Mindfulness practice allows you to be able to identify, tolerate and reduce difficult, painful and even frightening thoughts, feelings and sensations; it gives you back some sense of mastery over them. Rather than feeling that you are being pushed around by your feelings and thoughts you learn to be able to have some agency over them.
So what is this thing called mindfulness? Below are some definitions:
- The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment (Kabat-Zinn, 2003).
- The non-judgmental observation of the ongoing stream of internal and external stimuli as they arise (Baer, 2003).
- Keeping one's complete attention to the experience on a moment to moment basis (Martlett & Kristeller, 1999).
Put simply, mindfulness is as simple as becoming aware of your here and now experience, both internally and in the external world around you. It gives you a space in the present moment to be able to more safely deal with the distressing and painful memories of things that might have happened to you in the past. It also allows you to look at and plan for the future, even when you might have fearful thoughts about things that haven't yet happened, from a secure position of knowing that you are in the present moment. In fact, we are never NOT in the present moment – we just lose track of that fact quite often.
Sometimes it is easier to understand something in terms of what it is NOT. Here are some examples of MindLESSness:
- Breaking things, spilling things, clumsiness, accidents because of carelessness, inattention or thinking about something else
- Failing to notice subtle or not-so-subtle feelings of physical discomfort, pain, tension etc
- Forgetting someone's name as soon as you hear it
- Listening to someone with one ear while doing something else at the same time
- Getting so focussed on goals that I lose touch with what I am doing right now
- Getting lost in my thoughts and feelings
- Being preoccupied with the future or the past
- Eating without being aware of eating
- Having periods of time where you have difficulty remembering the details of what happened – running on autopilot
- Reacting emotionally in certain ways – feeling like an emotion just "came out of nowhere"
- Daydreaming or thinking of other things when doing chores
- Doing several things at once rather than focussing on one thing at a time
- Distracting yourself with things like eating, alcohol, pornography, drugs, work
If you do some or even most of these things at times, then you are probably a normal member of the human race.
Mindfulness Strategies
We have provided a number of downloadable mindfulness exercises in this section. You can download them to a CD or straight to an iPod or MP3 player. Use the ones that seem most helpful to you. After using the recordings for a while you may find that it is easier to just practice mindfulness without them. You might find you are developing your own mindfulness strategies that work well for you.
- Introduction
- Mindfulness of the External World
- Eating Mindfulness
- Walking Mindfulness
- Breathing Mindfulness
- Body Scan
- External World and Breath
- Mindfulness of Thoughts
- Thoughts, Body Sensations and Emotions
- Compassion Mindfulness
- Mountain Meditation
- Alternate Nostril Breathing
- Mindfulness of Physical Discomfort
- Mindfulness of Difficult/Painful Thoughts
- Empty Bowl Meditation
Note: We would like to express our appreciation to Kent Smith and Janine Hills for the development of these valuable resources. Should anyone wish to purchase a complete CD of these Mindfulness Exercises, please contact us with a return email address and we will pass on your enquiry to Kent.