Over the next several weeks practice noting your Inner Critic as you go
about your daily life. Give this voice a nickname if you’d like.
1. Ask yourself, if someone were actually standing next to me and supplying the same commentary, how would I handle it? You’d probably respond with something like, Thanks anyway, but I’m leaving now.
2. Without getting sucked into debate, each time you notice the Inner Critic, take a pause.
3. Breathing in, recognize the voice of criticism, and whatever it’s
implying about you or doing to your emotional state. Acknowledge that
experience without needing to either banish it or rationalize it. This is how I feel right now: tired and insecure and angry.
4. Breathing out, let go. Instead of wrestling with self-judgment,
see it for what it is, and turn your attention somewhere more useful.
Focus only on the sensation of breathing as best as you’re able, without
striving or forcing anything.
5. Wish yourself well, like you would a close friend in distress.
Picture freedom, relief, or ease with each exhalation as an intention
for now or sometime in the future.
In the healing work of
self-compassion, it’s important to avoid the trap of getting caught up
in self-improvement. When you have a pervasive sense of unworthiness,
this can be tricky. The identity of unworthiness is formed of self-blame
and a deluge of self-judgments offered by an inner critic who wants
nothing to do with self-compassion. It’s far more interested in
masochistic endeavors like self-improvement projects that it’s never
satisfied with. But this just gets you more stuck in feeling deficient
for several reasons, the foremost being the very idea that there’s a
faulty and unworthy self that needs to be improved.
Although it’s important to seek therapy and health promoting
modalities when you need support. You can also be filled at times with
the belief, that you can fix your unworthy self through more workshops,
new therapies, or a better diet or exercise program. In many ways it’s
no different from always striving for more money or more things. It’s
just another variation on eternally wanting something more or better.
Here’s how the trap works: Setting a goal of a better self calls
forth wanting. Wanting calls forth striving. Striving calls forth
judging. And judging becomes a way of life that brings a critical
orientation to everything: “Oh, I like that! Oh, I don’t like that! Oh,
that’s good! Oh, that’s bad!” It never stops, and while the mind is thus
engaged, it isn’t in the here and now; it’s preoccupied with getting
somewhere else. This craving to be somehow better can fill up a lifetime
yet never be fulfilled.
The mind that’s perennially striving for a better place
or condition creates suffering by leaving the present moment, which is
the only place we can experience love, peace, or happiness.
Remember, this moment truly is the time of your life, and what’s
important is to be here for it, to actually live in the here and now.
There is no other moment to live in. The mind that’s perennially
striving for a better place or condition creates suffering by leaving
the present moment, which is the only place we can experience love,
peace, or happiness. When you are somewhere other than now, you can miss
the most precious experiences of your life. This can be akin to
searching for your camera to preserve an experience that you end up
missing because you’re searching for the camera. A mind that is extended
toward the future is focused on some goal, and even if this goal is
reached, the striving mind will then measure how the new condition
compares with the past, thus ensuring that you remain perennially
preoccupied with the past and future and rarely, if ever, actually live
in the here and now.
Living in the present moment doesn’t mean that you discard your
goals, whether that means having a nice car that’s paid for, moving your
family to a better home or safer neighborhood, or losing weight. It
means remaining oriented to the here and now as you work towards your
aspirations.
The judging mind can always find something that isn’t quite right,
particularly when it’s looking from this nebulous thing called “self.”
We tend to get the standards by which we judge ourselves by looking
around and comparing ourselves to others. But if you consider how many
billions of people there are on this planet, you can see that this is a
no-win proposition. There will always be someone thinner, fitter, nicer,
more accomplished, more attractive, more popular—whatever.
Noticing what you do with your mind and these comparisons can help
you see how much suffering is caused by this endless stream of judgments
and the violence of self-criticism. You may hate your potbelly and want
to get rid of it, or you may despise the way you chicken out and fail
to say what you really think. But hating and criticizing things about
yourself only creates more suffering. This is like a military strategy
based on the idea that war can create peace—that if you can blast the
inadequate self to smithereens, or maybe just threaten to do so, you
will finally feel okay and have peace. This way of thinking just etches
the neurological pathways of suffering more deeply into your brain and
colors your thoughts with narratives about what’s wrong with you and how
you need to improve.
As you grow in mindfulness and compassion, you may begin to realize
that contentment is the greatest of wealth and that no money or things
can buy it. Being content with who you are is the greatest of treasures.
The way to peace is never through war, and the way to happiness is
never through hatred. Peace is the way to peace, and happiness comes
from happiness. If you want compassion to grow in your life, practice
compassion. If you want criticism to grow in your life, practice
criticism. It’s simple, really: Your attitude is the water of your life.
You can promote feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness by pouring on
self- blame and criticism, or you can promote feelings of happiness and
well-being by pouring on self-compassion.
The quality of your attitude is influenced by many things, but
especially by your mood and your orientation to life itself. If you have
a critical orientation, you’ll find unlimited things to criticize and
may find yourself caught in the trap of self-improvement for much of
your life. If you have a compassionate orientation, you’ll find many
opportunities for compassion and may discover freedom and happiness in
your life right now. The attitude of self-compassion can grow even as
you’re attending to your pain and woundedness, or even as you reflect on
mistakes you’ve made that hurt you or others. You grow self-compassion
by practicing self-compassion, just like a pianist becomes more skilled
by practicing the piano. Small errors, such as forgetting something at
the store, or large errors, like forgetting your wedding anniversary,
can become opportunities for you to grow a little more in self-kindness
and self-compassion.
Yes, there tears to cry, as well as embarrassing errors and sometimes
shameful choices to take responsibility for, but even as you’re shaken
to the core by difficult emotions that flood through you, you can attend
to your wounded heart with acknowldgement and self-compassion. In this
way you can enhance the values you would like to grow in yourself, even
as you attend to suffering with friendly and kind attention. In time,
suffering subsides, just like a child’s tears subside after she’s been
rocked and sung to enough. As the pain is lifted, her face changes and
becomes beautiful with the calm after the storm. Know that for you too
there will come a time when you have cried yourself to the end of your
tears and a feeling of peace may surround and embrace you. This is one
of the greatest treasures of mindfulness and self-compassion.
Mindfulness Practice: Self-Compassion Meditation
Self-compassion allows you to be with and care for your own
woundedness and pain and live with your heart wide open. The moment you
embrace the disowned and wounded parts of yourself, the husks of your
old narrative-based self can fall away.
All of us sometimes act unskillfully and make poor choices that hurt
others, and we are all sometimes hurt by the actions of others. Rather
than pushing thoughts and feelings about these things away, and rather
than trying to correct anything or anyone, simply be with the thoughts
and feelings that come up for you with curiosity and acknowledgement and
let them be . As you practice self-compassion meditation, the intention
is to be open to all of your thoughts, emotions, and sensations, to let
all the streams of perception flow through you unfettered. It’s a
practice of being with yourself just as you are.
Give yourself at least twenty to thirty minutes for this practice.
Choose a place to practice where you feel safe and at ease. If you like,
place some objects that are special and comforting to you on a shelf
nearby, or light a candle or arrange some flowers in this space that you
create for yourself. Know that you’re giving yourself a gift of love.
Breathe: Begin by practicing mindfulness of
breathing for ten minutes, returning to the breath with self-compassion
every time you leave it. Let your thoughts and emotions come and go.
Being present…
Recall and notice: Staying in touch with your
breath, recall an emotion that came up for you during the ten minutes of
mindful breathing. Please be wise in picking an emotion that feels
workable to you—you don’t have to choose 10. How about a 5 or 6? If no
prominent emotions came up for you, simply recall a recent experience of
one. Notice what happens in your body as you feel into this emotion and
acknowledge any parts of your body that are affected. Be open to and
present with any other emotions that may come up. Perhaps shame feels
like a rope wrapped around your chest that keeps getting tighter and
makes it hard to breathe. What does the emotion you’re having feel like?
By feeling more deeply into it, you may discover other thoughts and
emotions—perhaps self-hatred that reaches into your gut, where it churns
and twists and hurts. Keep paying attention. Feel more deeply into
what’s happening and stay present in your body. Let whatever happens in
your mind and body happen. Notice if old unwanted memories that have
lain hidden arise. If they do, let them come, and notice how they feel
in the body.
Be kind to yourself. Let everything be in this
unrestricted kind of attention; don’t block anything out. Don’t let the
trance of unworthiness swallow your heart. Stay near the pain with
compassion. It’s the awakened heart that stays with and heals. It’s all
happening right here and now, where your body is. Stay with everything
you’re experiencing, and remember that this practice is about offering
compassion to yourself and feeling that compassion. It’s not about
figuring anything out or fixing or getting rid of anything. Remember, it
all comes down to love, including love for yourself. It all comes down
to what you’re doing in this moment. Use the breath as your way to
remain anchored in the present moment, letting it come and go as it
will.
Let your emotions come and go. In the same way that
you allow your breath to come and go freely, allow your emotions to
come and go freely. Notice any judgments that come up for you as you
allow strong or unwanted emotions to arise. Notice how the judgments
affect your emotions, perhaps blocking them or washing them out, perhaps
calling forth other emotions. Welcome all of your emotions as you
observe and acknowledge the judgments without indulging them.
Stay with compassion. Be with whatever emotions
come up for you with compassion. Welcome each with kindness and meet all
of them with gentleness and tenderness. Hold yourself in the arms of
self-compassion and be present with what you feel. Stay with this
practice and your emotions for as long as you like.
Breathe. When you’re ready to end this practice, return to practicing mindfulness of the breath for ten minutes.
Be grateful. Offer a measure of gratitude to yourself for taking the time to care for yourself in this way.
Take a little time to write in your journal about what came up for
you in this practice. Write about any emotions you noticed being
attached to one another, such as helplessness bringing up fear, or fear
evoking anger. Write about all of the emotions that came up for you here
and whether or how they changed when you held them with
self-compassion.
As you continue to practice self-compassion, you may notice more and
more things about the self you’ve created with all of your old stories.
Perhaps you tried to be especially good to counterbalance the problems
in your family. Perhaps you learned to be generous of yourself as a way
of earning the value you felt you lacked. Self-compassion lets you be
with all of the hurt, loneliness, and fear that the narrative-based self
has concealed. In the wide-open heart of self-compassion, the wounded
child within you will begin to heal.
Dr.
Shigeaki Hinohara, from Japan, turned 104 recently. One of the world's
longest-serving physicians and educators, Hinohara's magic touch is
legendary. Since 1941, he has been healing patients at St. Luke's
International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College of
Nursing. He has published around 15 books since his 75th birthday,
including "Living Long, Living Good", which sold more than 1.2 million
copies. Image source As
the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to
live a long and happy life - a quest in which no role model is better
than the doctor himself. Nearly 10 years ago, he was interviewed, and
gave his advice for a long and healthy life. Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara's
main points for a long and happy life are:
1. All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one thing in common: None are overweight.
For
breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a
tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and
keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I
am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work.
Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams
of lean meat.
2. Always plan ahead.
My schedule book is already full until next year, with lectures and my usual hospital work.
3. There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65.
The
current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the
average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese
people were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around
86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20
years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100...
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4. Share what you know.
I
give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children,
others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes,
standing, to stay strong.
5.
When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask
whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go
through such a procedure.
Contrary
to popular belief, doctors can't cure everyone. So why cause
unnecessary pain with surgery? I think music and animal therapy can help
more than most doctors imagine
6. To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff.
I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.
7. My inspiration is Robert Browning's poem "Abt Vogler."
My
father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not
small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is
no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the
rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.
8. Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it.
If
a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or
she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need
of patients: we all want to have fun. At St. Luke's we have music and
animal therapies, and art classes.
9. Don't be crazy about amassing material things.
Remember: you don't know when your number is up, and you can't take it with you to the next place.
10. Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors.
We
designed St. Luke's so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the
corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare
for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven
right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a
terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two
hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we
lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.
11. Science alone can't cure or help people.
Science
lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is
unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness
and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.
My partner and I had been together
for twenty years when we finally sought help for the long-term
discrepancy in desire between us. I simply didn’t want sex as often as
he did. You know how you don’t want to go to the gym, but always feel
good after the workout? Sex was like that for me. It just wasn’t
something I had the innate desire to do.
My body was disconnected from sexual pleasure. Throughout my entire
life, I heard messages from the world like “women don’t like sex” and
“women who like sex are sluts.” Truth be told, guys don’t have it any
easier. They are constantly asked to “be a man” and at the same time are
receiving messages that they should not show their desire, because that
could be creepy or predatory.
A great part of being an adult is that we get to choose which
messages we want to believe, including messages about sexuality.
However, just choosing to replace these messages with more permissive
beliefs was not going to automatically reconnect my body with desire.
So the first thing I did was talk to my doctor. But my gynecologist was unable to offer a solution. So we started seeing a sex and relationship coach,
and that’s when the real progress started. You might be reading this
and saying: “What the heck is a sex coach?” Turns out, it’s this awesome
person that you can spill your heart out to, who will then look at you
and say, “That makes sense. Those are the beliefs you’ve been taught.
But what do you actually believe? And based on that, what do you want to
do about it?”
My answer to that question was that I believed, buried under the
mountain of negative social messages I had heard my whole life, and my
long and distracting to-do list which previously always seemed to take
precedence over pleasure, that I was a human being with sexual needs and
desires. And I wanted to connect with that part of myself. What
happened next was life-changing for me, so I’d like to share how focused
attention helped me learn to connect with my own sexual pleasure. I affectionately call this mindful practice “Breathing Down to There.”
The goal of this practice is to connect your breath from your lungs all the way down to your pelvic floor. The first time
I did this exercise, I couldn’t make the connection. However, after a
few more tries, I began to notice some warm and tingly feelings in
places that, as I mentioned earlier, seemingly had been on hiatus. It
was as if through this practice I was giving myself permission (maybe
for the first time ever!) to truly enjoy my own sexuality. Inviting my
whole body to become more fully integrated into my overall awareness
practice has not only increased my sexual desire, but given me a greater
sense of overall well-being in life. Sound interesting? Try it out
yourself:
Take a few moments to get comfortable, either sitting up or lying down and then close your eyes.
Spend a few minutes breathing into your chest, noticing your breath
in your lungs and the spread of oxygen from your lungs to the far
reaches of your body like your fingers and your toes. Placing a hand
over your chest may help you be with your body.
Then move your hand down to your belly and breathe there for a few
minutes, noticing whether this is difficult or easy and any other
emotions, sensations, or thoughts arise. As adults, we often tighten
this area of our body unconsciously, so invite those muscles to relax
with each inhale and exhale.
Next, spend time breathing down to your genitals, once again
observing your experiences without judgment. If you begin to feel warmth
and pleasure, give yourself permission to acknowledge those feelings.
Finally, bring your attention back to your whole body by feeling the
outbreath from your belly for a few breaths and then from your lungs
for a few breaths. If it feels right, take a moment to appreciate each
part of your body before opening your eyes.
Each of us has a different set of sexual experiences and needs. When
we feel disconnected from pleasure, simply bringing non-judgmental
awareness to our bodies can help us clear away the baggage of cultural
narratives. And in doing so, we can uncover our own unique sexual story
and gain compassion for ourselves, wherever we are at in our sexual
journey.
Subscribe to learn more about the best mindfulness practices.
In traditional descriptions,
meditation is likened to training a horse. The sensations, impulses, and
reactions in our bodies are like the untamed instincts of an animal,
and when we take our seat in practice, we learn how to ride this energy
with skill. As good equestrians know, the best way to ride a horse is
not trying to control it with fear, force or frustration, but by
confidently offering a partnership. We listen and respond to the horse’s
needs for reassurance, guidance and gentleness, as well as recognizing
its intuitive connection to the earth and environment. Based on what the
horse tells us, we adjust our journey as needed, not losing sight of
our intended destination. In this way, rider and horse can travel in
harmony, each taking charge according to its strengths.
The analogy helps as we understand more about the workings of mind,
brain, and body together. Much human stress comes from our clumsy
handling of animal drives. Whereas a horse just acts in a horse-like
way, following its instincts for better or worse, we are blessed
(sometimes cursed) with the cognitive capacity to reflect on what’s
going on. This brings great power, as we no longer have to follow every
feeling within us, but also great suffering, because our deeply-rooted
drives remain strong, not easily managed by the more recently evolved
skill of self-mastery. When experience is painful, not only does our
body produce urges to fight or flee, but our thinking mind joins in the
act, with desperate attempts to get rid of the pain, usually with
ineffectual problem-solving. Because thinking doesn’t trump feeling,
we’re left in a stressful loop—the frantic ruminations of the mind can be felt by the body as something else to fear, creating more stress, pain, and rumination.
By noticing what’s going on in our bodies and minds, we
step out of the loop of reactivity. Instead of being like a horseman or
woman in a frenetic and futile battle with a frightened mount, we stop
trying to grapple our way to steadiness.
This is where our horse-riding helps. As well as greater cognitive
powers, humans also have access to awareness. By noticing what’s going
on in our bodies and minds, we step out of the loop of reactivity.
Instead of being like a horseman or woman in a frenetic and futile
battle with a frightened mount, we stop trying to grapple our way to
steadiness. Instead we relax and settle in our seat, bumpy though the
ride may be. We might start talking to ourselves kindly and softly, like
a horse whisperer, saying something like: “It’s OK. I know this is
painful right now, and scary too. So let’s work together to move through
this. I’ll hear and acknowledge your distress, recognizing that you’d
like to get away from where we are, and you can trust that I’m steering
well.” Responding to this calm confidence, rather than panic or anger, our bodies may begin to settle too.
As a species, we find ourselves in an “in-between place” (to borrow a
phrase from Pema Chodron). Conscious enough to realize our suffering
and maybe the patterns that lead to it, but not always aware and resilient enough to respond to that suffering wisely. Fortunately, just as our bodies can be strengthened with exercise, so we can train our minds.
By learning how we add stress to our suffering, and training our minds
to do things differently, we can start to step out of the struggle. Life
becomes less like being bucked by a bronco, and a little more akin to
Olympic showjumping. Plenty of hurdles, but a bit more poise.
Try working with this “Horse-Riding” practice, a few times a day, for a few minutes at a time (or longer if you like).
Horse-Riding Practice
Take your seat. Sit on a sturdy chair, if possible
with your upper body upright (not stiffly so) and your feet in contact
with the ground. Imagine yourself taking the dignified posture of a rider on a steed.
Listen to the horse. Notice what’s happening in
your body right now. As best you can. bring an attitude of kindly
interest to your investigation. The intention is not to judge or change
or what’s happening, but to hear what ‘your horse’ is saying, with
attentive respect. Be aware of gut reactions, impulses, and emotions,
which signal your intuitive, animal relationship with what’s going on.
Listen to and acknowledge these powerful feelings, knowing that though
they are powerful and offer important, intuitive information and
motivation, However, also remember they aren’t in sole charge of the
ride.
Acknowledge the rider. Bring awareness to the
cognitive mind, your thoughts. Let go, for now, of creating or following
ideas—just observe, with a friendly curiosity: “What’s going on in my
mind?” Notice any thoughts about how your “horse” is feeling or
reacting, any tendency to want to reject, resist, or try to force the
experience to be different from how it is.
Notice the terrain. Open awareness to the
environment around—notice what can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, and
any corresponding sensations in your body and thoughts in your mind.
What’s it like to be horse-riding in this space, this terrain, here and now?
Come back to center. Check your posture and state
of mind—is your body still steadfastly in touch with the ground?
Upright? Not tense? Is your mind present, awake, attentive? If needed,
re-settle by connecting your attention to the breath in your belly for a
time.
Decide how to ride. Now, ask yourself: Based on
what’s here, in this body, mind, and the world around me, what course
would be helpful to take right now? In which direction, toward what or
whom, shall the onward journey take? Listen to your gut, your heart,
your head, and the feedback you receive from the environment and people
around you. They can all be factored in to deciding your course, though
they may all have different and sometimes apparently conflicting
contributions to make. As best you can, let choices come from a place of
awareness and response to the whole situation—your inner and outer
world. Recognize that there may be no one right course to take, and you
can re-navigate at any time, by checking in again with the rider and
horse. Allow yourself to be still, and not to make a move, if this is
what’s most needed for the moment.
Over the next several weeks practice noting your Inner Critic as you go
about your daily life. Give this voice a nickname if you’d like.
1. Ask yourself, if someone were actually standing next to me and supplying the same commentary, how would I handle it? You’d probably respond with something like, Thanks anyway, but I’m leaving now.
2. Without getting sucked into debate, each time you notice the Inner Critic, take a pause.
3. Breathing in, recognize the voice of criticism, and whatever it’s
implying about you or doing to your emotional state. Acknowledge that
experience without needing to either banish it or rationalize it. This is how I feel right now: tired and insecure and angry.
4. Breathing out, let go. Instead of wrestling with self-judgment,
see it for what it is, and turn your attention somewhere more useful.
Focus only on the sensation of breathing as best as you’re able, without
striving or forcing anything.
5. Wish yourself well, like you would a close friend in distress.
Picture freedom, relief, or ease with each exhalation as an intention
for now or sometime in the future.
One of the central teachings of
mindfulness is that it’s possible to “know” our emotions in different
ways. With sadness for example, depending on how we pay attention, we
can become aware of the momentary, subjective experience of sadness, or
we can follow a conceptual, largely thought-infused view of what it
means to feel sad. We use mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) to help
people experience the distinction between these different modes of
thinking (we’ll call these modes the narrative and experiential modes.)
For the past 10 years researchers have been trying to identify the
specific brain regions that become engaged as people experience their
emotions in these different ways. Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor, but
how do we actually go about investigating these two modes in the brain?
An early approach by Norman Farb and his colleagues
trained study participants to ask themselves a number of questions
about personal traits such as if they felt they were stupid, smart,
trustworthy, or lazy while being scanned by a functional MRI machine.
These questions activated either a narrative/analytic mode (“What does
this say about me as a person?” “Is this a good or a bad thing?”) or an
experiential/concrete mode (“What is occurring from one moment to the
next?” or “What am I aware of in my body?”). Once people were trained,
the researchers looked at how mindfulness training interacted with these
two modes to see whether each had a unique brain response. Two groups
were tested, the first just before enrolling in an MBSR program and the
second after completing the program.
What did they find?
People who were practicing mindfulness showed marked reductions
in activity in a region of the brain often linked to self-evaluation
and analysis (the medial prefrontal cortex). They also showed increased activity in regions linked to direct, moment-by-moment sensory experiences (the lateral prefrontal cortex, especially the insula).
Why we get caught up thinking about ourselves
In non-meditators, there was a strong connection between the two
parts of the brain I described above (right insula and the medial
prefrontal cortex), whereas in those trained in mindfulness these
regions were “uncoupled.”
Here’s what that means: The fact that these two regions are tightly
connected prior to practicing mindfulness suggests that it is usually
very difficult for a person to focus on the moment without setting off
thoughts about the self.
The “uncoupling” of these two parts of the brain that is associated
with mindfulness suggests that the person is now able to maintain
attention on body experience, without automatically activating “stories”
about the self. Having actual data showing this phenomenon is hugely
important, as it supports the notion of a fundamental neural
dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness—narrative and
experiential modes—that are habitually integrated but can be uncoupled
through mindfulness training.
Can we learn to be less self-reflective?
Building on the findings of how mindfulness practice can heighten the
contrast between the narrative and experiential modes of processing,
the next question is whether people can learn how to do this when they
are feeling sad and not just reflecting on self-descriptive adjectives. Farb and colleagues
now returned to the fMRI scanner and asked people who were about to
start or had recently completed Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
(MBSR) to watch sad and neutral film clips while being scanned. For all
participants, the sad film clips were again associated with medial
prefrontal cortex activation (self-evaluation and analysis) as well as
in language centers and regions that direct self-focus and reappraisal.
Lower levels of activity were also found in areas that convey
information about present moment awareness and bodily sensations (the
somatosensory cortex and right insula). What is interesting is that when
the effects of mindfulness training were examined, the group that
completed the 8-week program were less likely to get mentally caught up
in feeling sad than those who had not undergone training. Their brain
patterns changed: the frontal regions that direct self-focus were less
activated, and their moment-to-moment sensory awareness activation of
the insula increased.
How to be present with sadness
If you’ve ever sat in on an MBSR or Mindfulness Based Cognitive
Therapy (MBCT) class you will know that the practice of mindfulness is
used to help you access information about what is occurring in your body
when emotions like sadness are present. Through the practice, you learn
to allow yourself to watch emotions as they arise—without getting
caught up in thinking about them—and to create room for bodily
sensations that accompany emotions. Considering the impact on the brain,
this practice may help restore the balance between neural networks that
support both problem-solving and body-based representations of
emotions, especially when they are tipped too strongly toward the
former. In fact, when we are focusing exclusively on self-referential
problem-solving when we’re sad, we’re more likely to fall into a cycle of depression.
The practice of mindfulness allows us to make a key attentional
shift—we can approach our experiences from an experiential mode rather
than a narrative mode. The brain research indicates that this shift
makes tangible changes to our minds and that training in mindfulness
enables this shift to occur even in the presence of sad thoughts and
feelings. In this way, mindfulness helps us create space for both the
emotion and the self to co-exist, moving in tandem into the coming
moment with a greater capacity for choice and self-care.
By
Chade-Meng Tan
There is no doubt in my mind
whatsoever that meditation can lead to happiness in real life. I know
this because I am myself a rather extreme example. My baseline happiness
used to be misery, which meant that when nothing was happening, I was
miserable. It meant that if something good happened, I would feel
happier for a while but then eventually return to misery. And it meant
that despite the prosperity and recognition and other kinds of worldly
success that came as I grew up, I wasn’t happy. In a couple of years
after I started mind training, my baseline had shifted to jolly, which
means that when nothing was happening, I was jolly. When I experience
something painful, it’s painful, but I eventually return to being jolly.
Wow.
People used to assume that baseline happiness is unchangeable, but I
am living proof that it can be moved from high negative to high positive
with only a few years of practice. It is really about the training.
In my Search Inside Yourself
class, for example, the vast majority of participants did little or no
meditation before the class, but after just a few days or weeks of
meditation, many of them reported meaningful increases in happiness. A 2003 study
yields a similar finding, that just eight weeks of mindfulness training
is enough to cause significant changes in the brain associated with
increased happiness.
These days, I recently realized, I almost never lose my sense of
humor anymore. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “If you want to become
an agent of change, you have to remember to keep your sense of humor.” I
agree: joy is an immensely powerful resource.
Joy Independent of Sensual and Ego Pleasures
There was a man who had a skin condition that made his skin itch all
the time. Every time he scratched his itch, he felt good. Then one day, a
skillful doctor cured him of his skin condition, and he didn’t have to
scratch anymore. He realized that scratching his itch had felt good, but
not having to scratch an itch at all feels even better.
We have a mind condition that makes us itch for two types of
pleasure: pleasure of the senses and pleasure of the ego. When our
senses are pleasantly stimulated, as when we eat something tasty, or our
ego is pleasantly stimulated, as when we are praised for something we
did, we feel joy, which is good. What is even better is if we can feel
joy independent of sense or ego pleasure. For example, when we are
eating chocolate, we experience joy, and when we are just sitting there
not eating chocolate, we still experience joy. In order to do this, we
train the mind to access joy even when it is free from stimulation. This
is also the secret of raising your happiness set point.
To train the mind to access stimulus-free joy, we need to understand
how joy arises independent of sensual stimulation and then cultivate
those skills. They are three: easing, inclining, and uplifting.
Easing into Joy The first skill we need in support of joy on demand is resting
the mind to put it into a state of ease. When the mind is at ease, joy
becomes more accessible, so part of the practice is learning to access
that joy in ease, and then in turn, using the joy to reinforce the ease.
I call this easing into joy: being joyful at rest, no ego stroking or
sensual pleasure required. Cultivating this form of inner joy begins to
free us from overreliance on sense and ego stimulation for pleasure.
This means joy becomes increasingly available anyplace, anytime.
Inclining the Mind Toward Joy Next, we learn to notice joy and give it our full attention. We
learn where to look in order to see and appreciate joy that is already
available to us, in moments that we hadn’t noticed before. There is joy
to be found in a calming breath and in the pleasures of ordinary
activities. We invite this joy in. Inviting and noticing joy become part
of our meditation practice as well as habits in everyday life. In time,
with practice, the mind starts to get to know joy. It becomes familiar
with joy like a close family member we can count on. The more the mind
becomes familiar with joy, the more it perceives joy, inclines toward
joy, and effortlessly creates the conditions conducive to joy.
Uplifting the Mind Here, we learn to uplift the mind with wholesome joy,
especially joy arising from goodness, generosity, loving-kindness, and
compassion. The wholesomeness of such joy benefits mental health the
same way wholesome food benefits physical health. Such joy also leads
the mind into a more stable, collected state because it doesn’t have to
fight with anything like regret or envy. In turn, the stable, collected
mind is more conducive to wholesome joy, thus establishing a virtuous
cycle. With training in easing, inclining, and uplifting the mind comes
the increasing ability to access joy on demand in most normal life
circumstances (i.e., in the absence of overwhelming difficulties such as
losing a livelihood or a loved one).
After Google director Jonathan Berent learned these skills, he
noticed a profound impact on his life. He told me, “I have found that I
can at any moment take a conscious breath and access joy. In fact, this
has been so helpful that I use my watch’s chronometer to remind me to
take at least one breath per hour when I am fully present to it. A
couple years ago, I would have thought this was pointless. Joy on demand? You have to be kidding me. Now it is a reality to me, and I know it’s possible at any moment.”
Someone else I know experienced a change from doing one small
practice in this book for a very short time. Janie had been unable to
sleep well for many years. After practicing attending to the joy of loving-kindness for two minutes,
that night she slept better than she had in years. Now she practices
loving-kindness daily and has been sleeping better since. But wait,
there’s more. The same mental equipment we use to train in uplifting our
minds, inclining toward joy, and easing into joy gives us the strength
and skills we need to deal with difficulties and emotional pain. I
cannot promise that your life will be nothing but joyful in one breath
or hours of training or by the time you reach the end of this book, but I
can promise that whenever you can do these three things—easing,
inclining, and uplifting—what appears to be painful will be less
painful, what is neutral will become joyful, and what is joyful will
become even more joyful.
(This is where you say, “Wow.”)
If you have been unhappy, or you are happy and aspire to be even happier, know that your happiness set point can be upgraded. I know because I did it and I have seen many others do it in the mind training program I taught at Google. I have also seen scientific studies
that have measured it. Of course, Buddhist monks and other
contemplative people have been doing it for thousands of years, but it’s
not something in the water in the Himalayas—it’s something you can do
too, wherever you are.
The same mental equipment we use to train in uplifting
our minds, inclining toward joy, and easing into joy gives us the
strength and skills we need to deal with difficulties and emotional
pain.
You may well ask, if this kind of reliable and lasting joy is so
accessible, why haven’t more people found it? Why does it seem so
elusive? I think the main problem is most people aren’t aware that joy
independent of sensual or ego stimulation is even possible. Or if we’ve
heard of it, many of us think it is unattainable so we don’t even try.
We don’t know it’s something that every single one of us can learn.
Some believe you need a lot of money to experience joy, while others
believe you can only find happiness if you give up everything and live
in a hut in the woods. You might think you need to meditate for many
years to access joy, but you can begin to experience benefits in one
breath. If we think joy comes only from buying stuff, consuming stuff,
becoming a sleazy tycoon, or running for president after becoming a
sleazy tycoon, then joy will be elusive.
In modern society, with modern technology, pleasure is more
accessible than ever, all around us, on demand. Our lack of joy is
certainly not for lack of ways to gratify our egos and senses. However,
the joy that comes from these sources is inherently problematic since it
depends on external factors out of our control.
By contrast, joy that comes from within—from a peaceful mind as a
result of taking a few breaths, joy from being kind toward others (which
involves other people but does not depend on them), joy from our own
generosity, joy from doing the right thing—all this joy is ours to have,
independent of circumstances. If we do accidentally lose our joy, or
something really bad happens and overwhelms us, there’s still joy in
knowing we can get it back. We all have an infinite resource at our
disposal, no matter how constrained or difficult our circumstances, and
that resource is joy. Joy isn’t elusive when you know where and how to
look.
“This excerpt has been adapted from Joy On Demand by Chade-Meng Tan, reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2016. joyondemand.com“
It is absolutely normal to experience some challenges when practicing mindfulness meditation.
Your mind will wander; this happens to everyone. Since you’ve begun
practicing mindfulness with the approaches earlier in the book, there’s
no doubt that you’ve already experienced this. Your mind can be just
like the weather often is—changing all the time. You’ve probably noticed
that you tend to get lost in memories or thoughts about the future,
even in everyday life. For example, when eating breakfast you might be
planning the day ahead or remembering the past, whether marveling at how
wonderful last weekend was or how painful that interaction was that you
had with your spouse last night. It seems that most of our waking hours
are spent thinking about the past or the future, and that we seldom
live in the here and now. As you look closely at the workings of your
mind during mindfulness practice, you’ll start to see how often you
aren’t present.
If you find it difficult to resist criticizing yourself,
consider this: If you weren’t mindful, you wouldn’t even know you’d
wandered off.
Your job isn’t to berate yourself for this, but to simply acknowledge
the wandering and come back to the meditation. If you find it difficult
to resist criticizing yourself, consider this: If you weren’t mindful,
you wouldn’t even know you’d wandered off. What’s important is that you
came back to the present moment. Working with the wandering mind offers
three benefits:
You’re training the brain: Every time you bring the
mind back from wandering, you’re building the muscle of concentration.
It actually is like lifting weights. The mind wanders off and you bring
it back again and again. Through repetition you build muscle mass—and
concentration.
You begin to notice thought patterns: When you come
back into the present moment and notice where you drifted off to, you
can discover elements of doubt, desire, or anger that you were caught up
in. This offers insight into hindrances and difficulties, including how
the judgmental mind creates feelings of deficiency and inadequacy. You
may also become aware of worry, sadness, or confusion, perhaps signaling
that you need to pay closer attention to or deal with certain things in
your life.
You find out it’s not all in your head: You gain an
understanding of the mind-body connection and how the thoughts you
think and emotions you feel have a physical reflection in the body. You
begin to understand how a tight jaw or upset stomach, for example, is
the expression of certain thoughts and emotions in your body.
Other challenges show up in the form of the five hindrances: desire,
anger, restlessness, sleepiness, and doubt. These problems are so
common, predictable, and prevalent in mindfulness practice that many
books on meditation address how to work with them.
Desire or the craving mind, is an aspect of mind
that’s preoccupied with things like wanting to feel good. It spends a
lot of time in fantasies, daydreams, and plans. When you feel unworthy,
you may be consumed with the desire to be better or different. It’s like
a thirst or hunger that seldom lets up.
Anger reflects not being okay with the way things
are. You may feel mad at yourself for being so inadequate. The angry
mind becomes engrossed in aversion, resentment, or hatred.
Restlessness is like a pacing tiger. When your mind
is filled with shame, it becomes unsettled and seethes with unharnessed
energy that’s uncomfortable to sit with and stay with. It can make you
feel like you want to crawl out of your skin, like you need to do
something or go somewhere else.
With sleepiness, your concentration will be dull
and you’ll feel listless or tired or have low energy. Unworthiness,
shame, or inadequacy may feel so overwhelming that you just want to
collapse, disappear, not be here, and go to sleep.
With doubt, you may wonder if meditation serves any
purpose or can help you in any way. You may become filled with
self-doubt and believe that it isn’t possible to heal and be okay with
who you are. This makes it all the easier to fall into the other four
hindrances.
All five hindrances are challenging and can get in the way of your
practice. That’s why it’s so important to notice when they’re occurring
and to be able to name and acknowledge them. As you learned in regard to
the practice of noting, naming in and of itself helps create some
distance, and this will help loosen the grip of the five hindrances. The
moment you realize you’re trapped, you’ve become mindful and can begin
to step out of the trap.
Sometimes the metaphor of a clear pond is helpful in understanding
how to work with the hindrances, as each hindrance obscures your ability
to clearly see the beautiful pebbles at the bottom of the pond. When
you’re in a state of desire, the pond doesn’t appear clear; it’s colored
with the red dye of passion. Your desires color everything. Try to stay
still and breathe mindfully to calm your body and mind. If you’re
angry, the water freezes over and becomes hardened with ice, and this
too obscures your view. Maybe this is a signal to open to the warmth of
compassion. With restlessness, the waters are choppy. Begin to harness
that energy in a constructive way, rather than letting it bite you in
the butt. If you’re sleepy, the waters are covered with algae. Perhaps
it’s best to wake up and recognize that you aren’t going to be here
forever. With doubt, the pond appears cloudy or muddy. This is a signal
to reflect on why you’re doing this practice and what you’ve learned
about yourself so far. May this give you incentive to persevere.
When you become mindful that any of the hindrances are present,
notice how your body and mind feel. Sense the texture of these states
and notice what happens when you become entranced by them. Are you more
at ease with yourself or less?
Mindfulness Practice: Meditation on Breath
If you’re new to meditation, we’d like to offer you a few general
pointers on body position and other physical aspects of practice.
Sitting is generally preferable, but you can also lie down if you’re
able to remain alert, and you can even stand if you like. In any
position, keep your head, neck, and body somewhat aligned. If you sit,
aim for a posture that’s self-supporting, rather than leaning back
against a chair, and make sure your legs can rest comfortably, without
requiring muscle tension to hold them in place. Find a place where you
can rest your hands. Look for your middle way—not too tight and not too
loose, a position where you can be comfortable and alert for the entire
practice. Feel free to have your eyes closed or partially open—whichever
you feel most at ease with. If you keep your eyes partially open, your
gaze should be more inward, on whatever you’re focusing on, rather than
outward, where you may get lost in what you’re seeing. If you find
yourself getting sleepy, you might want to open your eyes or stand up.
The breath is an excellent focus for mindfulness practice. Your
breath is always there, always coming and going. It’s also something
that’s available to you anytime, anywhere.
Give yourself ten to fifteen minutes for this practice.
Begin by bringing your attention to the breath in either your
nostrils or your belly—wherever you feel it most distinctly. As you
breathe in, be aware of breathing in, and as you breathe out, be aware
of breathing out. Let the breath come and go as it will, normally and
naturally. Let the felt sense of the breath coming and going be your way
to be present for the full duration of the in breath and the full
duration of the out breath. Letting yourself be…
There’s no need to visualize anything or regulate the breath in any
way. There’s no need to engage thoughts or words or phrases of any kind.
Just be mindful of breathing in and breathing out, without judgment,
without striving. Just watch the breath ebbing and flowing like waves in
the sea.
Notice the inevitable moments when your attention wanders from the
breath. When this happens, don’t criticize or berate yourself. Simply
acknowledge where you went, perhaps into the future or the past, or
engaging in some kind of judging. Just return to the breath, again and
again, every time you leave it.
There’s nothing to accomplish, nothing to pursue, nothing to do but
simply sit and be where you are, noticing your breathing. Living your
life one inhalation and one exhalation at a time…
As you come to an end of this meditation, please extend some
appreciation and congratulations to yourself for giving yourself this
gift of mindfulness.
Curiosity killed the cat. Or did it? Research suggests it keeps us—and other animals—sharp.
By
Sharon BegleyIllustration by Sébastien Thibault
Is actor Kirk Douglas alive or dead? When did Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman get divorced? What’s U2 frontman Bono’s real name? Unless you’re a
close personal friend of any of these celebrities, knowing the answer
has no meaningful effect on your life—yet if you’re anything like the
office full of people I tried this on you’re at least a little itchy to
whip out your phone or dash over to your computer for answers. There’s
even a website (or two… or three… ) devoted entirely to informing you
which famous people have shuffled off this mortal coil.
Curiosity. It has “its own reason for existing,” physicist Albert
Einstein wrote, and is, according to 18th-century English writer Samuel
Johnson, “the first passion and the last.” We all know what killed the
cat, so perhaps 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes was right when he
called curiosity “the lust of the mind”—since in a lustful state we
(and perhaps felines?) toss self-preservation to the winds. But
considering how common curiosity is, scientists who study the mind are
only beginning to fathom where it comes from, what it’s good for, and
what happens when we have a lot or not much of it.
Although there are tantalizing hints to all these questions,
definitive answers remain elusive, which is… curious. “Curiosity is a
basic component of human nature,” said Benjamin Hayden, an assistant
professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of
Rochester. “Just think of how much time we spend browsing the Internet,
reading, or just gossiping. Nature seems to have endowed us with a
desire for information that’s so strong it operates even when it doesn’t
help us go out and hunt down a woolly mammoth.”
This need to know propels children to look under rocks and behind
curtains, dogs to sniff a stranger, busy people to look up answers to
trivia questions. In many cases curiosity is not in service of our basic
needs for food, reproduction, and overall survival. That’s all
evolution supposedly cares about. So how can curiosity be such a
central, unshakeable mental trait that it is wired into primate brains
by eons of evolution? When lab monkeys are given a choice between two
games, each of which has a 50-50 chance of winning them a sip of juice,
they prefer the game where they learn whether they won or lost
immediately, thus instantly satisfying their curiosity, even when the
actual payoff (juice) arrives no sooner. “The monkeys’ choice of an
option that immediately resolves uncertainty suggests how strong the
drive is to satisfy curiosity,” Hayden said. Monkeys are even willing to
pay for that: They’ll give up 25% of the promised juice reward if they
can learn immediately whether or not it’s coming. As Hayden and his
Rochester colleague, Celeste Kidd, explained in a 2015 paper in Neuron,
“Monkeys choose information even when it has a measurable cost.”
Pigeons, too, will pay to satisfy their curiosity, giving up one-third
of a promised food reward if it will buy them information, a 2010 study
found.
People behave much the same. Study after study shows we are willing
to pay for answers to trivia questions right now even though we could
have looked up the answers for free later. Trivia information “is
demonstrably useless,” Hayden said. Yet we’re wired to want it anyway:
Brain regions that become active when contemplating the arrival of a
reward are also active when people feel curiosity. “We’re just starting
to open up the brain with neuroimaging and see where curiosity is
happening,” Hayden said, “but the fact that it’s associated with reward
circuits supports the idea that curiosity makes us anticipate a reward,”
satisfying our cognitive hunger.
With its deep evolutionary roots, curiosity can be so compulsive it makes us binge-watch Breaking Bad
(what happens next??!!), and feel anxious and deprived if one of
our favorite shows is cancelled before all the plotlines are resolved (Forever,
I’m looking at you). Such a strong drive, some biologists believe, must
have benefits. Otherwise evolution would have snuffed it out,
especially since too much curiosity, or misplaced curiosity, can be
deadly (I wonder what these wild mushrooms taste like?). “The perils of
curiosity suggest it must have some real, and important, survival
benefits to balance out risks,” said Hayden. “We think curiosity
activates learning systems in the brain.”
That jibes with what the founder of American psychology, William
James, proposed in 1899: that curiosity is “the impulse toward better
cognition.” That idea has stood the test of time. The best way to
understand curiosity, cognitive scientists believe, is as the mental
analogue of physical hunger: Just as the feeling of an empty stomach
drives the search for food (good for survival), so the feeling that
there is a growling hole in your store of knowledge drives the search
for information. This feeling of cognitive deprivation, and the
attendant urge to sate that intellectual hunger, is “associated with
persistence and solving problems,” German and American researchers
reported in a 2013 study in the Journal of Individual Differences.
That may be why the most curious children are the best learners. A
2011 review of about 200 individual studies concluded that, although
intelligence is the strongest predictor of academic success, curiosity
plus effort “rival the influence of intelligence,” scientists in Britain
and Switzerland wrote in Perspectives on Psychological Science. “A ‘hungry mind,’” they concluded, “is a core determinant of individual differences in academic achievement.”
The link between curiosity and learning persists well into adulthood.
In a 2015 study, scientists had younger adults (average age: 20) and
older adults (average age: 73) read 60 trivia questions such as, “what
product is second, only to oil, in terms of the largest trade volumes in
the world?” and “what was the first nation to give women the right to
vote?” Everyone rated how curious they were about the answer, which they
were given. Curiosity had a substantial effect on how likely the older
adults (but not the younger) were to recall the answers a week later,
psychologist Alan Castel of the University of California, Los Angeles,
and colleagues reported in Psychology and Aging.
Curiosity is the mental equivalent of physical hunger:
Just as the feeling of an empty stomach drives the search for food, so
the feeling that there is a growling hole in your store of knowledge
drives the search for information.
And about that dead cat: Research suggests curiosity can keep us
young. A 1996 study of 2,153 70-ish men and women found that the more
curious they were, in general as well as when presented with questions,
the more likely they were to be alive in five years. It was the first
study to identify curiosity as a predictor of longevity.
How might one stir up curiosity, and boost not only memory but
longevity? Since curiosity reflects cognitive deprivation, the analogy
to physical hunger applies: “A small amount of information whets the
appetite for more,” said Hayden. So sample lots of what information
sources have to offer and let your curiosity run wild.
Oh, and if you’re curious about the answers: The researchers posit
that coffee is the second-most widely traded global commodity and New
Zealand led the way in women’s suffrage. If you’re wondering about those
celebrities I mentioned, indulge your curiosity. It’s good for you.
The more periods of low moods we have in life, the more likely we are to fall back into them again.
Here's a mindfulness practice to break the cycle of ruminating thoughts that keep us stuck.
Mindful recommends that anyone
with depression or mood disorders consult a mental health professional
before beginning or altering any course of treatment. Our articles do
not constitute professional medical advice for your precise
circumstances.
Everyone at some point in their life will be affected by depression
whether it’s their own or someone they are close to. Almost 19 million
Americans alone have periods where they feel a lack of pleasure or
interest in their usual activities combined with feeling tired and
heavy, potentially overly emotional or numb, and an onslaught of negative and self defeating thoughts that can keep invading the mind over and over again.
The more periods of this depressed mood we have in life, the more
likely we are to fall back into them again. Why does this relapse occur
and how can mindfulness offer hope?
Falling into a depression feels traumatic. Just like getting bit by a
dog causes us to be fearful of and oversensitive to dogs, our minds and
bodies become oversensitive to associations with the depression causing
us to react to any sign of it. Feeling low mood is normal for everyone,
but if we’ve experienced depression in the past, this may be a trigger
for thinking depression is about to set in again.
If we feel tired or if we notice sadness, the mind pops up with the worry “uh oh, that is how I felt when I was depressed,
maybe I’m getting depressed.” Our minds begin to go into overdrive with
negative self judgments, “I am a failure” or “I am weak” or “I am
worthless.” It then tries to solve the mystery as to why we are becoming
depressed again. The more it tries to solve this puzzle, the deeper it
sinks into depression. Think of a worried, judging person coming at you
trying to solve your problems when you’re already not feeling well.
Probably not what you’re looking for.
You see, it’s not the low mood that’s the problem here, it’s the way
we get stuck in habitually relating to it that pours kerosene on the
fire, with our minds continuing to fan the flame with rumination rolling
us into a full blow depression.
How does mindfulness help?
The practice of mindfulness teaches us a different way to relate to our thoughts, feelings, and emotions as they arise.
It is about learning to approach and acknowledge whatever is happening
in the present moment, setting aside our lenses of judgment and just being with whatever is there, rather than avoiding it or needing to fix it. It’s the mind’s attempt to avoid and fix things in this moment that fuels the negative mood.
If sadness is there, instead of trying to fix it or figure it out, we
might just acknowledge the sadness and let it be. If self-judgments
arise (e.g., I am weak, I am a loser) out of past sensitivities to
having been depressed before, we can acknowledge that they are
associations from the past, let them be, and then gently bring ourselves
back to whatever we were doing. In doing this, we’re stopping the ruminative cycle that might occur between our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that can play off one another leading us to a relapse.
Now, this is easier said than done and it takes practice.
It’s the mind’s attempt to avoid and fix things in this moment that fuels the negative mood.
A classic, natural antidepressant practice
One way to practice mindfulness is to use the breath as an object of
awareness. You can place attention at the tip of the nose or the belly
and as you breathe in, just acknowledge the breath coming in and as you
breathe out, acknowledge the breathe going out, as if you were greeting
and saying goodbye to an old friend. When the mind wanders—as it will
always do—just say to yourself “wandering” and then gently bring your
attention back to the breath, noticing it coming in and going out. Most
of us catch the mind wandering and gently repeat this several billion
times, so know that it is normal for the mind to wander often. You can
do this for as little as one minute or as much as 30 minutes or more.
Practice this when you’re feeling well and you’ll be better able to
recognize when your mind wanders off to ruminations and self judgments
when you’re not feeling well. If you’re not feeling well and the mind
begins to ruminate, as you practiced with the breath, just label it as
“ruminating” and then gently bring your attention back to whatever you
were doing. Being more present may also give you the ability to be more
flexible and call a friend or do something that then gives you pleasure
or connection with others. This is an act of self care and helps stop
the cycle of rumination. It cultivates more patience, compassion, and
peace.
It’s often helpful to be guided with a voice in doing these practices with audio guidance or in person, however, you can absolutely do this on your own as well.
I’m
writing this article in a state of meditation. And there’s no editing
required (for the first round, anyway). How am I accomplishing this? And
how could you join in the fun? Follow these instructions to find out:
Set a timer for 30 minutes.
Carve out some dedicated time for this practice. This is because the
initial part of your writing is a bit of a detox—you’re releasing
superfluous thoughts. And as time goes by, you’ll find your train of
thoughts will begin to expand…with a bit of curiosity and experience!
Keep your eyes closed. If
you’re able to touch-type at your computer keyboard, great. If that’s
not possible for you, you might want to try this exercise on a notepad
with a pen or pencil. But in that case, unless you’re some kind of
writing genius, keep your eyes open.
At the end of every sentence, stop for a full in-breath and out-breath.
Really. Every single full stop means: inhale and exhale. Try to bring
feelings of warmth, kindness, and friendliness to each breath. Not so
much thinking positive thoughts, but feeling that feeling you get when
you look at a little cute puppy or baby. If you find yourself yawning,
that’s okay. You probably need some rest to unwind. Good news: a writing
meditation is a perfect way to do that. If you do somehow fall asleep
on your keyboard or notes, congratulations—you really needed that sleep.
Begin with no clear aim. So
what to write about? I started with no clear aim. I wasn’t planning to
write this particular blog post. The first 15 minutes of my writing was
pretty funny and random and centred around my present moment feelings in
my mind and body. And then this blog post emerged. That is the beauty
of this meditation. No forcing. Just letting things emerge naturally.
Finding your own way. And just because I used this method, doesn’t mean
you need to copy. You may prefer to write on paper and pause every
paragraph rather than every sentence. You may like to start with a clear
aim, or at least a general idea of what you’re going to write about.
Use your gut feelings and do what feels right for you.
I write a sentence after every
breath. By that I mean, I keep writing. I don’t just sit in the silence
waiting for inspiration. I write whatever emerges in my head. And if
there’s nothing in my head, I write that there’s nothing in my head.
That helps to keep the flow. Sometimes, especially at the beginning,
when I stop writing to breathe after every sentence, I feel like I’m
losing my flow. But after about ten minutes or so, I get used to it. My
body relaxes and words emerge.
Try to find time to write regularly—perhaps
once or twice a week if it suits your schedule. I’d do this practice
daily if I had the time. You’ll find writing topics that suit your
style, too: maybe you’d enjoy writing in a gratitude journal,
where you keep a physical recording of a few things during the week
that made you feel great. Or maybe you’ll want to keep things loose and
tuned to whatever rises in the present moment.
You may be wondering, “What’s the point of journaling, Shamash?” Here are some the benefits I’m enjoying right now as I write:
My body feels happy and relaxed.
My mind feels calm and peaceful.
I’ve gently entered into a meditative state without having to fully stop “doing stuff.”
I’m doing something different, so it feels fun and exciting. And having fun is a really important value and experience for me.
So go ahead and give this mindful
writing exercise a try and let us know how it goes for you in the
comments. And if you already have a different kind of mindful writing
practice, let us know too—I’m curious!
