But the following (which I’m writing here to set an intention as much as to mark an end point) is true. The irony is that all this mindfulness and meditation stuff has the ultimate effect of quietening brain activity and getting one into one's body and senses – which some of us have lost contact with. But writing about it uses words and concepts, and I've been accused of intellectualising. Tant pis. It's the best I can do.
- I am a teeny weeny bit more aware of thoughts coming and going. In the same way that sounds come and go, no beginning or end. Sometimes the image of waves breaking on the beach works for me. A continuum.
- Noticing thoughts is the first step towards deciding what to do with them. Sometimes I can choose whether to identify with a thought, i.e. whether to let it take over and have power over me. Or I can notice when a thought is unhelpful, and do my best to let it go, because it doesn’t truly exist.
- The flip side of this is that (on a good day) I can choose to amplify the thoughts that give me a sense of well-being, making that feeling last just a bit longer. It could be a random moment of happiness – the sound of bird song, light on a leaf or simply asking myself how I feel – and realizing that I’m happy for no particular reason. Bringing full awareness to the good moments in life, and being curious about detail, are necessary antidotes to our predominantly negatively wired psyches (an outdated evolutionary device to ensure survival in a hostile world). So it’s a kind of neuronal reprogramming. And a bit of a mountain to climb, for me.
- When all else fails I can come back to my breathing, which I can depend on. And can “surf” on its rise and fall, feeling its support.
- When something is uncomfortable, physically or emotionally, I can use breathing with that experience to change my perception of it. It becomes a smaller part of a bigger whole. Sometimes.
- Since I am doing this for myself, rather than (my usual strategy) going to a practitioner or therapist to sort me out, I have a sense of looking after myself, taking some degree of control, making choices. This feeling of “uprightness” starts with the way you sit to meditate, “solid as a mountain”. And “upright” is the first word I wrote on the stone we were given at the end of the session, as a way to anchor key words that would sustain our practice beyond the course.
But 8 weeks is way too short a period of time to integrate and establish a routine, especially since our teacher, Anouk, not only distilled the content of Jon Kabat-Zin’s MBSR course, but had also included aspects of cognitive-based mindfulness.
The cognitive aspect included aller vers l’aversion: allowing in a difficult thought (e.g. discomfort sustained during the meditation session or an uncomfortable feeling of any kind) and being fully conscious, breathing with it as described above. With awareness and acceptance, one’s perception of the issue can change; it becomes part of the whole, no longer the dominant thought. It’s resistance that brings and sustains pain.
Another aspect of the cognitive-based approach was encouraging us to create a cahier du bonheur. The reason for this is that research has shown that people who have been depressed are less likely to fall back into depression if they are using MBSR and a proactive approach whereby positive thoughts (mentioned above) are written down along with any positive experience that can nourish us when the chips are down. And this can work as a preventative, too. So every encouraging comment anyone makes about the Japan book, or about a shiatsu treatment – or anything whatsoever! – is now being duly recorded!
In terms of imposing a discipline I have gone digital, using an app that allows me to set timings, bell tone/frequency – you name it. (It would also give me stats on the minutes I’ve sat over a period of time. But that might invite an unhelpful performance-driven element so I’m staying with the bells for now.)
And the experiment where, for a day, I set a bell to ring every 10 minutes (as a way of being fully conscious) was interesting – and surprisingly stressful! I recommend it if you’d like to feel your life slipping away in 10-minute chunks, or if you need your computer time curbed. Ding… ding… ding…
The group, composed entirely of introverts with varying levels of anxiety or stress, never really jelled. But that was ok. Apart from the one man in the group, there precisely to press my buttons. Serge oh Serge, did we really need to know the detail of your meditation app (bingo, I’ve just done it myself), did you really need to show off your prior meditation experiences at every opportunity, take on the role of teacher – when you were several sandwiches short of a picnic in the mindfulness department… Ah well, it gave plenty of opportunity for me to sit with discomfort.
But the really sad thing was that one member of the group, a robustly positive woman who – in a brief conversation as we left together one evening – shared her very difficult personal story, didn’t show up for the last session. And two days later we heard that she had died that very day, for reasons we don't know. I could be platitudinous but it remains a shock.
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