Mindfulness E-Book

Tessa Watt

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: Practical Guide Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 218

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Mindfulness is the popular practice that helps you to appreciate your life, and to live with more joy and less stress. By bringing mindfulness into everyday actions – by listening to your body, becoming more aware of what's happening in the present moment and letting go of negativity – you can reduce stress and anxiety, focus better at work, find your own source of calm and discover genuine contentment. Mindfulness introduces you to new techniques with straightforward advice, case studies and lots of practical exercises for newcomers to get their teeth into right away. It also gives a sense of the depth of mindfulness practice for those who wish to take it further.

Leseprobe

TESSA WATT

MINDFULNESS

YOUR STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO A HAPPIER LIFE

This edition published in the UK in 2016 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

First published in the UK in 2012 by Icon Books Ltd

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road, Frating Green, Colchester CO7 7DW

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065

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Distributed to the trade in the USA by Publishers Group West 1700 4th St. Berkeley, CA, 94710

ISBN: 978-184831-954-7

Text copyright © 2012 Tessa Watt

The author has asserted her moral rights

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Adobe Caslon by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

About the author

Tessa Watt teaches mindfulness and is co-director of Being Mindful, an organization which offers mindfulness training for the public and in workplaces. In her earlier career she was a research fellow in history at Cambridge University, and then for many years a senior producer in BBC Radio and Music.

Tessa has been practising meditation for over twenty years and is an instructor at the London Shambhala Meditation Centre. She did her mindfulness teacher training with the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University, and is a qualified yoga teacher. Tessa is a co-presenter of Be Mindful Online, the Mental Health Foundation’s online mindfulness course, and author of Mindful London. She has been working with the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group for Mindfulness to increase awareness of how mindfulness can benefit society.

Author’s note

It’s important to note that there is much frequently used teaching and research employed in mindfulness. Where I know the source I have been sure to reference it, but my apologies here to the originators of any material if I have overlooked them.

Contents

About the author

Author’s note

1. Introduction

2. What is mindfulness?

3. Why?

4. Space

5. Breath

6. Brushing your teeth

7. Body

8. Attitude

9. Feet

10. Reacting

11. Movement

12. Sound

13. Sensations

14. Thoughts

15. Breathing space

16. Challenges

17. Kindness

18. Slowing down

19. Me

20. Society

21. Stillness

22. Where next?

List of practices

Further resources

Acknowledgements

Index

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Mindfulness is one of the oldest and most basic skills known to mankind. In its essence, it’s as simple as rediscovering the taste of fresh water or the vastness of the sky. It is learning, or re-learning, how to be present, how to be in this moment. It can be like stepping out of a grey flat screen mode into a world which is vivid and three-dimensional.

Mindfulness means becoming more aware of what’s going on – right here, right now. We can appreciate our lives, instead of rushing through them, always trying to get somewhere else. Being mindful can also help us to be less swept away by our powerful, habitual currents of thought and emotion, which can manifest as stress, depression, negative thinking, anxiety, anger, resentment or self-doubt.

TRAINING IN MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness itself is a way of being – a capacity for moment-by-moment awareness – which doesn’t belong to any one culture or tradition. But we find that this skill, part of our birthright, has somehow been lost to us; perhaps increasingly so in our speedy 21st-century world. The good news is that we can train ourselves in mindfulness, just as we exercise to keep our bodies healthy.

Mindfulness is about teaching yourself to be more:

Aware – of your body, your mind and the environmentPresent – in this moment; right here, right nowFocused – more able to make choices about where you place your attentionEmbodied – being in your body; bringing your mind and your body into synchAccepting – of yourself and other people.

PRACTICE

Mindfulness training draws on the ancient traditions of meditation and yoga, often incorporating insights from modern medicine and psychotherapy. It involves setting aside time for ‘practice’ – time when you can literally practise being mindful by bringing your mind back, again and again, to a particular object of attention.

In mindfulness practice you may use one or more of these as your focus:

Your breath – the physical sensations of breathingYour body – in stillness or in movementYour senses – such as hearing, seeing and tastingYour thoughts – which may include your emotionsYour experience – whatever arises in your awareness in this moment, including any of the above.

As well as making space for formal meditation, you can bring mindfulness into your life throughout the day. You can use informal practices to help you do this – washing the dishes mindfully, perhaps, or taking a short ‘breathing space’. With practice, the mindful approach will slowly seep into your being and you may find yourself naturally being more present and aware in your daily life.

REMEMBER

Mindfulness practice can be:

Formal – such as sitting meditation using the breath as a focusInformal – such as making a cup of tea with awareness.

HISTORY

The practice of mindfulness goes back thousands of years. Many spiritual traditions have encouraged presence in the moment as a way to be in touch with our inner selves, or the divine. Buddhism has made mindfulness a core part of its teachings, more so than any other tradition. Buddhist thinkers have taken great interest over the centuries in the way the human mind works, developing methods of training the mind to be more present, focused and aware. The practical techniques used in current mindfulness training come largely from the Buddhist tradition of meditation, along with elements drawn from the more body-oriented Indian discipline of hatha yoga.

Since the 1960s, the political situation in Asian countries like Vietnam and Tibet has sent Buddhist teachers into exile in the West, where they’ve taken up the challenge of teaching new audiences. Meditation practices which were traditionally done by monks in a forest or monastery have been adapted for busy Westerners with jobs and families. Influential Buddhist teachers have included the Japanese Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, the visionary Tibetan Chögyam Trungpa, and of course the well known Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet.

But you don’t have to be religious, become a Buddhist or believe anything particular to practise mindfulness. Since the 1970s, mindfulness training in the West has developed into structured, secular courses which are increasingly accessible. Mindfulness has spread like wildfire in the public consciousness. In 1979 the American Jon Kabat Zinn created an eight-week course at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to help people with difficult conditions such as chronic pain, AIDS and cancer. Without being able to ‘cure’ them, he discovered that meditation could help them relate to their stress and suffering in a different way. This course of ‘Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction’ (MBSR), is now used around the world; not only for people with illness, but for many thousands of participants simply wanting to find a way to deal with the normal daily difficulties of life, and to enjoy life more fully.

In the 1990s, mindfulness took its next quantum leap into the world of mental health and psychotherapy when three leading clinical psychologists from the UK and Canada developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) as a treatment for people with a history of recurrent depression. MBCT is very similar to MBSR, with more emphasis on how to work with the ‘negative thinking’ which can lead to depression. Mindfulness has begun to sweep through the profession of psychotherapy, leading to other new therapies like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy); and many therapists now offer it to their clients as part of their toolkit for mental health.

In this book we’ll introduce many of the practices and ideas which are used in mindfulness courses like MBSR and MBCT. We’ll also draw inspiration from great mindfulness teachers coming from the Buddhist tradition, who carry with them years of deep training in the practice of meditation.

key terms

There are some key terms that will come up again and again in this book. It’s worth taking a moment to acquaint yourself with them now …

Meditation is used in this book to refer to a formal practice which helps us train the mind to be more aware and present.

Mindfulness is used to describe a more general approach of being aware of our experience in the present moment – without judging it – which the practice of meditation can help us to develop.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an eight-week course that trains participants to be mindful and to relate better to stress, pain and other difficulties.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is similar to MBSR but with elements developed more specifically for people with a tendency to suffer from depression.

SCIENCE

The move of mindfulness into public awareness is thanks largely to an explosion of interest from the scientific and medical communities within the last few decades. Research has demonstrated the enormous benefits of mindfulness practice for our physical and mental health, with new studies out every month. Doctors and counsellors increasingly recommend mindfulness as an approach for patients with depression, stress and anxiety-related ailments. Mindfulness training is also being adopted in schools and workplaces, helping students and employees to be more focused and productive, and less reactive to stress.

Research shows the benefits of mindfulness in many areas:

Physical health – mindfulness can help us to cope better with a range of conditions including chronic pain, heart disease and cancer. It’s been shown to strengthen the immune system, improving our response to illnesses ranging from flu to psoriasis to HIV.Mental health – mindfulness is increasingly being used to help people with recurrent depression, addiction, anxiety-related ailments, and general stress. Mindfulness participants have shown reduced levels of the hormone cortisol which is an indicator of stress.Clarity and focus – mindfulness meditators perform better in tasks measuring attention and comprehension, working memory, and creative problem solving. As our working lives become overloaded with information and input, studies suggest mindfulness can improve clarity and decision making, and it is now included in many leadership trainings.Wellbeing – many participants in mindfulness training have reported greater enjoyment and appreciation of their lives, as well as other benefits like greater self-awareness, greater acceptance of their emotions and increased empathy for other people. Neuroscientists are now backing this up with studies showing that meditation can strengthen areas of the brain associated with happiness, wellbeing and compassion.

MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

The kind of meditation we use in mindfulness training is not about going off into altered states, trying to get to some better place. It’s not about sitting in the lotus position in flowing white robes on a turquoise beach, as the advertising posters would have it – pleasant though that might be! You’re not even trying to get calm and relaxed, or to become a ‘better person’. You are befriending the person you already are, and the place where you are sitting, right now. If you do experience any sense of calm, it is not from stilling the stormy weather of life, but from learning to ride its chaotic energy.

Here are some wrong ideas you might have about mindfulness:

It’s about going into an altered state where the mind is completely empty of thoughtsIt’s about becoming very calm and not feeling emotionsYou have to become a Buddhist or take up some other religion or cultEven if other people can do it, you won’t be able to because your mind is too busy.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Mindfulness is about experience, not just words and concepts. To get the most from this book, you’ll need to do more than read – you’ll need to actually do the practices.

USEFUL TIPS

Take your time. See if you can resist the urge to rush through to the end and ‘get somewhere’ quickly. It’s better to do the practices thoroughly, and repeat them a number of times, than to think you are ‘advancing’ by ticking off lots of different exercises.Keep a notebook. Some of the exercises ask you to write a few lines. You may also like to keep a note of interesting or challenging things which arise in your practice. Writing things down in one place can help you reflect on your own experience and give you a sense of the journey you are taking.Be patient. Mindfulness is not a quick fix! Don’t worry if you don’t feel much is happening – there may be more going on under the surface than you think.

CHAPTER 2

What is mindfulness?

WAKING UP

Mindfulness begins with recognizing that our common experience is not very mindful – that we are sleepwalking through much of our daily lives, blind and crashing into things. We stumble from place to place caught in a whirlwind of thoughts, missing what is in front of our noses.

Often the storm of thoughts is not pleasant to be caught up in. We ruminate over what someone said earlier, or what we should have said in reply, or what happened ten years ago, or what we have to do tomorrow. Our minds are exhausting – we may feel exhausted.

The mindful approach is to invite a gap in this endless stream of thoughts and emotions. We train ourselves to wake up; to open a door and let in some fresh air and space. We’re not pushing away our experience – quite the opposite. We’re allowing ourselves to be present to the energy of our experience, right here, right now. We discover the possibility of waking up to how things are in each moment.

try it now AWAKE AND AWARE

Take a few minutes to become aware of your experience, right here, right now:

Feel the weight and texture of the book in your hand.Feel the sense of your own body – your feet in contact with the floor, your buttocks on the chair; if you are sitting, feel your torso rising up, your head and shoulders, your arms and hands. Can you feel the movement of your breath somewhere in your body?Notice your environment – the space around you, any objects and people, any sounds and colours.Notice how you are feeling – are there any thoughts and emotions you are aware of? Are there any bodily sensations? You don’t need to change anything, just notice. Spend a few moments opening your awareness to whatever is here in your body, mind and the environment.

AUTOMATIC PILOT

In order to cultivate mindfulness, the first step is becoming aware of our usual tendency to sleepwalk through life. This mode is described as being on ‘automatic pilot’. When we’re on automatic pilot, we might eat a sandwich at our desk and reach the last crust without having ever actually tasted it. We might come home from work and find ourselves with the key in the door, having forgotten that we meant to stop to buy milk, and having completely missed seeing the blossom trees at the end of the road.

Our tendency to go onto automatic pilot can be particularly unhelpful when we start getting into negative trains of thought. Some small event may trigger us into feeling stressed or depressed, without us even realizing what is happening. Someone pushes in front of us in the queue, and subconsciously we set off on a train of thought about how no one respects us, and how the world is out to get us. Or perhaps a small task goes wrong at work, and before we know it we’re convinced we can’t finish our project and will lose our job. Most of us have some well-worn grooves into which our thoughts can easily begin to run. A few minutes later we find ourselves in a black mood, without even knowing how we got there.

Through mindfulness, we can recognize when we are on automatic pilot, and have a chance of stepping out into the freshness of the present moment. As we begin to pay attention to what is going on in our body, our mind and our environment, we can see how we get stuck on automatic pilot. By developing mindfulness, we can become more aware of the habits that make us unhappy or stressed, and start to make new choices. We can also become more present, more able to taste the richness of our world and all the little experiences which make up our lives.

A TASTE

One way to get a taste of mindfulness is to start quite literally with that – a practice of tasting. This is a good way to see what it’s like when we bring our full awareness to a simple everyday experience.

Mindfulness courses around the world often start with tasting a raisin, a practice which has become traditional since Jon Kabat-Zinn included it in his pioneering clinic in the 1970s. If you don’t have a raisin to hand, you can try this with whatever food you have available.

try it now A TASTE OF MINDFULNESS

Fetch yourself a couple of raisins, or if you don’t have raisins you could use a segment of orange or other small piece of food.Look at it. Take the raisin or fruit in the palm of your hand. Imagine you’ve never seen anything like this before. Pick it up and take a good look at it, with your full attention. Notice the texture, the colour, the shape, the folds and hollows, the light shining on it. Take time to really see it and explore it with your eyes.Explore the raisin with your other senses. Give it a squish – perhaps even bring it up to your ear as you do so, to hear if it makes a sound. Notice what it smells like, and if you have any reaction to the smell, maybe in your mouth.Notice your thoughts. Whenever your mind wanders off, just be aware of this happening and aware of where your mind goes.Taste the food. First bring the object to your mouth, perhaps running it along the lips, noticing any reactions – maybe salivation. When you’re ready, place it in the mouth, not chewing yet. Pay attention to the sensations in your mouth, exploring it with your tongue. Finally prepare to chew the raisin, getting it into the right place – taking a bite into it, noticing the taste and texture in the mouth. Without swallowing yet, continue to chew, bringing your full attention to the taste of it.Swallow it: be aware first of your intention to swallow, and then actually swallowing the raisin – seeing if you can follow it as it moves down towards your stomach. And are there any aftereffects – how do you feel after the exercise?And now, if you have a second raisin or piece of fruit, you might like to do the exercise again, slowly exploring this new object with each of your senses.

How was this exercise for you? Take a moment to reflect on what you’ve just done, and, if you’d like to, write your thoughts down.

REFLECTING

Here are some responses that other people have had to this exercise:

It tasted completely different to how I remembered; so much more flavour.My mind was really busy – I couldn’t keep my focus on the exercise.I felt really irritated, and I wanted to go faster.I really noticed the texture of it, all the folds and colours. I was surprised that it made a noise when I squished it.It reminded me of Christmas and my grandmother’s cakes.I don’t like raisins so I could only think about how I didn’t like it.

Was your experience different from the way you normally eat? Most of us would agree that it’s rare to pay this much attention to what’s happening when we’re eating – to the flavours, textures, colours, and to the reactions going on in our body and mind. Normally we’d cram a handful of raisins in without thinking, or eat them in a bowl of muesli without noticing much about the taste of it.

This usual way of eating is a good example of being on automatic pilot. We go through many of our daily activities without being fully aware of what we’re doing. By paying attention to our direct experience in this moment – whether it’s a raisin, a cup of tea or a patch of bright sunshine, our lives can become more vivid. We can taste, smell and experience all the small moments that make up our lives, which we so often miss.

PAYING ATTENTION

Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness in this way:

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.

We’re always paying attention to something, but often not what we choose, as our mind jumps from one thing to another. Through practice we can pay attention:

On purpose, by training ourselves to focus on an object of our choice, such as our left toes, or the movement of the breathIn the present moment, being willing to let go of thinking about the past or the future, coming back to what is here nowNon-judgmentally, being kind to ourselves as we bring our minds back to the focus, over and over, developing gentleness and good humour. We don’t judge our experience as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, we stay open to it all, just as it is.

try it now A MINDFUL MEAL

Eat a meal mindfully, in the same way that you ate the raisin (it doesn’t have to be quite so slowly!). Put aside doing other activities at the same time, such as listening to the radio, talking or reading. Bring your awareness to the food as you are eating it; the tastes, the textures, the colours – and the act of eating itself.

REMEMBER

We live much of our lives in a mode which is not mindful, as though we are sleepwalking or on automatic pilotMindfulness brings us out of automatic pilot into the present momentWe can train ourselves to pay attention on purpose, in the present, and without judgmentWe can use small, simple experiences like tasting our food to begin to understand what it’s like to be mindful.

IS THIS THE RIGHT TIME FOR YOU?

Practising mindfulness is a brave thing to do. It means being willing to be alone with yourself – to be present with your own body and mind, without running away or distracting yourself with activities as most of us do. When we let ourselves be still, things we have buried or pushed down can come bubbling up to the surface – perhaps strong feelings or life events we haven’t come to terms with. In mindfulness training, we don’t generally get too involved in the content of these thoughts and emotions. Instead, as you’ll see throughout this book, we let them come up, we notice with kindness how they affect us, and we let them move on.

If you are right in the midst of a very challenging or distressing life situation, such as a bereavement or a deep depression, this may not be the right time for you to start your practice of mindfulness. The emotions may feel too overwhelming for you to be present with them in the way that mindfulness encourages. At this point it may be best to seek professional support from your doctor or a psychotherapist, and continue your exploration of mindfulness when things are a bit more settled in your life. When your mind is more stable, you will be in a better position to learn and practise this new way of approaching things. Mindfulness will then be a skill for life which can help you cope better with difficult events when they arise in the future.

CHAPTER 3

Why?

What are you doing here? Why are you reading this book instead of a novel or a newspaper? What has piqued your interest in mindfulness and what do you hope to get from it?

It’s helpful to have an idea of our intention before we begin a journey. When things are challenging, we can remember our initial inspiration, and find the motivation to go forward. Your intention might be a bit vague – a feeling that something is missing, a general sense of longing, or a curiosity. That’s fine. See if you can articulate something about it right now, before you are influenced by reading more about other people’s intentions.

try it now INTENTION

Sit quietly for a few moments. Bring your awareness into your body. Spend a few moments feeling your feet on the floor, the weight of your body on the seat and your hands wherever they are resting. Feel your spine and head rising upwards.Ask yourself, ‘Why am I here, reading this book? What do I hope to get from learning about mindfulness?’ Notice what first comes into your mind.