Oh, Mindfulness
Early spring in San Antonio is beautiful. Our winters are rarely terrible, but the coming of spring - the greening - is a welcome energy shift. This is one of my favorite times of year for another reason too. Every year for the last 5 or so, in mid- to late February, I’ve been invited to spend a couple hours with bright, shiny, soon-to-be new doctors talking about mindfulness and playing with different mind-body techniques. I’ve walked away smiling every single time, and it’s not just because I delight in their passion and energy. It’s because the stuff I talk about with them has been such a big, life changing deal for me, and I love sharing it.
Mindfulness practices, including meditation and yoga have been a part of my life since the mid-1990s. There is no question in my mind that my life would be very different if I hadn’t discovered them. I am absolutely, positively convinced that mindfulness meditation, yoga, and my growing understanding of the theory behind mindfulness as well as its plethora of benefits altered the course of my trajectory in numerous ways.
Way back in the mid-90s, I was a 20-something student with a nice, years-long history of mood related struggles and behavioral issues. I had been diagnosed with an eating disorder at 16, Dysthymia at 19, Major Depression at 21, and Bipolar II and then I in rapid succession around 25. By the time I found mindfulness, through a Zen Buddhist teaching temple in Honolulu, and yoga at one of the military gyms, I’d been on several medications, struggled with self-harm and alcohol, and was generally disconnected from my body and my sense of self. I didn’t expect anything to change. These two things, Zen and yoga, just happened to fall on the path in front of me. I studied Zen academically, and I took yoga because I wanted a yoga body.
Somehow, I kept practicing.
The transformation wasn’t fast, and I won’t try to tell you that it was ALL Zen practice and yoga, but those two things started weaving into the rest of my life. I still took medication. I still saw a therapist and a psychiatrist. I still struggled. But I started to calm down, not all the time, but more of the time. I started to be able to sit inside my own skin. I started to see my overly critical, often catastrophic, sometimes cruel thoughts as well as my unhealthy patterns of behaving, and miracle of miracles, every now and then I was able to shift my thinking and behave in new, value-based ways. Ever so slowly, I started growing up and into a different person. The biggest shift, I believe, was that I started liking myself.
And I kept practicing.
I discovered the benefits to my Central Nervous System early in my practice. Not only could I find quiet on my cushion or in Corpse Pose in yoga, I started finding that I was just a tick less high strung or anxious at other times too. I also tapped into an understanding of the human mind that helped me see what was going on behind all those mean thoughts. Beyond that, I found ethical guidelines for dealing with all parts of my life, and those guidelines aligned with values that I’d always had but because of my emotional reactivity had difficulty living. This stuff just worked.
So I kept practicing. And then I started sharing, and teaching, and facilitating. And I don’t think I’ll ever stop. It’s just too juicy.
Here’s what researchers say:
Mindfulness increases positive affect
It has been shown to reduce impulsivity
It may improve focus and attention
It may reduce anxiety and depression and considerably reduce stress
Mindfulness may serve as a remedy for habitual worrying
It seems to improve visual short-term memory
And here are some of the things that I’ve learned:
First, meditation isn’t always easy, and that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong or are not good at it. Just practice anyway.
The human mind isn’t actually built to be inactive. It’s built to problem-solve, so it’s pretty constantly reviewing the past, judging the present, and worrying about the future. Mindfulness teaches it to do something else.
We have habit-patterns laid down over years and years and years of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It’s called autopilot. It takes patience and time to change those patterns.
Getting off autopilot as often as possible decreases distress. Mindfulness practice helps us get off autopilot.
Practicing acceptance is easier than resisting reality, and once we accept a thing as true, we can commit to changing it. Mindfulness can help us learn acceptance.
Self-compassion can move mountains that shame will never be able to budge. Mindfulness and self-compassion are happy playmates.
Central Nervous System regulation is a key factor in value-based living and thus, positive, juicy self-esteem. Guess what helps regulate the Central Nervous System! Mindfulness.
There’s no one-size-fits-all mindfulness practice just like not all yoga styles work for everybody, I get that. I also understand that there are some folks who may not be able to practice mindfulness meditations for various physical, emotional, or cognitive reasons. Still, I’m ready to stand up on a soap-box about this one. Mindfulness may have saved my life, and I believe that for many folks out there, it could be a salve for the raw, disconnected, distractedness of the 21st century. The trick is finding the practice that works for you and then practicing the willingness it takes to get up and do that thing over and over again even for just a few minutes. To help get you started, I’ve included an easy practice below. You can also visit THIS PAGE and download a free audio recording of a mindful body scan, a pendulating awareness practice, or a version of Metta, the Buddhist Loving Kindness meditation.
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Here’s an easy mindfulness practice that you can try. Start with 3 minutes, and gradually build up to 10.
Find a comfortable position either sitting or lying down*.
Soften your gaze and begin to pay attention to your breathing**.
Breathe in.
As you exhale, touch your index finger to your thumb, and say the number, 1.
Breathe in.
As you exhale, touch your middle finger to your thumb, and say the number, 2.
Breathe in.
As you exhale, touch your ring finger to your thumb, and say the number, 3.
Breathe in.
As you exhale, touch your pinky finger to your thumb, and say the number, 4.
Repeat that practice until your timer rings. If you become distracted at any point, simply go back to touching your index finger to your thumb, and say the number, 1.
*If it’s possible to sit up without pain, try to do so. Sitting up will help keep you from falling asleep. If pain or illness prevents you from sitting, feel free to lie down. Always take care of your body.
**While there’s nothing inherently wrong with closing your eyes, it tends to lead toward sleep, and that’s not the point of mindfulness practice. Awake is better.
Bibliography
Davis, D. M. & Hayes, J. A., (2012). What are the benefits of mindfulness? American Psychological Association. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner#:~:text=The%20researchers%20concluded%20that%20mindfulness,decreases%20anxiety%20and%20negative%20affect on March 24, 2022.
Dixon, M. R., Paliliunas, D., Belisle, J., Speelman, R. C., Gunnarsson, K. F., & Shaffer, J. L., (2019). The effect of brief mindfulness training on momentary impulsivity, Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science,11, 15-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2018.11.003.
Kilpatrick, L.A., Suyenobu, B.Y., Smith, S.R., Bueller, J.A., Goodman, T., Creswell, J.D., Tillisch, K., Mayer, E.A., Naliboff, B.D. (2011). Impact of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training on intrinsic brain connectivity. Neuroimage. 2011 May 1;56(1):290-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.02.034. Epub 2011 Feb 18. PMID: 21334442; PMCID: PMC3072791.
Schreiner, I., & Malcolm, J. (2008). The benefits of mindfulness meditation: Changes in emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress. Behaviour Change, 25(3), 156-168. doi:10.1375/bech.25.3.156
Verplanken, B., Fisher, N., (2014). Habitual worrying and benefits of mindfulness. Mindfulness 5, 566–573. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0211-0
Youngs, M.A., Lee, S.E., Mireku, M.O., Sharma, D., & Kramer, R.S.S., (2021). Mindfulness meditation improves visual short-term memory. Psychological Reports 124(4):1673-1686. doi:10.1177/0033294120926670