Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World (20 page)

So if we are imagining watching a movie, we need to be aware, not only of what’s on the screen, but the whispers that
come as if from the seat behind us. The cinema has “surround sound”! And if we are imagining sitting on the bank of a stream, then we need to be aware that there may be a tributary to the same stream that is running behind us as well as in front. Some thoughts just don’t feel like thoughts, and these require our special attention, and special reserves of quiet patience. In these times of maximum stress and confusion, we learn the most, for it is when we see the most compelling thoughts as mental events—rather than truly reflecting reality—that we glimpse the possibility of freedom most of all.

If some of these practices seem a little repetitive,
it’s because they are.
Meditation is a simple practice that gains its power from repetition. It’s only through this that we can become aware of the repeating patterns in our own minds. Ironically, meditative repetition frees us from endlessly repeating our past mistakes and the automatic pilot that drives self-defeating and self-attacking thoughts and actions. Through repetition, we gradually tune into the subtle differences that each moment brings.

Think of the meditation as planting seeds. You give young seeds the right conditions, but you don’t try to dig them up each day to see if they’ve grown roots. Meditation is like cultivating a garden: your experience deepens and changes, but this takes place in horticultural time, not clock time.

Now that you have become familiar with practicing the Three-Minute Breathing Space meditation twice a day (see p.
132
),
you can also use it any time you feel under pressure or when you think it will help you. In time, you will find that you can effortlessly slip in Breathing Spaces whenever you need them. Don’t be afraid to use it as many times as you wish. If you feel unsettling or self-attacking thoughts welling up inside you, you can take a Breathing Space to regain perspective.

Used in this way, the Breathing Space is infinitely flexible. You can extend it or shorten it to fit the circumstances you find yourself in. For example, if you feel anxious before a meeting, you may simply close your eyes, and gently run through the practice in the space of a minute or so. Fifteen-year-old Sue-Ellen used the Breathing Space when going into the lessons she found most difficult. As she walked into the classroom, she’d take three breaths to ground herself, gathering her attention on breath and body, ready for whatever would come up in the lesson. In Sue-Ellen’s case the Breathing Space took a few seconds at most. But if you feel ready to explode with anger, or feel any other powerful emotion, you could decide to take ten minutes over the Breathing Space. In any case, see if you can retain the hourglass shape we referred to in the previous chapter (see p.
133
), with the three distinct “steps,” starting by acknowledging the weather pattern of your mind and body. In this first step, you may find it helpful to ask what
thoughts, feelings, body sensations and impulses
are arising from moment to moment. Then, making a graceful shift to the second step, gather and ground yourself by focusing on the breath, before finally opening the focus of attention to your body as a whole in the third step.

When you are in line in a supermarket, see if you can become aware of your reactions when something holds up your progress. Perhaps you joined the “wrong” line, and are obsessing about whether to make a dash for another one that seems shorter? at these times, it is helpful to “check in” with what’s going on in your mind; seeing what mode of mind you are in. Taking a moment to ask yourself:

 

• What is going through my mind?
  
 

 

• What sensations are there in my body?
  
 

 

• What emotional reactions and impulses am I aware of?
  
 

If you find that you are swept along with needing to “get on,” frustrated that things are going more slowly than you had expected, then it is likely that you are in automatic Doing mode. That’s fine: it’s not a mistake. The mind is doing its best.

Mindfulness accepts that some experiences are unpleasant.

Mindfulness will, however, help by allowing you to tease apart the two major flavors of suffering—primary and secondary. Primary suffering is the initial stressor, such as the frustration of being in a long line. You can acknowledge that it is not pleasant; but it’s OK not to like it. Secondary suffering is all of the emotional turbulence that follows in its wake, such as anger and frustration, as well as any ensuing thoughts and feelings that often arise in tandem. See if you can see these clearly as well. See if it’s possible to allow the frustration to be here without trying to make it go away.

Stand tall. Breathe. Allow. Be here.

This moment, too, is a moment of your life.

You may still feel pulses of frustration and impatience while you are in line, but these feelings will be less likely to spiral out of control. You may even become, for yourself and for others around you, an oasis of stillness.

The Breathing Space isn’t just designed to forestall problems—it’s also very useful when your mind has already run away with itself. If you’re overwhelmed with sadness, anger, anxiety or stress, then a Breathing Space is the perfect way to ground yourself and regain awareness. In these moments of high emotion and frantic thought, you may learn as much (or more) about your mind than in the formal practices. You may sense the tension in your body, your disturbed breathing and your mind’s fevered hopping from thought to thought, each with its own impulse to act. So seize these moments and use them as a powerful laboratory to probe your mind’s inner workings.

It’s tempting to use the Breathing Space in precisely the wrong way—as a clever way to fix things or avoid unpleasantness. In its essence, it is not an escape from daily life, not even the equivalent of a cup of tea or a catnap, though these do have their place. Instead, the Breathing Space is a time to regain awareness, to gain a renewed sense of perspective and,
thereby, to see clearly any negative thinking patterns that may be gathering momentum in the background. This might seem like a distinction without a difference, so an analogy might help.
⁵

Think back to a time you were in a horrible rainstorm. It was relentless. You didn’t have a waterproof jacket or umbrella with you. To make matters worse, your shoes leaked like a sieve. After a few moments, you came across a bus shelter and relaxed a little. You felt dry and protected, and a little more in control. After a while, you realized that the rain wasn’t going to stop. If anything, it was getting worse. It became obvious that sooner or later you’d have to abandon the shelter and step back into the storm. You had two opti
ons at this point.

If you saw the shelter as a break from the rain, then you’ll have spent a while cursing your misfortune and becoming more and more unsettled. You might have become annoyed with yourself for not bringing an umbrella. Your mood will have begun to sink lower as your happiness ebbed away. Your thoughts might have gone round and round in circles as you frantically tried to find a way of staying dry. In this case, the shelter will not have been a break from the storm at all, but will instead have ended up enhancing and prolonging your suffering.

If, however, you saw the shelter as a Breathing Space, then your experience had a chance of being completely transformed. Once you realized that the storm was worsening, you might have seen the situation in a different light. You might not have liked it very much, but there was no escaping the fact that you’d soon have to step out into the rain and become soaked to the skin. You’d have seen more clearly that becoming angry and
bitter about it would not keep you dry but would, instead, make things worse: wet on the outside
and
bitter on the inside. Once you accepted the inevitable, in the sense not of resignation but of turning toward it, then much of the suffering would have had a chance to melt away. You might even have found some quirky consolations in the experience. You might have paused to notice the unrelenting power of the raindrops and the way they bounced off the pavement to form a thick, watery mist. You might have found it interesting to watch the people scurrying in and out of doorways as they tried to avoid the rain. Or you might have noticed a cat sheltering under a car with a distasteful look on its face. You might even have felt a smile on your face.

In both scenarios, you ended up soaked to the skin—but in the first, your annoyance was compounded by the suffering you inflicted upon yourself, while in the second, your change of perspective might have given you some consolation. Who knows, you might even have been invigorated by the experience.

The Breathing Space is not a break or diversion from reality, but a way of reengaging with it.

After you’ve completed the Breathing Space, there may be the tendency to immediately (and mindlessly) carry on where you left off. When this happens, it’s worth pausing for a few moments to decide how you wish to proceed. Mindfulness gives you the option of acting more skillfully, so it’s best to use the quiet moments after meditation to decide—consciously—what you want to do. We will explore four options over the next four weeks. This week’s option is simply to reenter the world as you left it before taking the Breathing Space.

You can use your rediscovered awareness to carry on with whatever you were doing before you did the Breathing Space, maintaining mindful awareness. Be aware of the thought stream and the tendency to become entangled with it. Approaching the next moment more mindfully may mean prioritizing your time, rather than frantically trying to do everything at once. Or it may mean accepting that your colleagues or family members are behaving in a difficult or unreasonable way and that there’s nothing you can do about it. See if you can avoid the temptation to use the Breathing Space as a break or as a way of overtly “fixing” a problem. Breathing Spaces, of themselves, do not solve anything in the short term. But they may give you the perspective to act more skillfully.

Ask a friend or family member to go with you to the movies—but this time, with a difference. Go at a set time (say 7 p.m.) and
choose whatever movie appeals to you only when you get there.
Often, what makes us happiest in life is the unexpected—the chance encounter or the unpredicted event. Movies are great for all these.

Most of us only go to see a movie when there’s something specific we want to watch. If you turn up at a set time and
then
choose what to see, you may discover that the experience will be totally different. You might end up watching (and loving) a film you’d never normally have considered. This act alone opens your eyes and enhances awareness and choice.

Before you go, notice any thoughts that may arise such as, “I haven’t got time for pleasure,” or, “What if there is nothing showing that I’ll enjoy?” You could call these Practice Interfering Thoughts (PITs)—they undermine your enthusiasm for taking action. They are the real “PIT-falls” of daily life, discouraging your intention to do something that might nourish your life in important ways. Once you’re inside the theater, just forget about all this and be consumed by the film.

I had my final chemotherapy treatment as the leaves were turning color. Six months passed. I went for my checkup and had another CAT scan. Once again, it was discovered that the cancer was growing. By now, it was spring and the forsythia was just beginning to bud.

Elana Rosenbaum, a meditation teacher at the Center for Mindfulness in Worcester, Massachusetts, was in the middle of teaching an eight-week mindfulness course (about where we are in our program now) when she found that she had a recurrence of her cancer.

My reaction was one of disbelief and shock. My life had just begun to return to normalcy and I was finally finding that I had more energy … I was exercising and meditating. I had hoped to prevent a recurrence. I didn’t want my life to be interrupted.
¹

Elana knew now that her only hope of survival was a stem-cell transplant and more chemo. She experienced an overwhelming feeling of grief … and a fear, as she felt herself girding up to have the strength for more battle. She asked herself whether the risk and hardship she would experience were worth the effort:

I dreaded more treatment, but I also wanted to be alive as long as feasibly possible. I realized it was not only my l
ife I needed to consider, but also my husband’s. He didn’t want to lose me. This made it very hard to say, “No, I won’t have a transplant. I’ll take my chances …” Being able to finish teaching my class was now impossible and the yoke of responsibility weighed heavy on me. I hoped that I could teach one or two more classes before I’d have to go into the hospital. It was a delicate time in class, and I wanted to be able to guide us through. I didn’t like admitting that I was upset and having to exert all my energy to maintain my equilibrium.