Mindfulness (7 page)

Mindfulness is most easily practised by turning everyday activities into opportunities for mindfulness.

Think of the activities that are part of your life in a typical day; having a bath or shower, doing dishes by hand or stacking the dishwasher, folding laundry, cleaning, gardening. These activities need doing – not much can change that – so use them for time to practise mindfulness.

Wash up mindfully. Turn the water on, feel the warmth of the water, the texture of the dish cloth.

Pick up the first plate, and feel its weight in your hands. Use your senses to fully engage with what you are doing; feel, smell, listen to what happens. At some point, your mind will wander and your thoughts will intrude, telling you to get a move on, prompting you to think about all the other things you have to do, worrying about things that happened yesterday, making judgements etc.

Quiet your thoughts by returning to your senses. Feel that mug in your hands, slippery with warm soapy water. Rinse. Repeat.

If cooking and cleaning seem like boring chores to you, try doing them as a form of mindfulness. Engage yourself with those tasks; concentrate, and do them slowly and completely.

What works for doing the dishes, cooking and cleaning, works for gardening, ironing, walking or driving to work.

Try a walking meditation; focus on your breathing. Pay attention to the feel of your shoes on the pavement. What can you see? What can you hear? Be aware and understand the impermanent nature of these processes as they unfold. Notice how your body moves as you walk with your arms swinging back and forth, holding your bag or maybe stuffed into your coat pockets.

What can you spend a few minutes each day doing what you usually hurry through? Brushing your teeth, eating a meal, walking to the bus? Making tea or coffee? Sit and do nothing but breathe and drink your beverage. Doing these things slowly and deliberately you will see how much more in control you are.

Every day, try and take some time to consciously tune in to with your surroundings. Use your senses; hear, taste, feel, smell, see each detail. Don't let time be important.

These activities of your life may seem routine and mundane – getting dressed, cooking, eating, washing, cleaning, gardening, interacting with others, working, driving, etc. but these little things when put together equal your life. This is what you do. And you do all of them in the present.

Each of these everyday activities gives you a little experience. These experiences develop your awareness. From practising these little awarenesses, you can develop a more whole experience of mindfulness itself.

So, make this mindfulness practice a habit. Remember, the more often you do or think something, the more you strengthen the habit, until it becomes automatic. However, if you miss a day without practising mindfulness, be gentle but firm with yourself. Don't let mindfulness be stressful.

Bring your attention to a new level by slowing down whatever you're doing.

Do one thing at a time
. Single-task, don't multi-task! When you're filling the kettle, just fill the kettle. When you're eating, just eat. When you're bathing your child, just bathe your child. Don't try to do other things at the same time.

Take heed of the Zen proverb: “When walking, walk. When eating, eat.”

Do less
. If you fill your day with things to do, you will be spinning from one thing to the next. You will always be trying to get ahead of yourself. Prioritize. Work out what's important, and let go of what's not.

Take your time
. If you do less, you can do those things more slowly, more completely and with more concentration. Take your time, and move slowly. Make your actions deliberate, not rushed and random. Slowing down takes practice, but it helps you focus on what you are doing and what is happening.

Make some space
. Don't plan things close together — instead, leave room between activities and tasks. This makes your day more flexible, and leaves space in case one thing takes longer than you planned.

Slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, being mindful in your daily activities and routines, all help train your mind to be in the present. But is there a way to keep effortlessly focused for long periods? Something that can give you a real break from everyday concerns, from dwelling on the past and worrying about the future? Yes, there is. It's called “flow”.

Flow refers to time spent doing something that keeps you focused and engaged. It involves bringing your complete attention to the present experience.

Have you ever sat down, started a job or activity, and become so absorbed in what you were doing that time passed without your notice? You thought of nothing else; as you concentrated and focused, your awareness merged with the activity and you were “living in the moment”. If so, then you achieved that state of mind known as “flow”.

Psychology Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues began researching flow during the 1980s and 1990s, after Csikszentmihalyi became intrigued by artists who appeared to lose themselves in their work.

In interviews with Csikszentmihalyi, many described their “flow” experiences using the metaphor of a water current carrying them along.

Csiksczentmihalyi suggests that with flow activities, your brain is fully occupied with one absorbing activity. This makes it difficult for your mind to wander off or for thoughts about the past or future to find their way into your head.

He says that the mind “with nothing to do, begins to follow random patterns, usually stopping to consider something painful or disturbing”. However, a mind in a state of flow is so engaged there is no room for undesirable thoughts.

There are eight aspects to a state of flow:

Goals need to be clearly defined so that you always know your next step. So, for example, if you are following a recipe, you need to have an idea of what the finished dish will look and taste like. If you are training to be an engineer, you need to know what level of skills and qualifications you are aiming for. Or, if you are training for a marathon, you need to know what speed and pace you need to run to successfully complete 26 miles.

With flow, you receive direct and immediate feedback. When you know what you have done well and what you haven't done well, you can seamlessly adjust your behaviour. Taste what you're cooking and you'll know if something needs to be changed or added. Record your running times and you'll know the extent to which you need to improve.

There has to be a balance between challenge and skills; if it's too difficult it will lead to stress and anxiety, if it's too easy it will cause boredom or be done mindlessly.

You feel a sense of control and the activity is so intrinsically rewarding that although the task is challenging, the effort required doesn't seem overwhelming.

Because flow involves developing skill, you are open to new challenges and information so “beginner's mind” is an integral aspect of flow.

As you focus your attention on what's happening and what you're doing, you lose your sense of self. You feel as if your awareness merges with the action you're performing. And yet, how can you be living in the moment if it doesn't appear that you are even aware of the moment? The level of engagement absorbs you so deeply, keeping attention so focused that nothing can distract you. You focus so intensely on what you're doing that you're unaware of time. You are simply living from moment to moment.

There are things you can do to create opportunities for flow; where merging activity and thoughts keep you fully absorbed in the moment.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Play a team sport.
  Tennis or football, whatever it is, everything in sport happens in the moment. No time to worry about the last shot because another one is coming right back at you!
  
• Yoga, swimming, judo, rock climbing.
  Focusing on each individual movement forces the mind to live in that single moment with the body.
  
• Sing and dance to music.
  Join a choir or dance class, sing and dance along to your favourite tunes in the kitchen. You'll become immersed in the music and really be in the moment.
  
• Creative interests.
  Gardening, painting, bird watching, juggling, fishing or stamp collecting. Whatever it is, for many people a creative activity is a place to dwell happily in the present moment,
  
• Games and puzzles.
  Whether it's card and board games, computer games, jigsaws, crosswords or sudoku, all require a level of concentration and provide a challenge that will have you totally absorbed.
  
• Books and films.
  It could be a gripping thriller, science fiction or a clever comedy. Whatever the genre, as events unfold, you become lost in the story.
  

Write down the things you enjoy doing; hobbies, sports, interests. They are activities that you experience flow with; they keep you so absorbed that you can't think outside the present.

The more flow activities you have in your life, the more opportunities you will have to be living in the moment. However, it's important to understand there has to be a balance! Too many activities could leave you feeling pressured and stressed.

There will be times when you attach to things and situations that you want, which will make it difficult to be in the present moment. But it's impossible to be mindful when you're dwelling on the past or fixated on the future. Instead of appreciating what you already have, it's easy to focus on what you didn't get and what you think you need.

As the Tibetan saying goes “the moment we are content, we have enough. The problem is that we think the other way round; that we will be content only when we have enough.”

Maybe you don't like where you live – you want to move to a bigger house or a better area. Perhaps you resent the fact that you didn't get the promotion you were expecting or that your friend has better holidays than you.

What can release you from your attachment to past failures or future wants? Gratitude.

However small and seemingly insignificant, gratitude happens easily when you notice the small pleasures around you. Start by being aware of and acknowledging the small pleasures in your day and you'll soon be consciously looking for things to appreciate. You can find something to make you smile in the simplest of things, but it helps if you keep your eyes open for them.

Identify three good things that have happened during the day. You might want to write them down in a notebook or you might simply reflect on what those things are, while you're brushing your teeth. Do this before you go to bed every night so, no matter what happened that day, you go to bed happy.

So yes, you missed the train, but, for example, it was a really good cup of coffee that you drank while waiting for the next train, or you met someone you hadn't seen for ages or you didn't have to stand in the rain, the waiting room was nice and warm. No, you didn't get offered the job, but at least they took the trouble to phone and give you feedback, which was helpful. And, thankfully, you had an umbrella in your bag and avoided getting soaked in that downpour on your way home this evening.

Appreciate knowing that you had good in your day, so that whatever any other difficulties, you did in fact have things that made it all worthwhile. And know that thinking like this creates those neural pathways that help to establish mindfulness.

As well as being open to what you have to be grateful for – keeping you in the present/being mindful – committing random, spontaneous acts of kindness works the same trick. Opportunities to help others pop up when you are consciously aware of others' needs.

Invite someone who's lonely for dinner, give someone who deserves it a bunch of flowers, make someone in your life a chocolate cake, go out of your way to get some information that you know someone needs.

Gratitude crystallizes mindfulness because when you focus on the events and people in your life that you are thankful for, you raise your awareness of how good you feel right now, in the present moment. It helps put everything in the right perspective and brings you back to living in the moment.

What could you do? Make a difference to someone else's life with an unexpected act of kindness.

In
Part One
of
Mindfulness
you will have learnt to be more aware of how and what you think, feel and do. Throughout, the emphasis has been on being open to new ideas and ways of thinking and doing things; to let go of unhelpful ways of thinking and behaving and establish more mindful ways.

You will have learnt that mindfulness is a dynamic entity; mindfulness has qualities such as patience and trust, focus and engagement, awareness and acceptance, that interact and support each other. You will also have seen that your life is made up of your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. At any one time of the day, you are thinking, feeling and/or doing.

Bring together the aspects of mindfulness with aspects of your life and you have the potential for something quite complex! But not, however, so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or put into practice.

Applying any one mindfulness technique to, for example, your thoughts will have a positive impact on your feelings and behaviour. Apply mindfulness to your
feelings
and you will influence the way you think and behave. And if you
behave
mindfully, there will be a positive impact on your thoughts and feelings.

It's a set of simple principles that work together to create a compelling effect; an effect that can make a difference to a wide range of situations in your life.

In
Part Two
we turn to some of the areas and situations in life where a mindful approach can have a notable effect. Read on!