In February 2021 I told you about how I learned to recognize that thoughts are thoughts (not facts) and thereby thwart depression’s attempts to convince me that I’m terrible (that was originally the first half of this post). I also told you that before I learned my Cognitive Behavioural Therapy skills I would try to drown out the negative thoughts by overwhelming my senses of sight and hearing with media. All of the media, all of the time.
Sadly, I still fall back on this ineffective coping mechanism more often than I’d care to admit, and “my extreme efforts to keep My Brain constantly occupied so that it doesn’t have time or energy to engage in the very dangerous pastime of thinking means that I am almost always doing things on autopilot, completely oblivious to my surroundings” (quote from Past Gwendle in the aforementioned blog.)
Now, don’t get me wrong; there are times when autopilot and obliviousness are great. Without them, if I had to pay attention to absolutely everything all the time, that would be overwhelming. That would be attention surplus times a million. It’s awesome and necessary that when I’m talking to someone in a crowded space I’m (usually, mostly) oblivious to all of the other conversations happening around us, because when I’m not able to tune out the background conversations it leaves me incapable of focusing on the person I’m talking to, and I have no idea what they’re saying to me, or even what I’m trying to say to them. It’s fantastic that when I’m walking somewhere I can do it on autopilot and don’t have to give my full attention to every movement and placement of my feet like a toddler does when they’re learning to walk. If I did it would be hard to pay attention to the movements of other people, or of vehicles, and it would be difficult to check directions on my phone, or converse with the person walking beside me.
But when there’s too much autopilot, when my whole life becomes autopilot because I’m constantly assaulting my brain with media, and when even turning that media on has become a mindless and automatic thing that I do without consciously choosing to, because it’s just a habit . . . THAT is when autopilot and obliviousness cease to be awesome.
And that’s where mindfulness comes in.
Mindfulness is the opposite of autopilot and obliviousness: it is the practice of paying attention, on purpose, to whatever is happening (in your mind, in your body, in the world around you) in the present moment — not judging it, just being aware of it.
A lot of people think that mindfulness is synonymous with meditation, but I disagree. Meditation is frequently about sitting quietly and trying to “clear your mind” or achieve some other specific goal; many guided meditations that I’ve encountered are explicitly focused on trying to get rid of unwanted feelings, which is both unachievable and a terrible idea. Because meditation asks you to achieve a specific outcome, it's easy to feel as if you're failing at it. If you still have the thoughts and feelings you were trying to get rid of, it feels like failure. If your mind keeps wandering away from the thing you've been told to focus on, it feels like failure. It's no wonder that many people (Past Gwendle included) think they're not capable of meditation and give up on it.
While you certainly can sit quietly and do a more formal practice that looks a lot like meditation, mindfulness is something you can also do informally, any time, any place, no matter what else you’re doing; its only "goal" is to notice what's going on.
Because there is generally a lot going on, both in our brains and in our environments, it's often helpful to choose an anchor -- one specific thing to return the spotlight of your attention to when you notice it's being pulled into the past or the future. So when your mind gets pulled away from your anchor (which it will) you just notice it, and then gently shift your attention back. And you do that again, and again, and again.
In mindfulness, your mind wandering is a good thing. If you went to the gym and just sat down and looked at the weights without lifting them you wouldn't get any stronger. Every time your mind wanders during a formal or informal practice it gives you something to notice before returning to your anchor, and that helps to strengthen your metaphorical mindfulness muscles. Your anchor isn't there to hold you perfectly still -- it simply helps to keep you from getting swept away in the current of your thoughts and feelings. And your anchor can be almost anything.
For a less formal practice, you can wash the dishes mindfully. You can have a sip of your favourite hot or cold beverage mindfully. If you’re stuck in traffic you can drive mindfully. You can stretch mindfully. You can listen to the person talking to you mindfully. You can walk, or sew, or colour, or eat mindfully. You can read this blog mindfully (aware of not only the words I wrote, but maybe also of your eyes scanning across the text, or the black on white contrast of the letters on the background, or of the aesthetics of the font I use). You can watch a video mindfully. You can pause for a moment and make decisions mindfully. You can BREATHE mindfully, for as little as a single breath. Whatever is happening, if you’re paying attention to it on purpose while it’s happening, whether for a second or for an hour, you’re being mindful.
My favourite anchor is usually my breath, but some people use a sound or a sensation, a short phrase (such as “here and now”) or a single word. I encourage you to try out a few different anchors and choose the one that's right for you, which may change over time, or even from day to day; whatever helps you to return to the present moment.
I’d love to tell you that my mindfulness practice is consistently consistent. At the time when I first wrote this blog I’d been doing a daily mindfulness practice for just over two months, but the stress of starting a new job a couple of weeks later disrupted it — and that’s why I didn’t publish this, despite having two doodles and most of the text done. I didn’t want to tell you about mindfulness when I wasn’t even doing it.
I had a few more attempts at a consistent practice but none lasted a full month until the most recent one — the day I fell and broke my wrist would have been day 43 of a consistent practice, but pain and heavy medication disrupted that.
I am learning how to be okay with the fact that life will often get in the way of my practice — usually, regrettably, at those times when mindfulness would do me the most good.
I am learning how to be okay with short bursts of mindfulness on days when it occurs to me, rather than long streaks of regularity.
I have learned how to be okay when My Brain wanders off and gets distracted; when it does I notice it, acknowledge it, and then invite it to return its attention to my anchor. Some days My Brain is too loud for my breath to work as an anchor, and I choose to do a less formal practice, or a guided practice. Sometimes I settle for a single mindful breath, and that’s okay.
And sometimes, for just a moment, My Brain and I unite to focus our attention on the same innocuous thing, and that moment is lovely.
