all vying for our attention; we are bombarded with books, tv shows and magazine columns all with the aim of making us more mindful.
In my experience, these snippets are good at presenting the concept of mindfulness but fall short on concrete and practical advice. They often fail to give actionable advice for people living ordinary lives; instead, they tend to present the image of a person completely at peace, at ease with themselves, with no worry or stress in their life. Unless you recently quit your job and moved into a monastery, this is both unrealistic and unattainable.
How can mindfulness help me live a better life?
In a nutshell, mindfulness can be defined as being fully present in and focused on the moment. I think we can all agree that this is something that sounds desirable and that we probably do not do enough. However, this definition does not explain why we might want to be more present, more in the moment — what are the tangible benefits of this practice?
The opposite state from being in the present moment is living either in the past or the future. This is not a problem in small doses. However when we start to spend more time in the past and future than we do in the present, then we are probably guilty of over-thinking; meaning we are thinking about past or future events beyond the point where it is useful or productive.
My own default mindset used to be to search for things to worry about — as crazy that seems! It didn’t matter whether it was something from the past (regret), or something in the future (anxiety, story-telling), my mind felt like it always needed to have something to be worried about. In the case of future events, it was like I was putting up walls of protection for what might go wrong. The problem with this way of thinking was that I was spending hours or even days worrying about something (eg. a work event, or medical appointment), that would then be over in less than an hour. In some cases I wasted 10x the actual time of the event spent in worry — and in the end, the worst-case scenarios would never occur! Even if something did go wrong, was it in any way helpful that I was worried about it before?!
Another mistake I was guilty of was wishing and wanting. I would set myself some sort of goal, whether it was financial, material or an achievement. I would then tell myself “I know I will be happy when I have …”. As if somehow reaching an arbitrary goal would suddenly make me happier. I must have gone through this cycle 100s of times in my life until eventually, I realised that these goals, while sometimes worthwhile, were not actually bringing me this magical reward of happiness (well, maybe for a day or two, but not sustainably).
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. — John Lennon
How can I practice Mindfulness?
As with many things in life, the first stage is acceptance. As simple as it sounds, if you can learn to accept things as they are, then you will have less inner conflict. You won’t need to keep living in a fictional future when “things might be better”. Whether or not the future will be better, that is no reason to reject the present. In reality, you have far less control over the future than you might think, so you might as well live now — the future will come around, either way, the only question is how much time will you waste waiting rather than actually living.
What can I do if my current situation is not acceptable?
Well first you must accept your current situation — whether you assume it to be good or bad, you must accept your reality if you want to change it. This means not fighting it or denying it — it means looking at your situation from the as it is right now, and asking “what do I need to change to improve this situation?”. To do this, you need to step outside of yourself, and look at your life from the outside as an observer — pretend you are giving advice to a friend, and you’re looking at their life rather than your own. This might sound simple and perhaps obvious, but there is a deliberate reason to approach it in this way. It is important to approach your situation from a calm and rational state of mind — it is easy for emotions to take over, especially when you are in an objectively bad situation (such as experiencing pain or suffering). Emotional thinking is usually extreme and not very productive.
From that point you have only three options: if you can change your situation, then change it, if you cannot, then either walk away from it or accept it completely — those are your only choices.
The right answer will depend on your personal situation — if you are experiencing some level of suffering, then it is probably not enough to simply “accept” it — you need to find some way or someone who can help you to change things. However, if you are simply unhappy with your material lot in life, then you should always aim for acceptance — even if you have a plan to improve things — otherwise you might find that you will never be happy with what you’ve got. Just because things might be better in the future, is no reason not to enjoy the present.
What about my problems — I cannot simply ignore them?
Yes, you will still have your everyday problems, and yes, some of these will require action in order to solve (problems that do not require action, should be ignored). There is no disagreement here — however, the trick is to stop thinking about these problems so they don’t interfere with your everyday life. If something needs to be done on Monday, then there is no reason for it to occupy your mind on the weekend. You can live in the now while there are no immediate pressures and then come back to your task-oriented mindset to solve your problems.
Whenever you catch yourself stuck in unproductive thoughts, perhaps feeling stress or anxiety creeping in, stop in that moment and ask yourself — “are my current thoughts productive?” — are you actually solving problems, or just dwelling on them? Can you defer these problems to another time, and allow yourself to get on with your day?
What about my plans? What about my work?
Of course, you can still make plans, and of course, you can still complete your tasks at work. Our lives have a societal and economic structure to them, both of which require some forward-thinking, and both of which require you to spend some time outside of the present moment. This is one of the key problems with a lot of the mainstream mindfulness advice — it often presents an all-or-nothing approach whereby you should always be in the moment — this is simply not practicable for the average person, who needs to use their task-oriented mindset in order to function within the world of jobs, children and other societal pressures.
It is possible to live in the moment, and still plan for the future and learn from the past. The trick is for your default position to be living in the present — that way you can move out of the present when tasks require it, and then return to the now afterwards.
As with the issue of problem-solving, you can enter your task-oriented mindset, make plans, and then bring yourself back to the present once these plans have been made. You want to avoid the trap of constantly making plans, and therefore sacrificing precious time by ignoring the present because you are thinking about (or worrying about) things that may or may not happen in the future.
In the simplest terms, I am saying that you can enjoy the time between life events, and at the same time, you can still have future plans. I have provided two examples from my own experience to illustrate my point :
Example 1: You are driving to the hospital to have some tests done, or perhaps to get the results of previous tests. You can either spend the travel time immersed in your mind, worrying, feeling stressed, telling stories in your mind about what might go wrong, or you can simply enjoy the drive, look around at the scenery, listen to some music, sing-along, and generally live right now as if there is no hospital and no test. This is not to say you are denying or avoiding the reality of your hospital visit — you are simply accepting that right now, there is no value in worrying about something in the future that you have no control over. Why should a possible future event mean you cannot enjoy the present?
Example 2: There is an unforeseen event at work, and as such your customers have an outage in their service. The next steps are actually quite simple — you need to first diagnose and understand the problem, and then fix it. While you are doing this, do you need to have a worried expression? Do you need to feel stressed out? Do you need to look stressed out so everyone can appreciate your visible concern? No. This is nonsensical thinking. You can spend your time calmly diagnosing the problem with a balanced and clear mind. You can enjoy the time you spend finding and fixing the problem. It is no different from solving a puzzle in your leisure time, except that in this case you are being paid to solve it! Worrying and being stressed out will not help you solve the problem faster — and in fact, it will likely cause the people around you to also feel stressed out.
Observe your thoughts, emotions & reactions
Observe what you are thinking right now. Are you enjoying what you are doing? Do you feel any unease, resentment or stress? Spend some time noticing your thoughts and emotions — why do you think you are feeling this way? Are you focusing on something that happened in the past, or on something that might happen in the future?
It is important to watch your emotions as often as you can since our emotions are much more powerful than our conscious thoughts. Our immediate reactions are always emotional first, and then a few seconds later our executive brain kicks in, although by that time it’s often too late. If we are aware of our emotions, we can see them as they emerge, and will have a far better chance of controlling our reactions.
There is a well-known rule of waiting 2–3 seconds before responding to any life event. This practice is much more powerful than it might seem. Try it next time you catch yourself becoming angry or frustrated with something that just happened — either walk away for a few seconds or else count out 3 seconds and see if you can better manage your reaction. You will not get this right every time, and in many cases, the event may be far too extreme or powerful for you to manage — don’t worry, you are still human, and we are all controlled by our emotions — it takes a great deal of practice to be able to manage and control them.
Find time regularly to practice, focus and observe
First, set aside some time (as little as 5–10 minutes), and make yourself comfortable. Try not to think about anything at all — no making plans, no thinking about what happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow — your mind should only be occupied with what is happening right now — where you are, what is around you and nothing else.
It is often difficult to feel at ease with a clear mind — our minds are not used to it, and will usually try to interrupt by adding problems or tasks for us to do — as with everything, it takes practice; do not berate yourself if you find your mind is noisy, just do your best, and if you feel it’s just not happening, pull the plug and try again the next day.
Rather than do literally nothing, you might find it easier to do some simple task — but if you do this, you must focus completely on the task at hand; be fully aware of every movement you make, every action you take. Daydreaming is not allowed since by definition this takes you out of the moment. Good examples of mindful activities are writing, drawing, going for a walk, even folding laundry — but do not be tempted to put on the TV, radio or other background distraction — slow your mind down, try to focus totally on where you are, what you’re doing. Observe your senses; look, feel, smell, touch, taste, and listen to your breathing — these are effective ways of keeping yourself from being distracted by your thoughts.
Try this simple exercise: Find somewhere quiet and sit/lie down. Concentrate fully on where you are and what you are doing. Push out all other thoughts, and be fully aware of yourself right now. Notice one thing you can see, hear, smell, touch (if possible, taste). Now close your eyes and ask yourself these questions “what am I thinking about?” “how do I feel?” — just observe yourself, and how your mind responds to these questions. If you find your mind is very busy, you might notice emotions rising up such as worry or stress — if this happens, simply take out a notepad or your phone, make a note of the things you are worried about, set a reminder for later in the day/week, then bring your attention back to your mind again. Eventually, you should be able to reach a point where you notice your mind becoming quiet, and you are able to stop thinking about anything. Keep watching your mind as if you were watching someone else, waiting for the next thought to come along — when it arrives, either make a note of it or let it go and move on. If you can do this for even 10 minutes a day, you will find a gradual quieting of your mind.
How will I know if it’s working?
First things first. Realise that although this all sounds very simple, it isn’t. If you’re anything like me, then your whole life has been made up of being deliberately busy, thinking about both the past and future, rarely having a moment to stop and do nothing. In fact, our culture and upbringing can even make us feel guilty for doing anything judged to be “unproductive” (loosely defined as work). The truth is, once you’ve done your work for the day, or the week, you are not helping anyone by holding onto it.
So first, accept that improvement will be gradual.
Some signs that your mindfulness practice is working :
- a marked improvement in your stress levels
- a clearer mind at night, and (hopefully) better sleep
- small moments in your day whereby you feel completely at ease, peaceful, sometimes even joyful
- a reduction in the amount of wanting — the number of things you want to acquire, achieve or have should start to reduce
Once you start to notice these things, you are on the right track. Mindfulness is a very hard thing to hold onto, and you will lapse back into old habits. That’s ok, there’s no need to beat yourself up about it — the whole concept of mindfulness is to remove those unnecessary thoughts — simply take some time to quiet yourself and observe those thoughts, you will get better over time (and faster) at being able to bring yourself back to the present moment.
