What is Mindfulness and why all the hype?

Have you ever arrived at the office or the grocery store and couldn’t remember driving there? That's a sign of how parts of your life may just be on auto-pilot. What else are you missing out on? At the risk of sounding like a soap opera intro, we have one life to live so actually being present in it rather than letting it pass us by seems like a no-brainer.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his book Wherever You Go, There You Are, says that he thinks of "mindfulness simply as the art of conscious living." Maybe simple but not easy, especially considering the vastness of the subject.

I like to describe mindfulness as bringing mind and body together so they occupy the same space and time, which is here and now. At the foundation, the idea is to be awake and aware in each present moment. You may have read or interpreted that mindfulness is a practice that intends to push thoughts and feelings away. Actually, mindfulness is about being aware of thoughts and feelings in a kind of "meta" experience. It means that when you have a thought, you don't get caught up and distracted by the thought, and when you experience an emotion you don't allow it to take over. Almost like being a witness of your own self, you realize you feel something or are having a distracting thought while you are trying to be present in a conversation with a loved one, or focused on a bit of work, or while you're enjoying playtime with the kids.

Let's say for example that your spouse is telling you something that happened that day. You notice knots in your stomach, maybe heat rising in your cheeks, maybe a slight seizing in the chest area. Maybe for you, these are the physical sensations of anger. When you notice these feelings and are aware of what's causing them, you have an opportunity in that moment to respond rather than react. So instead of throwing your hands up and raising your voice or pointing your finger or banging the table with your fist, you might more calmly say, "I disagree because..." or "I feel angered by what you've said because..." And there is a conversation rather than an argument.

And in noticing how you felt in that moment, you didn't judge yourself. You didn't say to yourself, "I'm a bad person for being angry about this" or "I'm ashamed to feel this way," or "Anger is a negative emotion." You didn't stifle it or turn away from it. You discerned the emotion and responded rather than judged (yourself or your spouse) and reacted.

In the relatively simple example, you can see why mindfulness is a big deal, why being present and having present moment awareness can be life changing. Mindfulness can also lead to a host of other benefits including:

• reduced heart-rate and blood pressure

• improved sleep and digestion

• reduced stress levels

• increased pain tolerance (both physical and emotional)

• a sense of equanimity and balance

• improved ability to cope with anxiety

• healthy aging, memory retention and combating loneliness

• healthier relationships

• gratitude for life itself and everything and everyone in it

A mindfulness practice is a way to bring awareness into our every day lives, a way of cultivating presence in as many moments as possible. Firstly it's a practice, like practicing a musical instrument, practicing a role for a play, practicing skills in a sport and so on. Mindfulness practice cultivates presence, awareness, equanimity.

The formal sitting practice where we become the object of our own meditation, the object of our own observation, is one of myriad ways to practice. Maybe right about now if you’re a person of a certain age, maybe you’re having an Allen Iverson 2002 press conference moment: “What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man?” Yes we are. Just like learning to play a sport or a musical instrument, parallel parking, or magic tricks, living in the present moment takes practice. When we were babies we just simply lived in the present moment all the time until our brains started to develop, so we have to unlearn some things through practice. Other ways to practice besides sitting include moving meditations such as a mindful walk, yoga, tai chi, and xi gong. You can even practice mindfulness when washing dishes, taking out the trash, or brushing your teeth.

The practice, regardless of the method you choose to practice, is really about being present with yourself as the object of meditation, being curious, taking notice, being aware of how you feel physically, emotionally and so on. What is the experience of being you in this moment?

What exactly are we practicing? The crux of practice is noticing when you’re no longer in the present moment. It sounds pretty “meta,” right? Like your brain has a brain? The job of the brain is to think and so it goes in a thousand directions all the time, maybe problem solving, driving to the grocery on auto-pilot as mentioned earlier, thinking about what quippy thing you should have said in that staff meeting three days ago, or making a mental honey-do list for the weekend. Drawing the attention to what you’re experiencing through your senses in the present moment is a way to get your brain to focus but it will inevitably wander off.

Ultimately the practice is noticing when your mind is wandering and nudging it gently back to the focal point. It’s not good or bad or right or wrong that your mind wandered - it did what it naturally does. So train it to keep coming back to your focal point in the present moment. The more you do it, eventually the more natural it will be for the brain to stay where your body is. What's the focal point? The breath is usually a good focal point unless it triggers anxiety or similar issues. Breath is always with you no matter where you are so you can practice anywhere, anytime when using breath as the focal point. Be aware of the sensation of inhaling and the sensation of exhaling. Notice all the little details of what it feels like to breathe. And when you get distracted, notice that, too, and come back to the breath.

I encourage you to build up a habit of mindfulness practice, starting with a sitting meditation. Sit for a few minutes at a consistent time on a consistent basis, building up to a point of being able to practice daily if you can, and also not beating yourself up if you can’t. Try to think of it not as another thing on your to-do list, not as a chore to be checked off as completed or left undone, but rather as a gift to yourself - a few moments to just focus on you, to just be and experience and accept you just as you are, and have a few minutes as a human being rather than a human doing.

In a future blog entry I'll share some photos and descriptions of a few options for a comfortable seated position for meditation. Use this form to send comments and questions about your experiences as well as any topics you’d like to read about on the blog.