Mindfulness 101

At its most basic premise, mindfulness is the ability to notice: notice what is happening in your mind and body, what is happening in your environment, and how your mind and body are interacting with your environment. Mindfulness is not about changing. Mindfulness is about observing.

Mindfulness can be applied in every aspect of a person’s life and will help every intervention. It is truly the magic pill that you take every single day to help you to more fully experience and appreciate your existence.

How is Mindfulness Different Than Meditation?

Mindfulness is not the same as meditation. Meditation is one way to develop mindfulness.

“A lot of people teach meditation as if the goal is the treat your mind like an unruly teenager and make it shut up…” (David Nichtern in Midnight Gospel).

This is not the case! Mindfulness is about observing those thoughts as they come up, and then practicing bringing your attention back to the present moment.

Mindfulness can be thought of as dynamic meditation that is applied to everything as opposed to static meditation that is done for a set amount of time with a beginning and an end.

Why Mindfulness?

In the act of noticing, we deconstruct and reduce the functions of the mind and the body to smaller parts. In directing attention to the space in between, a person begins to see the functions “as they truly are: just physical and mental qualities or phenomenon … that come and go according to certain conditions. When we see them as such, they lose their hold over us” (Rupert Gethin in Handbook of Mindfulness).

Gethin describes mindfulness as remembering. Like the scripture, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2), mindfulness is also a practice of gratitude. Christians are often reminded, as young children even, to always remember their blessings as a way to encourage and promote happiness. Mindfulness encourages experiencing life and your surroundings as they happen and finding satisfaction in the moment.

Through mindfulness we can cultivate enjoyable moments, leading to enjoyable memories, which in turn cultivates enjoyable existence. Even as this moment happens, it immediately becomes a memory. If we can notice and be aware of those things that are enjoyable or satisfactory, we can cultivate joy and satisfaction in our memories. And as we work to understand the notion of “self,” or the idea of who we are in relation to the world around us, each passing moment becomes something to remember.

All memories are made up, so why not make up the best ones you can?

Buddhist Psychology

Buddhism emphasizes contentment as a pathway to peace and happiness and offers mindfulness as the roadmap to get there. As Gethin points out, mindfulness therapies today “point to Buddhist traditions of mindfulness as a significant source and inspiration [and] modern therapeutic and scientific discussions of mindfulness claim a connection with traditional Buddhist discourse.”

With any technique is important to understand and feel comfortable with the theory and intention guiding the technique. Techniques are useful, even necessary, but they are not the whole picture. Perfect technique is not the goal in mindfulness; the goal is peace of mind, happiness, and contentment.

Finding Balance

In mindfulness we practice radical self-acceptance. We accept and honor every thought or feeling as important. Every thought, feeling, or mood is not necessarily true or accurate, nor permanent, and does not need to lead to any action. If we think of them instead of rocks being added to a counter-balance scale, we recognize the need to find balance between healthy and unhealthy, helpful and unhelpful, and distressing and enjoyable.

A person’s greatest hurdle to growth is the fear of authenticity and vulnerability. When we show ourselves in our entirety – the prideful and the shameful – we stand completely exposed and at risk of the ultimate rejection. That precipice is where the counselor or therapist waits to embrace the client.

This is also where dialectics are helpful. By eliminating “but” from our vocabulary and replacing it with “and” we train our brains to begin holding conflicting thoughts or feelings as both being true and/or important.

Polyvagal and Fight-Flight-Freeze Response

When we go into fight/flight/freeze our pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for logical, rational, higher thinking, goes offline and we begin responding from our amygdala, or lizard brain. We become like the feral animal cornered and fighting for our life. A healthy individual will jump into the shallow end of fight or flight every day. When our car gets cutoff on the freeway or when we walk around a corner and are startled by someone. These happen every day and a healthy system jumps into fight or flight, can tolerate it, and then quickly self-regulates back to “green.” An unhealthy system will jump into fight or flight and then find themselves stuck. When fight or flight becomes too much, the system goes into freeze.

Studies show there are four things, which when done consistently, help a person to tolerate and self-regulate. They are proper nutrition (don’t forget hydration for us desert-dwellers), exercise (moving your body every day for the sake of moving your body), sleep (quality and quantity), and mindfulness.

There are several ways to reengage the prefrontal cortex when it goes offline. The three most effective ways I have found are curiosity, connection, and mindfulness. To use curiosity, think of yourself as an anthropologist to yourself. What are the physiological responses in your body? What triggered these responses? When did this begin? And so on. Connection happens to other living things, first people, then animals, then nature. When we connect to and feel the connection with other living things, we use empathy and reconnect to our higher selves through the prefrontal cortex. And finally, through mindfulness exercises like body scans, progressive muscle relaxation, 4-7-8 breathing, and numerous other ways, we also reengage the prefrontal cortex and work towards decreasing arousal and back to “green.”

How-to

Any meditation practice often feels overwhelming for the novice. I often hear that meditation doesn’t work because of ADHD, time, children, and on and on. Teaching mindfulness to the beginning practitioner should feel easy. I always start with 1-2 minutes of slow, focused breathing a day.

Slow, focused breathing is a great way to build habits which will help in all areas of mental health treatment and general physical and mental well-being. A habit of intentional and deliberate breathing builds mind-body connection which helps to identify thoughts, feelings, and needs before they become demons; builds the habit of slowing down; and builds the habit of checking in with the self, which also increases intuition.

In teaching mindfulness to beginners, I most often teach them the basics of slow, focused breathing and encourage them to do it anytime and anywhere. Basic, easy to remember tips help the beginner to feel as if mindfulness habits are easily accessible.

Start with 1-2 minutes a day, 5.5 breaths a minute for a 12 second breath cycle. If a person is anxious, a longer exhale by a couple seconds will help to calm the system down. If a person is depressed or needs a boost of energy, a longer inhale by a couple seconds will help to excite the system. Slowly building up the number of minutes and frequency of this practice builds the neural pathways and makes for stronger habits.

This is generally where I also tell people that there is no right or wrong way to do this. If someone is having trouble focusing on their breath and often finds they mind wandering, practice radical self-acceptance and non-judgement. Thoughts are only to be noticed and observed. Like clouds in the sky, thoughts come and go. Notice them and then come back to your breath.