Sometimes, you might find that you sit for a Mindfulness meditation practice and all you find yourself doing is thinking, fidgeting, crying, feeling angry, agitated or bored. Then you might find that the judgements arise; I’m rubbish at this, I can’t do this, this is pointless, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, I’m not doing this properly, this isn’t working! What am I doing wrong?
If you find yourself touselling with this kind of practice, commend yourself for the most important part of the practice; noticing.
We can easily miss this! And yet, if there was any objective of mindfulness, THIS would be it!
Bringing awareness to your whole experience is the practice. So, if you find yourself thinking, fidgeting, crying, feeling angry within your practice, offer yourself some friendliness and see if you can sit gently with this discomfort and frustration. Remember, within a Mindfulness practice, there is nowhere to get to and nothing in particular that we ‘should’ be doing. So, whatever you are experiencing, notice the tone of thoughts, perhaps reminding yourself that thoughts are not facts. Be curious about the texture of body sensations and, observe the emotions that arise and what happens to those emotions if we pay attention to them in a gentle, friendly way.
Mindfulness meditation is not about reaching a particular state or point of feeling relaxed and calm but it is about giving you the space to acknowledge what’s going on for you and to make wise choices about how best to look after yourself.
Perhaps invite the question into your practice “what do I need to do to look after myself?”
If you have completed an MBSR course, take a look at the handbook for week 7 to remind yourself about nourishing and depleting activities and choose something nourishing.
I have been exploring the similarity of the sensations I feel in my body when I am excited and when I’m anxious.
By offering myself the three Cs; Curiosity, Courage and Compassion within my Mindfulness practice, I am able to self-manage my levels of anxiety and prevent any unnecessary escalation of panic. Many people experience anxiety on a day-to-day basis.
This article explains how the 3Cs can be used to self-manage anxiety and the attitude that is most useful when questioning what’s going on for you, particularly when you sense your alarm bells are ringing.
A train journey can be one of the most useful places to practice Mindfulness meditation.
Throughout the mindfulness practice, you will notice that you are distracted; by thoughts, sounds, physical sensations and emotions. It’s almost impossible not to be distracted on a train journey, isn’t it!?
Remembering that this is the purpose of mindfulness meditation and this is where the richness of experience can be found; to bring awareness to your whole experience as it is right now and to notice your automatic reactions to external and internal stimuli.
Each time you become aware of an agitation, a joy or perhaps a tendency to fall asleep or attempt to block out the uncomfortable sounds and feelings, see if you can sit, awake, from the position of observer, noticing, watching, with curiosity and friendliness. Not needing to cling to or push away any element of your experience.
Try practicing this for the next few days, on a train, or elsewhere and see what you notice. For guided practices, see my website
Sometimes, philosophy and psychology blow my mind and when that happens, it can often lead to a useful time of reflection and processing.
I attended a workshop in London yesterday at The Mindfulness Project, with Psychologist, Pavel Somov. The subject of the day was “Overcoming Perfectionism and Procrastination with Mindfulness”. As I tend to fall into both of these buckets at certain times, I was intrigued, as a Mindfulness teacher and practitioner, to understand how mindfulness might be used as a specific model for managing these two personality traits. Through mindfulness practice, I already experience a sense of letting go and surrendering to what is and this has been useful in the sense of not always needing to strive and compete and to be and do better, but to accept and to be OK with what is, right now. This is not to be confused with passivity. I’m certainly not passive by any means but acceptance offers me a sense of being at peace and accepting reality as it is and things that I can’t change or are out of my control.
My learning from the day was quite different from what I expected and, as always with these kinds of workshops, my mind has been expanded. For much of the day, it felt like I already knew and had experienced what Pavel was explaining, particularly with reference to mindfulness and flow and acceptance. However, he articulated his philosophy and mindful approach in such a way that my existing knowledge and core beliefs are reaffirmed and continue to deepen.
I came away with three phrases that Pavel shared with us (see below). These phrases counter our attempts to secure uncertainty due to fear of the unknown, which is a classic reason why perfectionists strive for perfection; for certainty, through fear of never being enough, doing enough or achieving enough. Do you find yourself never happy with the outcome and continuously striving to be better, do better and to succeed better? What if, instead, you acknowledge that you are doing your:
1. Best in the moment
2. Moment-specific best
3. Shitty best?
It comes as a shock, right? Particularly no.3 but hey, what if you’re having a tough time and all you feel that you can do, given the set of circumstances, is your shitty best? Well, isn’t that good enough? You’ve done it, you’ve done the best that you can do, and you know what, that’s OK! Let’s learn to accept that we’ve done our best under the given set of circumstances, rather than continuously beating ourselves up by telling ourselves that we could have done better!
So, if you are the type who tends to think only of the outcomes, results and future goals and are never happy with what is occurring in the now, saying to yourself that it’s not good enough and probably never good enough, then this might be tough to get your head around. If you judge yourself harshly, you probably judge other people’s efforts harshly too and view other’s efforts as never being good enough. If you are a manager, this is worth reflecting on.
A reminder at this point of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of Mindfulness, which teaches us to be in the moment, to live in the now and to notice our constant sense of striving, aversion, clinging and attraction;
“Mindfulness is paying attention, on purpose, in a particular way, in the present moment and non-judgementally.”
So, here’s the question I left the workshop with, which on reflection was my learning from the day:
What if, you remove specific outcomes, results and goals as the measure of your personal success? And, understand that “you are always doing the best you know. And, doing the best you know is the only outcome you will ever know, for certain.”
See where this lands with you and remember that often, if we feel resistance or confusion, it is useful and worth reflecting on and sitting with, even more so.
If you’d like to learn more about how to sit with and reflect on your current situation, circumstances or challenges, please visit my website: www.innerspaceworks.com
