Principles of Mindfulness

Our moods naturally change throughout the day.  Due to your thought patterns, often a brief moment of sadness, anger or anxiety can lead to you being in a ‘bad mood’ for the rest of the day. There are some important things to remember.

• When you start to feel a little sad, anxious, or irritable, it is not the mood that does the damage but how you react to it
• The effort of trying to break free of the bad mood often makes things worse. When we try to find a solution, it often dredges up past regrets and conjures up future worries
• Before long, you can be in an endless cycle of self-judgement
• Mindfulness meditation teaches you to recognise damaging thoughts as they arise. It reminds you that they are memories and not real
• With time, you can learn to observe negative thoughts as they arise, let them stay a while and then simply let them evaporate
• Mindfulness meditation does this by training our minds to work in a different way. Most of us only know the analytical side of the mind (judging, planning, trawling through memories, searching for solutions) but the mind is also aware. Mindfulness focuses on tuning into this awareness

Are you living life on automatic pilot?

Automatic Pilot

It is surprising how often we can work on ‘automatic pilot’ without really being aware of what we are doing. This is probably because we are thinking of other things and not really ‘present’ on the task at hand.

Being on autopilot is vital for humans to function properly, for example, tying our shoelaces. The downside comes when we give too much control to our autopilot. We can easily end up thinking, working, eating, walking or driving without having a clear awareness of what we are doing. Mindfulness aims to bring us back to the present, over and over, to full conscious awareness. When we are more mindful, we are less likely to be sidetracked by our autopilot.  Being mindful means getting back in touch with our senses.

Pain and illness are normally unpleasant sensations that we react to, causing a host of further problems and physical and emotional stress.  We may not be able to do anything about the underlying unpleasant sensation, but we can train ourselves to lessen and/or overcome this reactive cycle. This means that in time we learn to manage our response to the suffering we experience.

Two key principles underlie all aspects of mindfulness:

1. Learning to live in the present moment
2. Learning to ‘respond’ rather than ‘react’ to our life’s circumstances

The aim of using mindfulness in this programme is to increase awareness so that we respond to situations by choice, rather than react automatically. We do that by practising to become more aware of where our attention is, and deliberately changing the focus of attention, over and over again.

Practice Makes Perfect

Becoming more mindful takes practice. There will be countless times that you feel like you have failed. Your mind will refuse to settle.  No matter what you try within seconds your mind will become full of thoughts.  These moments are not signs of failure. Gradually, with practice, the periods of calm will lengthen and the time it takes for you to realise that your mind has wandered off, will shorten.  It is important to practice regularly rather than just on ‘bad days’.

Think of mindfulness practice like putting up a tent. If you practice putting up in good weather it will be easier to do it when it is raining.

The following sections contain some mindfulness activities to get you started.  But remember, mindfulness can be practiced at anytime, anywhere. Find what works for you.

Mindful Activity

Choose one activity normally done on autopilot (e.g. brushing your teeth, walking from one room to another, drinking tea or coffee, taking out the rubbish, loading a washing machine or tumble dryer). Whenever you do this activity over the next week, pay attention to how you are doing it. You do not have to slow it down, or even enjoy it. Simply do what you normally do, but see if you can be fully aware of it as you do it.

Try this experiment with the same activity each day for a week.  See what you notice. The idea is not to make you feel different, but simply to allow a few more moments in the day when you feel ‘awake’.

For example: Brushing your teeth. Where is your mind when you are brushing your teeth? Pay carefully attention to the sensations – the toothbrush in relation to the teeth, the flavours of the toothpaste, moisture building up in the mouth etc.

At the end of the week reflect on the activity and write down any thoughts or feelings you have.