Well today I stepped waayyyy outside my comfort zone to do a live Facebook feed around Mindfulness. I’m used to delivering workshops, and working face to face with people so it did feel odd, but I’m going to keep doing them, and hopefully I’ll get better. I want to do this, so that in some small way, these posts might be helpful in this really hard time.
Below is a summary of what I talked about today -
Mindfulness – what is it?
This word gets bandied around a lot lately, and while its great that there is an increase focus on Mindfulness, wellbeing and mental health, there are also some misconceptions floating around.
The definition by Dr Jon Kabat- Zinn (look him up, he has incredible knowledge around Mindfulness) is –
“The awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment”.
So what does that actually mean???
Well, we spend an incredible amount of time, in our lives, acting in Auto-pilot. I use the analogy of driving in our cars.
We get the kids ready for school, hop in the car and drive the same route we always do. We drop them off, and then suddenly think “That last traffic light I went through, was it red or green??” We often do routine tasks and activity very much on Auto-pilot, our bodies might be in the car but our minds are thinking about all the things we have to do today, or something that might have gone wrong yesterday.
A similar analogy, is that you are in your car, on your way to work. Again your body in in the car, but your mind is already at work, opening and reading emails.
As our lives get busier, and we have more and more ‘stuff’ that is constantly grabbing our attention, it can be very difficult to NOT operate on Auto-pilot, and be a little more present.
So, what’s the problem with this?
A couple of things….
When we are constantly thinking, thinking, about what’s going to happen in the Future, or what happened in the Past, we rarely get to be present, and as such we don’t get to experience our life FULLY. When we practice Mindfulness, we get to experience all parts of our life’s, the ups and downs, but we get to really FEEL them.
Also, if we are constantly thinking, living in the past or the future, our self-awareness goes down. Then when a situation occurs that can tip us up, we REACT, rather than RESPOND.
Reacting is usually driven by emotion, the situation was probably the last straw for the day/week. When big emotions come out, the thinking part of our brains goes out the window, we are just IN emotion.
With Mindfulness practice, we can start to RESPOND, and the response is a choice, with our thinking part of our brains fully engaged.
Reacting to stressful situations, can cause us to ‘Flip our Lids”, (coined by Dr Dan Siegel). This is when our Pre-frontal Cortex ‘Flips’ goes off-line, thinking is gone, and we are just in our emotions, reacting.
Soooo, how can Mindfulness help??
There’s lots of great research about how Mindfulness is good for our well-being and mental health.
I’m trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is all based in Mindfulness (there are some sections of the mental health community believe it is more effective than Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). I believe whatever works best for the client.
The research has shown positive mental health benefits, and MRI’s have shown an increase in activity in the Pre-frontal Cortex for those who practice Mindfulness.
So basically it’s really, really good for us! Parents can use it, they can teach their children, schools have programs, its used in workplaces, and many elite sportsman practice to increase their performances.
I love it because it increases our self-awareness, and most importantly our self-compassion.
Mindfulness is a practice, a trainable skill, or a way of being, there’s many different points of view. It does take practice, and INTENT, you need to make the decision- this is something I’m going to incorporate into my life.
What it’s not…
The following are a couple of misconceptions –
“Meditation IS Mindfulness”
Nope, sorry. Meditation is very lovely, however it is not mindfulness all by itself (Mindfulness is much more complex than that). Meditation is one way you can PRACTICE Mindfulness. Some people love meditation, some people don’t, so don’t be put off about practicing Mindfulness thinking that you have to meditate, you don’t. However, if you want to start with a quick 3 minute check in, meditation you might find you like it.
“Mindfulness makes you calm and Zen”
Nope. Though it may be a by-product.
The purpose of Mindfulness is to build self-awareness and become more present. This means we don’t get to squish down those uncomfortable feelings when they arise – If something sad happens, we should feel sad. If something frustrates us, its ok to feel frustrated. All emotions come and go eventually, and we do ourselves a disservice if we only let ourselves feel SOME of them. On the flipside, by practicing Mindfulness, we do become more self-aware, and as a result kinder to ourselves, and that feels rather lovely.
“Mindfulness is an instant ‘fix”
Nope, would be nice though wouldn’t it?
Mindfulness takes practice, lots of practice. We have to practice to build or strengthen new neural pathways in the brain, and that takes time. The research shows though, it can be done in a relatively short time, if the practice is consistent.
I’ll cover the Neuroscience stuff in another post/feed, its quite fascinating.
So how do we incorporate Mindfulness into our lives?
One of the simplest, most powerful ways is to do some BELLY BREATHING.
Belly breathing is quite a specific type of breathing, you need to fill the belly up so it expands a little, hold for a sec, and then exhale for longer than your in breath. I wouldn’t worry too much about that, as long as the belly expands a little, that the important bit.
To understand why this is important we need to look at our bodies nervous systems.
The Sympathetic nervous system ramps up, when the Amygdala might be firing, we might be stressed or worried, and feel ‘heightened’ in our body.
The Parasympathetic nervous system tries to calm everything down, and get the Pre-frontal Cortex back online. Part of this system is the Vagus Nerve, when we take big Belly Breaths, we activate the Vagus nerve, who sends signals to the brain to calm down. Belly breathing can be very helpful for those feeling anxious or worried, particularly in the time we are experiencing now.
You can also teach children Belly Breathing, get them to put their hands on their tummy, or something a little heavy, so they can feel the belly expanding. If you get them to practice when they are already in a calm state, it is easier to recall when their emotions are rising up.
You can make Belly breathing part of your Mindfulness practice, just try and incorporate into a routine time. E,g before I brush my teeth each day, I’m going to take 3 deep belly breaths.
NOTICING
This is a Mindfulness term – Noticing, and its basically that, setting an intent to Notice. Notice where you are, use your senses to notice your surroundings, notice the food that you are eating or the coffee you are drinking. Noticing brings us back to the present, and is really easy to do, its just remembering.
Children are amazing Noticer’s, and they find wonder in smallest bug or pebble, or a shape in the clouds. We can take a leaf out of their book, to Notice the world around us.
CHECK-INS
This is checking in with yourself regularly to how you are feeling, or where your mind is at, and just take a minute to ’check-in’
We can also use check-in’s as a ‘buffer’ between different aspects or our lives. We are so busy, we often don’t get ‘space’ between work and the school pick up, or work to home. Take a minute between these transitions to check-in. You can also try to leave what’s happened during the day (rather than ruminate over), and be present in the space you are at the moment (e.g home).
PRACTICE THE PAUSE
This links in with choosing your RESPONSE rather than REACTING.
This is feeling that emotions are rising up, and you need to Practice a Pause.
You might Pause, by taking a couple of deep, belly breaths (my children are now well aware when I’m taking a Belly breath), or step away from the situation for a sec. Or even ending a phone call, saying I just need to take a minute, and then I can resume this conversation (you’ll have a far better outcome, than Lid Flipping).
All those mentioned above are Informal Mindfulness Practices, you still have to set an intent to do, but they are fairly easy to incorporate.
FORMAL PRACTICES
Formal mindfulness practice is when you take time out of your day to complete a meditation practice. Some practices include the body scan, mindfulness of the breath, mindful yoga, etc
Smiling Mind is a free Australian app that has lots of short practices you can start with. Alternately if you google Body Scan, mindful meditation, you’ll find something that suits you.
Phew!
I think that’s a summary of today!!
My next session will be on Self-Compassion, I was fortunate to hear Dr Kristen Neff speak at the Happiness conference, she’s amazing, so I’ll talk about that next time. Self-compassion that is soooo needed right now.
Hope you find some of that info helpful xx
P.s this pic is from this arvo, when my girl and I were laying on the tramp, chatting, and we both noticed the leaves on the tree, and how the sun was shining through
Kate
Family Counsellor
