If you’re like most people, you’ve had an increase in anxiety over the past years.  What statistics show, and we see at my clinic, is an almost epidemic level of people seeking mental health services for it.  In response, a big push to recommend using mindfulness and meditation is growing.  There are apps you can get, classes you can take, and podcasts galore. But what I found, and my clients tell me, too, is, “that doesn’t work for me.”  I tried it, listened to many variations of guided imagery, body scans, and safe place grounding tools, but I still felt anxious and stressed.  On top of it, I felt like a failure at not being able to do it!  So today, I share with you a perspective  I’m finding helpful for both myself and my clients in a new approach to mindfulness.

We’ve all heard the buzz in the past few years about the many benefits of cultivating a mindfulness practice.  It reduces stress, helps us lose weight, and brings us peace.  Through meditation and mindfulness we can empty our minds of negative thoughts and feelings to be open to more joy.  So when the average person tries it, say a 60 year old woman who worries about everything, aiming to clear her mind and rid herself of negative distractions, she feels frustrated, as her mind won’t stop and her thoughts pull toward what’s bothering her.  She tries to stick with it and tells herself she has to try harder.  But the more she tries, the more she feels like she’s doing it wrong, and ends up believing she’s just not one of those “meditation types.”  And if she stopped there, she would be missing out on what actually can be a really helpful tool for healthy mental well being.  The problem, after she does some research, is not the practice, but the expectation.

Mindfulness has been sold to the public as a quick fix:  “Sit and be present in the moment and the stresses of life will fade.”  But actually, if you sit still and become more present, the stressors of life might actually feel worse!  The real power of mindfulness, when you talk to true students of the ancient practice, is paying attention to the present moment without judgement.  It’s more about acceptance and developing the skill of actually feeling our feelings and noticing our thoughts without being held captive by them.  We learn to experience them but also separate ourselves from them with the application of non-judgmental loving kindness.  The real goal of mindfulness is not to fix our lives, but to develop more awareness of and resilience by staying open to thoughts and feelings without being reactive.  With mindfulness, we can slow down and become aware of a range of feelings and thoughts that can co-exist.  In doing so, we can have more control over how we choose to respond to the world’s stressors.   In other words, mindfulness does not work by eliminating the stressors in our lives, as this is impossible, but it does help us become more centered and flexible in handling them.  A common metaphor for mindfulness is that we can’t control the waves, but we can learn to surf them.

Another aspect of mindfulness often overlooked in the more modern approach of stress reduction is the concept of impermanence.  Called the first seal of the dharma, the law of impermanence indicates that all conditioned things have a beginning, middle, and end (Nyanaponika Thera, 2006). They arise, evolve in a state of continuous change, and cease to exist.  As such, whatever we are upset about, whatever stress we feel, whatever we discover in our openness to full awareness will be fleeting.  Accepting ourselves and accepting change is a fundamental skill in developing a mindful approach.

As with any skill, mindfulness takes practice and continuous effort to create the change and to see the benefits.  Sitting down a few times or listening to a few options on an app won’t be enough.  The true benefits come from daily practice, but the good news, it only has to be a little bit every day.  Learning mindfulness basically teaches us the ability to pause to check in with ourselves and our needs, especially in times of stress.  The longer term outcome of a daily practice is to shift the tone of the conversation you have with yourself, not to eliminate the conversation.  By applying non-judgemental and compassionate awareness to your experiences, you become more accepting and loving to yourself and also to others.  You begin to have a better sense of what you can and cannot control, and the ability to let go of things that you are holding on to with relief rather than guilt.  As a bonus, by learning to sit with your feelings, both good and bad, you will learn to be able to notice and address your emotions and thoughts more quickly and thus, spend less time ruminating and wasting energy.  We can develop the habit of being more fully present in our relationships and with our own engagement in our lives.  

Like any superpower, mindfulness is a special state.  Even the most experienced mindfulness teachers talk of the days they can’t quite drop into the state they desire.  But rather than berate themselves, they seek the acceptance of this state of distraction and go with the flow.  Impermanence is a two edge experience.  We can’t hold on to the good, but we can also remind ourselves that whatever we feel, it, too, will not last.  And, yes, sometimes that 60 year old woman may feel like sisyphus, pushing the rock up the hill again, worrying about her family or the state of the world, but she also can become aware that she can let go of it at any time.  It’s her choice!