What is mindfulness, really?
I’ve been practicing mindfulness for over 13 years - it’s part of my every day, it’s part of me. But what is mindfulness? It’s not the quick fix to all as is sometimes portrayed. So is it worth the effort? Is it worth the commitment? Absolutely. Here’s why.
Mindfulness - a life practice not a bandwagon
We’ve all heard the term mindfulness banded around, but what is it really and why should you consider making a mindfulness practice part of your life?
I’ve taken great interest in the growing trend in mindfulness and the most striking thing I have observed is how poorly mindfulness is understood. I share a brief history of mindfulness at the end of this blog.
Too often mindfulness is reduced to one of the following:
- a quick fix
- a remedy for all ills (particularly stress, anxiety, overwhelm, uncertainty)
- a technique
- a means to increase productivity and efficiency in the workplace
- a means to better ourselves
Mindfulness is none of the above.
Mindfulness is a life practice, which like any other, takes time to be assimilated, fully understood and experienced. It is not a quick fix but when practiced regularly can have widespread benefits which I explore later in this blog.
Think of it as a way of living, practiced at individual level for the benefit of all beings in all contexts of life (home, work, socio-economic).
I like to think of mindfulness as training for the brain in much the same way as physical exercise is training for the body. And the more we ‘train’ in mindfulness, the more aware and awake, the more honest, human and authentic we become, the more able we are to relate to others with kindness and compassion - recognising our impact on the world around us.
When we practice mindfulness, we practice:
Awareness - becoming more aware of our mind, body/breath, emotions.
Heartfulness - cultivating strength of heart, practicing compassion and kindness towards self and others.
Relationality - exploring the quality of our relationships; how we relate to ourselves, others and the world.
Insight and wisdom - waking up to how things really are vs how we think they should be.
Ethics – becoming more and more sensitive about how we treat each other and our environment. It’s about becoming more aware of our actions of body (behaviour), speech (communication) and mind (judgements, assumptions, views, beliefs) and becoming more attuned to our interconnectedness and interdependence.
Mindfulness as a life practice
Mindfulness is not a thing we do and then set aside e.g. attend a course and then forget about it. Mindfulness is a practice that we commit to daily in the following ways:
1. Formally, by making time every day (10-20 minutes) to sit quietly and observe the mind, body, heart with non-judgement
2. Informally, what I call mindfulness in action, by bringing awareness to our day to day actions (of body, speech and mind) and to our attitudes to self, other and our surroundings.
It is not enough to just practice mindfulness informally as the formal practice informs and supports our informal practice - the more we practice formally to wake up to our body, feelings and mental states the more awake and responsive we are in our day-to-day interactions with others and all life around us.
So, is a mindfulness practice worth the personal investment?
Absolutely! Regular mindfulness practice can help improve emotional health and resilience. We can get into trouble when we react to stimuli very quickly without thinking, when we live life on auto-pilot, driven by our habitual ways of thinking and behaving.
We might say an unkind word, we may not be considerate to someone, we may make a knee-jerk decision that we regret afterwards. Mindfulness can help us to pause, to collect ourselves and to create a space in our mind between an incoming trigger (external stimuli, e.g. someone criticising us, or an event, e.g. the current pandemic or internal stimuli, e.g. a thought, worry, view, judgement) and how we react or respond to it.
Victor Frankl (Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist)’s quote describes this very well:
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and freedom.
A mindfulness practice can help us to wake up to life, to our in the moment experience. We can stop worrying about missing out because we experience and live each moment fully, we feel less anxious and stressed and can accept and relax into change and uncertainty more easily. We feel more connected to ourselves, others and life at large and as a result experience more joy, freedom and meaning in our lives.
As human beings we all want to be and do well. When we feel well in ourselves and in relationship to others, we naturally feel motivated, engaged, productive and creative.
Developing 10 attitudes to deepen your practice
There are 10 core attitudes we can develop to deepen a mindfulness practice over time. Attitudes such as kindness, compassion, non-judgement, patience, a beginners mind, acceptance, trust, non-striving, humility, authenticity, courage, curiosity, gratitude and generosity.
I will explore these attitudes in my next two blogs and share how I have been getting on with them. They are a vital part of mindfulness practice as often our attitude towards ourselves and others is harsh, critical, judgemental, defensive, offensive, conceited etc. which is the cause for much of our suffering.
If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Do check out my latest mindfulness programme starting in October: Radical Mindful Leaders – a mindfulness programme for leaders with an established mindfulness practice:
Wed, 21 Oct - 25 Nov 2020 @ 6.30 - 9pm
More information below or email karen@greenspacecoaching.com for more information about our programme and to book a place.
I’ll leave you with a brief look into the history of mindfulness.
Mindfulness - a brief history
Mindfulness practice was taught by the Buddha more than 2500 years ago. It’s found across many Eastern and Western philosophies but it was the Buddha’s teachings that most clearly defined and taught mindfulness.
In the 1970s, the American scientist and professor of medicine Jon Kabat-Zinn discovered that a mindfulness practice - a simple mental training practice – helped patients suffering from chronic pain (which doctors could not treat with medicine) reduce their suffering and stress which in turn reduced their anxiety and depression.
Then in the early 2000s, an upsurge in scientific interest in mindfulness took place, largely for the following two reasons:
1. The discovery that mindfulness had a big impact on the prevention of depression - in some cases it was found to be as effective as anti-depressants
2. The wide availability of low cost brain scanning equipment illustrated the neuro-plastic effects of a mindfulness practice – that our minds are constantly being shaped by experience and that they can be trained to think differently.
Mindfulness was no longer seen as just a placebo.
In people practicing mindfulness, MRI scans showed less neural activity in the amygdala - also referred to as the ‘alarm bell centre’ of the brain that sets off our fight and flight response. Brain scans also showed stronger prefrontal lobes - often referred to as ‘the executive control centre’ of the brain which gives us control over our body, behaviour and emotions. This may explain why people who practice mindfulness regularly have less anxiety, less stress, less depression, generally feel happier and healthier and better connected to others and their environment (home, work, social web of life).
We encourage leaders - senior and junior - from all walks of life, gender, faith and ethnicity to join our programme.
NEW: Radical Mindful Leaders – a mindfulness programme for leaders with an established mindfulness practice
Building on a highly successful pilot programme delivered to leaders from a range of organisational backgrounds in July/August 2020, my colleague Andrew McNeill and I have designed a cutting edge programme for leaders wishing to explore their authentic leadership more deeply; and in so doing, understand what it means to be a mindful leader, their impact on staff, their organisation and its networks. This is not a traditional leadership programme. Curious? Do email me to find out more.
Bookings are now open for the 3rd 6-Week Radical Mindful Leaders Programme starting on Wed, 12 May - 16 June 2021 @ 6.30 - 9pm.
We have received funding and are delighted to be able to offer a number of funded or part funded places. If this could be of assistance to you or your organisation, then do get in touch on karen@greenspacecoaching.com or on +44 7815 591279
