I am
not going to pretend I am an expert in mindfulness. I have, however, been
developing my own personal practice for over two years now and I have dedicated
a lot of time to learning about mindfulness and finding ways to practice it in
my everyday life (I even wrote a dissertation on it so will attempt to say I know a lot
of stuff…).
What I have realised is that there are is so much that people do
not know about mindfulness. A google search on mindfulness can be quite daunting…
there is so much information, so many websites, so many practices and so much
advice. I know it can be off putting because it put me off to in the beginning!
As a result I decided to make a post that has some key things you need to know
about mindfulness. Busting some myths, giving you some websites for great
practice guidance, and just generally trying to summarise mindfulness in all its
glory to encourage you to think about becoming more mindful. I hope you find it useful... enjoy!
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Have you ever heard of mindfulness or mindful meditation?
If so, what are your perceptions of it? What do you believe
it is?
I can bet some of things can come to mind: ohm, budda, meditation,
airy-fairy, nonsense, difficult, not practical, breathing, hippy…
Some of this, yes, is associated with mindfulness but there
is so much more to it than just meditation. And yes it can be difficult but
like all things that are good for us, practice and perseverance lead to
incredible results.
The only thing that you need to know about mindfulness is
this:
Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgementally.
-Jon Kabat Zinn (the Perez Hilton of Mindfulness)
The main idea behind mindfulness is that instead of being
mindLESS we are mindFUL. Instead of passively ignoring thoughts and feelings
and emotions, we are actively attending to these thoughts, feelings and
emotions and accepting them for HOW THEY ARE. Instead of trying to change our
thoughts – negative or positive – we are changing the way we process these
thoughts.
With mental health and emotional wellbeing difficulties on
the rise globally, and with a vast number of these problems stemming from
negative and maladaptive thought processes, it is therefore no surprise that
mindfulness has emerged as a simple, accessible and holistic approach to
managing these problems.
Note: MINDFULNESS IS NOT A TREATMENT FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS, IT IS A TOOL
THAT PEOPLE WITH THESE DIFFICULTIES CAN INDEPENDENTLY USE TO MANAGE THEIR
THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. It can be used in this way as a tool in a person’s
therapy and recovery of mental health difficulties but it is also encouraged to
be something that more people are engaging in as a successful preventative
measure for developing any mental health or emotional wellbeing difficulties.
Another wizz in the bizz (I laugh at myself for this so feel free to laugh at me too...), Professor Mark Williams, sums up how mindfulness works pretty well in my opinion (he is the expert so I my opinion is pretty much invalid anyway):
"Mindfulness allows us to become more aware of the stream of thoughts and feelings that we experience, and to see how we can become entangled in that stream in ways that are not helpful.This lets us stand back from our thoughts and start to see their patterns. Gradually, we can train ourselves to notice when our thoughts are taking over and realise that thoughts are simply 'mental events' that do not have to control us.Most of us have issues that we find hard to let go and mindfulness can help us deal with them more productively. We can ask: 'Is trying to solve this by brooding about it helpful, or am I just getting caught up in my thoughts?'Awareness of this kind also helps us notice signs of stress or anxiety earlier and helps us deal with them better."
- Professor Mark Williams
Mindful Practice
There are many different mindfulness practices available –
you will find a world of resources online both paid and free. For example:
guided mindful meditation podcasts – 5, 10, 30, 60 minutes etc. and websites
which outline meditation practices for different topics such as anxiety,
forgiveness, self-love, compassion, depression, stress, resentment, conflict,
anger and the list goes on.
You will also find a wealth of information about how to use
your understanding of mindfulness to be more mindful in everyday tasks. Mindful
walking, mindful sleeping, mindful eating, mindful listening, mindful talking,
mindful breathing and so on.
There are more structured 8-week mindfulness courses that
you can pay for with a trained mindfulness teacher/practitioner, which can be
more therapeutic courses. Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and
mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) are popular examples. These can be
offered as a treatment for things such as anxiety and depression but anyone can
take these courses if they prefer a more informative, structured and
acknowledged form of mindfulness training.
For beginners I would recommend this 5 minute mindful meditation practice from mindful.org. The mindful.org practice archive is an excellent
resource for those wanting to try out various guided mindfulness meditation.
Making it Your Own
When doing mindfulness meditation and focusing on your
breath, there may be different ways that you learn to re-focus. I, for example,
take a bigger breath in and focus on an imaginable ball expanding in my stomach to
re-focus on my breath. There is no such thing as a “perfect” mindfulness
practice – there is no right or wrong in mindfulness. It is all about what
works for you. The only thing you need to remember are the three key things: on purpose,
present moment, non-judgementally.
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I’ve been working on an emotional support guide for teens at
work. As part of that I worked on producing an easy to digest summary of
what mindfulness is with some tasters of what it’s like to practice mindfulness
and so on to give to colleagues and students... which is where I got my idea for
this blog post! I hope you have enjoyed it and found it informative. I hope
that it inspires you to now delve into the world of mindfulness and start
living more mindfully!
xo
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