The 4 Most Important Mindfulness Tools

Let's explore the deep, transformative power of mindfulness and meditation beyond routine practices. We will discuss how integrating mindfulness into every aspect of our lives can extend the benefits beyond the meditation cushion, influencing our health, relationships, and overall well-being.

Transcript

A lot of us are addicted to cognition.

We're addicted to giving things labels,

Figuring things out,

Problem-solving.

A really good prompt that we can start with now to help us all tap into mindfulness is the prompt given by the meditation instructor Locke Kelly.

And we can sit with this question,

All of us can sit with this question.

And the question is,

What is here now when there is no problem to solve?

What is here now when there's no problem to solve?

And just see,

Don't try to answer the question with your mind,

Just try to feel into the answer with your experience.

And that's a really good way to kind of bring your attention back to the present moment and stop being such a problem solver.

Stop being so attached to thought and figuring things out and so on.

So the first point that I would like to make is this idea that meditation is very,

Very popular.

Meditation apps in general make millions and millions of dollars each year.

They're some of the most subscribed to apps in the world.

And a lot of us tend to think of these meditation apps as sort of like a vitamin for the mind.

If I can do my 20 minutes of meditation a day,

I've taken my vitamin and I'm good.

But if we use that analogy and take it a little bit further,

We kind of know that taking vitamins is like the last thing to concern yourself when it comes to improving our health.

There are way more important things to worry about,

Such as,

You know,

Are you smoking?

Are you consuming alcohol?

How is your sleep?

The amount of calories you're eating.

Are you overeating?

Are you undereating?

How stressed are you?

There's a lot to consider at levels of activity and exercise when it comes to general health.

The idea that someone can just take a vitamin and then just relax and go,

Oh,

I've done it.

I figured it out.

We know that that doesn't quite make sense.

And a lot of us have taken that approach with meditation,

I believe,

Where we just think I can do my 10 minutes of following my guided meditation track and I'm done.

I've done my practice for today.

And I have to be a little bit careful with what I say,

Because having a daily practice like meditation is one of the best things you can do.

I actually don't want to undermine that.

Showing up to a practice every day consistently,

It trains you in diligence and discipline and tolerance and patience,

Overcoming obstacles like procrastination and resistance.

It's very,

Very good for you.

And you'll find even 20 minutes of meditation a day that your relationships will improve the way that you think will improve.

Maybe your sleep improves.

A lot of benefits can come from 20 minutes of meditation a day.

But the issue,

I think,

Is when we see meditation not as an integrated part of life,

But as this thing that we can just tick off,

There's still going to be benefits to that.

There's still going to be benefits to doing a seven-minute workout.

There's still going to be benefits to taking a vitamin.

But if we stop there,

We're kind of missing the picture.

And so I think mindfulness is the way that we take something like meditation and we turn it into a holistic solution to existential problems,

Emotions,

Relationships,

And ultimately awakening.

And I'm going to read a quote out to you.

So Sam Harris,

The neuroscientist,

Philosopher,

And meditation teacher said that he didn't know really how to meditate until he did his first 10-day retreat.

He said,

Quote,

I was sitting really reliably an hour a day for a full year before I went off for the first retreat.

And it wasn't maybe until the fifth day of the retreat,

Somewhere around the midpoint,

Where I really connected to the practice in a way that I hadn't before.

And I remember the epiphany,

That I had just been thinking with my legs crossed in my daily practice for the previous year.

An hour a day was insufficient for me to really drop down a level within a mindfulness context with continuity and sustained attention to see what I wasn't seeing and to clearly see the difference between being lost in thought and not.

Now I'm not sure if I was a hard case,

But can you comment on that?

Is that a common experience to feel like it's not until you sit intensive retreat that you really know what it is you're supposed to be doing?

So we asked that to Joseph Goldstein,

A very well-respected meditation teacher.

And Joseph Goldstein said,

Quote,

I guess the question I would ask you,

And I don't know if you remember back then,

But in that time before your first 10-day retreat,

You mentioned that you were sitting pretty reliably an hour a day.

The question would be,

What were you doing the other 23 hours?

And I just thought that question really highlighted the issue here.

It was a framing issue.

So Sam Harris was thinking that it was the retreat that solved his problem,

Whereas Joseph Goldstein was saying,

No,

It was the framing of meditating an hour a day and leaving it there that was the problem.

Maybe if Sam had maybe made his life a bit more like a meditation retreat,

Then he would have gained those same benefits.

So this is kind of the thing that started me off on,

You know,

Really questioning what are we doing when we're off the meditation cushion,

When we're not meditating,

And how might we be holding our practice back by just sort of ignoring that.

We've all had that experience of meditating and then getting angry an hour later when we're in traffic or saying something we shouldn't say in a relationship.

So I don't know about you,

But I tend to be someone who spends a lot of time thinking about how to optimize things.

Very often when I'm actually meditating,

My mind will go to things like,

How could I improve my meditation practice?

How could I make it better?

What do I need to be doing?

What could I do tomorrow?

What new technique could I try?

And it's ironic,

Obviously,

Because when you're actually meditating,

The idea is that you bring your attention back to the object that you're focusing on.

So I'm almost tricking myself by thinking,

Oh,

If I have thoughts about how to make my meditation better,

Then therefore I'm still kind of meditating,

But you're not.

And I think that is reinforced actually by our society.

Look how many podcasts are all about optimizing everything.

You know,

Like how can you tweak this?

How can you tweak that?

How can you do 50 hours in three hours?

50 hours of work in three hours.

And if you look at a lot of people now that are into self-improvement and you look at their routines,

It's like they're stacked full of everything.

You know,

Like five minutes of a specific type of breath work followed by a specific type of meditation that ends with a different type of meditation and then into cold exposure and then a certain amount of sunlight and before they go to the gym and do a certain kind of exercise routine.

And it's kind of a neurotic way to live in a way.

There's this conflict that exists between breadth and depth.

So you may take someone and they've got a very complicated two-hour routine where it's journaling and breathwork and meditation and cold exposure and everything in between.

And I do wonder whether that would be better than someone who just sits quietly for two hours and contemplates.

You know,

Like has a depth of practice.

Personally,

I kind of think that the person who goes deeper and has a simpler practice is the one who's going to probably have the deepest insights.

And so yeah,

Larry Rosenberg,

He's the author of Breath by Breath.

That's probably,

Yeah,

My top three favorite meditation books.

He said in his book,

Quote,

We have retreats,

We have our meditation room and then there's everything else,

Which is dirty,

Noisy,

Rotten and lousy.

And we don't want any part of it.

Now we may say mindfulness all day long,

Mindfulness in every posture,

Be aware in everything that you do.

But it often becomes the biggest cliche in spiritual circles.

And it's obvious that we're not doing it.

And this is another thing that I've observed.

I've been working in the self-improvement spirituality scene for the better part of 10 years.

And I've met a lot of people that will tell you that meditation is really good for you.

Mindfulness is very good for you.

And yet I haven't actually met that many people who have a really dedicated daily practice of meditation.

So I practice jujitsu and I find that the the practice of that martial art has taught me a lot about how we learn.

And I kind of think of meditation practice,

To use the analogy,

As a self-defense class.

Right.

So there are many benefits to just showing up to a self-defense class.

You can improve your fitness,

Can get a sense of purpose,

Social connection,

Mental stimulation.

But if you forget everything that you've learned in that self-defense class,

When you leave,

You're missing the main point.

You still get the benefits,

But you're missing the main point.

Meditation is kind of like that.

There are a lot of benefits to just showing up and meditating.

But you'll often notice in guided meditations especially,

The teacher will say,

Bring this attention into the rest of your life,

Or bring this energy or this mindfulness into the rest of your life.

And a lot of times we just go,

Okay,

Cool,

I'm done.

Tick,

Habit,

Done.

Can forget about it now.

Whereas really the right way to approach it is that the habit is not done.

The meditation practice was really the setting your mind up for what's to come.

I think that Dalai Lama actually calls his morning practice,

Setting up the mind or preparing the mind.

It's not the end in itself.

It's,

I'm going to meditate on compassion for the real work that comes after my practice,

Which is meeting people and living life.

But one thing that we haven't actually discussed is,

Well,

Okay,

This sounds intriguing,

But why would you actually want to practice mindfulness?

What would be the benefits of it?

And you could go very deep with this and I could provide you a very deep spiritual answer,

But let's keep things very simple.

Why would you want to practice mindfulness?

If you think back to all of the best memories you've ever had,

I can promise you something.

You weren't lost in thought when those memories were happening.

If you were on your deathbed and looking back at your life,

You would not be remembering the times you were lost in thought.

You would not be remembering the times you were having an argument in your mind as you were driving somewhere or thinking about all the different ingredients you were going to have to buy in the supermarket for your dinner without really knowing that you were thinking.

You're going to be remembering times where you were actually present.

You're actually there paying attention.

And Sam Harris says,

Quote,

The truth is,

Just having a concentrated mind that's not getting lost in thought is intrinsically pleasurable.

It's intrinsically blissful.

It's the emotional base note of all good experiences of any kind.

You know,

A lot of people go to great lengths to almost force mindfulness upon themselves.

You know,

They'll do almost extreme sports or risk their lives traveling to have certain experiences just to bring them out of their own head and into the present moment.

And we don't necessarily have to do that.

We can practice mindfulness in the most ordinary of circumstances.

I really like this distinction,

Actually,

That I want to bring up between the contents of consciousness and consciousness itself.

So when we chase peak experiences or we chase altered states of mind through different types of plant medicine work or breath work or certain types of dance,

All of that can be very helpful.

But what we're really doing there is we're trying to manipulate the content of consciousness.

Now,

If I can rearrange the pieces in the contents of my consciousness,

Then I can kind of get certain emotions and feel good or not feel good.

And you kind of manipulate the contents to have an effect on you.

Whereas true Buddhist meditation and mindfulness is more concerned with the whole.

And so there's a phrase,

One taste.

Think about a time when you felt depressed.

Think about a time when you felt ecstatic.

Both of those situations,

Consciousness is still the same.

The contents are different,

But it's still made of the same stuff.

It's still made of the exact same stuff,

The stuff of consciousness,

Which is arguably perfect.

And so when we practice mindfulness,

The idea is we can step back a little bit from the contents and start to almost exist as consciousness itself,

Where the contents can come,

They can go,

They can arise,

They can pass away,

They can change.

But there's still this element of one taste.

A really useful model when it comes to meditation and mindfulness is the three components of mind training.

And you can think of meditation as a form of mind training.

This is how I like to think about it.

In fact,

I actually use that language with myself.

And instead of saying,

Oh,

I'm going to go meditate,

I will sometimes say,

I'm going to go train the mind.

I find that's more motivational for me.

So just like in physical health,

You have different components like recovery,

Level of exertion,

Diet,

And so on.

When it comes to training the mind,

We have three basic pillars.

We have the approach,

The practice,

And the integration.

So there are different schools of thought on mindfulness.

The Stoics had their own views on mindfulness.

There are different branches of Buddhism and Zen that have different perspectives on mindfulness.

There are Western philosophers,

Phenomenologists that have spent a lot of time examining conscious experience.

Again,

Different approaches to the topic of mindfulness.

Then you have the practice.

This is typically meditation.

But again,

There are different types of meditation.

What do they all have in common?

Their practice.

So you have the approach,

Which is the philosophy.

You have the practice,

Which is the meditation.

And then you have the integration.

A lot of us are concerned with the first two,

The approach.

Give me a spirituality book to read.

I'm going to take it in.

Give me a cool spiritual lecture.

Help me see the world differently.

Upgrade the way that I philosophize about my emotions and life.

Good.

It's really good you're working on the approach.

The practice.

I want to try this practice on a Monday,

A different practice on a Tuesday.

You want to mix up the practices?

Fine.

Sometimes we don't even do them though.

But still,

If you do practice a certain type of approach and you do an actual meditation every day,

Very good.

Where we often fall short is the integration.

How do we take that,

The books that we read,

The Dharma talks that we listen to,

The time we spend on the cushion,

How do we take that and integrate it into our actual life,

Every part of our life?

So there's a quote by the Buddha himself that I really like.

So the quote is,

Whether going out or returning,

The yogi acts with full attention.

Whether looking ahead or looking around,

He or she acts with full attention.

Whether bending an arm or straightening it,

He or she acts with full attention.

Whether walking,

Standing or sitting,

Whether resting or awake,

Whether talking or silent,

He or she acts with full attention.

Now,

Some would argue that even though this is a very simple quote,

It doesn't really say much other than pay full attention at all times.

Some would say that if you could actually follow this advice into your daily life and integrate it as a way of being,

This would be more powerful than reading a hundred books.

Do you agree with that?

Do you think there's some truth to that?

And then the follow-up question is,

What does it mean to pay full attention?

And it's funny,

Right?

Because like I've just read out a few sentences and if we actually applied that and really made it the earnest desire to practice with that wisdom,

Almost everything in our lives would get better.

Relationships,

Work,

Waiting around,

Negative emotions,

Everything would be improved if we could pay more attention.

Full attention is not to be confused with a sort of rigid and yielding laser focus,

Because there's almost like a level of effort in that.

And maybe you're even subtly thinking all the time,

Like keep looking,

Keep looking,

Keep looking,

Keeping attention on a subtle level.

And the middle way,

The characteristic of that is sort of like an effortless effort,

Or sort of like a flow.

You know,

When you're doing something and enjoying it and time kind of disappears and you're doing it,

But it's not like this grind.

It's not like super hard to do.

So to me,

Full attention is a combination of awareness plus an attitude of curiosity.

Those two things.

So awareness with an attitude of curiosity.

And that's why I think children are almost naturally mindful,

Because the world is much more novel to them.

It's easy for them to be curious.

And to be honest,

I think to a child,

Sometimes the thoughts that they're having in their head are just not as entertaining as the way that a puddle splashes,

For example.

Whereas us,

We have so much going on.

Our thoughts are almost more entertaining than streaming movies.

We're just constantly playing different images and just thinking and thinking and thinking to the point that we don't actually want to not think anymore.

So yeah,

I see mindfulness as awareness plus the attitude of learning and a curiosity.

So you can try that actually,

When you pay attention to the breath next.

Try to just be as curious as you can,

Almost like you've never breathed before.

Like,

Huh,

What is going on there?

Why does that do that?

Why does that make that sound?

Oh,

How does this breath connect to that breath?

Which is shorter?

Which is longer?

What's the shape of my breath?

And you just have this attitude of learning,

And you'll find that you just drop into this mindful place.

And that's so different from,

Right,

Got to pay attention.

Oh,

I'm not paying attention.

Damn,

Got to pay attention.

And that's what a lot of us think paying attention is actually about,

Because we associate paying attention with maybe school.

Look at the front of the class.

You're daydreaming.

Pay attention.

And so a lot of us actually probably carry a bit of negative emotion with this idea of paying attention.

Because when we're younger,

Our brains are still developing,

And we're not really meant to pay full attention to everything that doesn't interest us.

Right?

I have a five-year-old,

And the world is interesting.

Asking him to do certain things is very boring.

And so if I say,

Hey,

Pay attention,

I'm talking,

That's almost conditioning him to have a negative association with paying attention instead of,

Oh,

Yeah,

I'd love to pay attention.

I love doing that.

And so a lot of us can practice the awareness part by reading and by having a meditation practice.

But what about the attitude of learning?

How can we cultivate more of that?

And when I say learning,

I want to be clear.

It's not learning like,

Oh,

I could actually tell you about the world,

That kind of learning.

I always think of meditation as a science.

It's a hard science,

Even though a lot of scientists would probably laugh at that.

But it's a science of the first person.

It's an examination of the one thing nobody else can verify or talk about,

And that is conscious experience.

The scientific method is meant to be like a social enterprise.

You are meant to discover things,

Verify things,

Share them with others,

See if they can replicate the ideas and the insights.

And of course,

People do that with meditative insights as well.

Hey,

This is what I noticed about the way my mind is working.

Try that.

Does that work for you?

So there is definitely a scientific element to it.

And I think Buddhism provides a framework for awakening insight,

Wisdom,

That many other schools of thought and philosophy don't do.

There's a systematic kind of training process that exists.

I had a major insight when it comes to meditation a couple of years into my practice,

Where I realized that I wasn't being playful enough.

It felt too much like I was trying to,

I don't know,

Psych myself up for a powerlifting competition or something,

Where it's like,

Right,

Got to give this my all.

Got to really focus.

Whereas I think a true skilled meditator is doing it with a bit of a small smile,

Like,

Haha,

Look at the mind.

Look at what's happening.

Oh,

Look at that.

Oh,

That's funny.

Oh,

I was distracted there.

Oh,

Wow.

There's a lightness there.

It's not a seriousness.

Because if you approach meditation too seriously,

You're going to negatively reinforce when you're doing meditation well.

That's one of the kind of paradoxes.

Because say you're doing a breath meditation,

So you're paying attention to the breath,

And then a subtle distraction might come in.

That subtle distraction might become a strong distraction.

Then you'll forget the breath,

And then you'll start mind-wandering.

And then you remember that you need to be focusing on the breath.

And in that moment of remembering,

You've done exactly what you should be doing.

You've literally nailed your meditation practice by remembering to come back to the breath.

But a lot of us,

When we remember and we do the right thing by remembering and coming back to the breath,

We are annoyed at ourselves.

Damn,

I mind-wandered.

Whereas the right thing to do is,

Instead of going,

Damn,

I was mind-wandering,

To say instead,

Well done.

You did awesome.

You came back to the breath.

You woke up.

Amazing work.

Okay,

Keep going.

I think a lot of us could benefit from the way that we are approaching and thinking about ourselves during our meditation practice.

Are we being compassionate to ourselves?

Are we being light and playful?

The idea is letting things go.

Another practice that I like,

I got it from Adyashanti.

When he was going through the process of becoming awakened,

He did a lot of journaling.

Not journaling in a way that's like,

Oh,

This happened to me,

And this is how I felt,

But more like really breaking down very,

Very deeply certain thoughts.

Say that he would get triggered in anger.

He might spend the whole journaling session reflecting on that one thought that so-and-so disrespected me and don't like me,

And they should be punished,

Something like that,

And just really,

Really zoning in on that and asking,

Where did that come from?

If I was this thought,

What would I be needing?

What's the feeling?

If I was this feeling,

What would I be thinking?

If I was this thought,

What would I be feeling?

Looking at the connection between the thought and the feeling and the root and where it might have come from and the first time he might have thought such a thing,

First time he might have felt such a thing,

And then what does this thought believe?

What does this feeling believe?

What is the worldview of this thought?

If this thought came alive and became a person,

What would it want from life?

Just really going very deep.

It's an unusual way to journal,

But he,

In this process,

Found that he could go really deep and almost truly heal himself and let go of the root.

A lot of us are floating around the surface of things.

We're not going to the root of it.

I really like that style of journaling,

And he calls it freedom through inquiry,

Which is a really nice combination of meditation and journaling.

I'd like to end this session with some practical advice,

So how we can actually start practicing mindfulness.

What I'd like to share with you is four tools,

Mindfulness tools,

That you can start using today and this week to improve the integration of your mindfulness and meditation and spiritual practice.

Let's look at some practical tools for mindfulness.

The first tool is what I call the dot-to-dot day.

Have you ever done those dot-to-dot drawings?

They're often in children activity books.

There's a dot and a number,

And you connect the dots.

One connects to two,

Connects to three.

Then when you keep doing this,

You end up with a picture of something cool.

You couldn't have just drawn that yourself,

But when you do it dot-to-dot,

What you're actually doing is small straight lines.

You're doing a straight line and another straight line and another straight line.

Then when you look back,

It's this masterpiece.

When it comes to practicing mindfulness,

We can think of our day and we can imagine adding mindfulness dots throughout the day.

We can think of our meditation practice as quite a big dot,

But if we have another meditation practice an hour later,

But maybe it's for one minute,

A minute of meditating,

And then again,

Three hours later,

When we punctuate our day with these mindful dots,

The line between them just becomes a lot straighter.

If we just meditate once a day,

Our mindfulness will waver.

The meditation teacher,

Andy Pudicombe,

Says that,

Quote,

If you take a blank piece of paper and try drawing a straight line very slowly across the page,

Even if you've got a very good eye,

My guess is that there'll be at least a few wobbles along the way.

If you haven't got a steady hand,

The wobbles might be considerably greater.

Let's say that this line symbolizes your continuity of awareness throughout the day.

When you're aware,

You tend to have a sense of calm,

Of focus,

Of direction.

And remember,

Even if you're not necessarily experiencing a pleasant emotion,

You still have a sense of space around the emotions,

Some increased perspective,

And some emotional stability.

However,

Much like the line you drew across the page,

For most people,

This idea of continuity of awareness tends to look very shaky.

Now,

Try imagining a different approach.

This time,

Imagine that the piece of paper has lots of very small dots on it going from one side to the other.

Each dot is very close to the next one on the page.

And so,

Andy is not forcing ourselves to be vigilant.

Like I said earlier,

This type of effort,

Every moment of every day,

That's a big ask.

That's kind of what we want to get to eventually,

But we don't want to force ourselves there.

You know,

Like the analogy of how do we be happy?

Well,

We don't force ourselves to be happy.

Happiness is sort of like a rainbow.

When different conditions come together,

A rainbow is created.

The same for mindfulness.

Even though we do want to be paying attention every day,

There's a good way to go about it,

A way that kind of makes it easier rather than harder for us.

And so,

Asking yourself that question,

How can I punctuate my day with mindfulness to create a continuity of awareness?

That's going to make your mindfulness way better.

The next tool is the flow of undistracted non-meditation.

So,

In his talk with Sam Harris,

Joseph Goldstein said,

It's really important to watch the commitment to being mindful throughout the day because concentration comes about through the continuity of mindfulness.

So,

It's not so much about effortful focusing,

But rather more a quality of being relaxed back into the moment to get right back into the Dzogchen Vipassana framework.

A Dzogchen phrase that is used very often is undistracted non-meditation.

So,

The non-meditation part suggests that effortless quality,

Settling back into a natural awareness.

But often people forget the undistracted part.

It's about this continuity of relaxed awareness.

So,

The question is really whether we're considering our meditation to be the time that we're sitting on the cushion for however long each day,

Or we're seeing it as practicing that quality of undistracted non-meditation throughout the whole day.

And that is the continuity that will lead to some stability.

So,

I just really like that phrase,

The undistracted non-meditation.

So,

It's a form of relaxing,

Of letting things go,

But also not being lost in thought.

You could say that the way that our mind is,

We can generally either be lost in thought or not.

And there are different kind of subtle levels of this.

You can have subtle distraction,

Which is almost like a background stirring of a distraction that's kind of pulling your attention a little bit.

And then you can have full-blown mind wandering.

But really,

When you break it down,

You know what it's like to be lost in thought.

You also know what it's like to not be lost in thought.

And so,

Just thinking of things this simply as this dichotomy,

Am I distracted or not?

And then going through life with this intention,

I want to be undistracted in a non-meditation as much as possible.

The third tool when it comes to mindfulness is the salt and pepper approach.

So,

There's a book I really recommend for developing a concentrated mind,

And that is a book called The Attention Revolution by B.

Alan Wallace.

He's a PhD that is one of the most serious meditators in the world.

And he says in his book,

Quote,

Cognitive imbalances of both types can be remedied by applying to daily life the attention skills we cultivate during meditation.

In fact,

If we casually let our mind succumb to excitation,

So being like really aroused,

And laxity,

Sort of like a dullness throughout the day,

There's little chance that our formal training during meditation is going to have much effect.

This would be like eating a wholesome breakfast and snacking on junk food for the rest of the day.

However busy we may be or think we are,

No one is paying us enough to have demands on our minds every single moment of the day.

Even in the midst of work,

We can take 15 seconds here and 60 seconds there to balance our attention by quietly focusing on the breath.

Our eyes can be open or closed.

We can sit quietly for a few moments without calling attention to ourselves.

We can do this in the workplace while standing in line at the grocery store or while waiting at the stoplight.

And what he recommends is as you go through daily life,

You want to be seasoning your experience with pauses.

It can be meditation,

But it could also just be following the out-breath.

It could also be five deep breaths.

It could also just be feeling your body.

It could also just be listening to the sounds around you.

But you're just taking this approach of,

Whenever possible,

I'm going to take very short moments,

And it's tied in,

Of course,

To the dot-dot-dot day of just settling back,

Of just pausing,

Just relaxing.

So you can do body scans and conscious breaths.

And then the fourth tool that I really like is 30-day challenges.

So one of the daunting things about mindfulness is that one of the instructions is really to be mindful all the time,

Right?

Be mindful as much as possible.

And I'm sure a lot of us are going to leave this session,

And the thought of being mindful up until bedtime might seem like a lot.

I don't want to be mindful the whole evening or day.

I want to zone out on social media.

I want to watch a movie.

So it can be kind of daunting,

And then you just put it off.

And no,

I'm not going to do that.

That's not for me.

The mindful way of life,

I'll do that another time.

I'll do that in the future.

I'll be more mindful tomorrow.

And I totally get it.

And so I think the antidote to that is to just set yourself a 30-day challenge.

So the question then is,

Well,

What would a 30-day challenge look like?

I would say give yourself some clear rules.

So one of the things that I would recommend is you have your daily meditation practice,

But then you also have a background on your phone.

Every time you see that background,

You've got to take like five seconds to just follow the outbreath.

So you have these reminders in your physical space.

Maybe you can have a Post-it note,

And the Post-it note can be positioned by your fridge.

It can be positioned in the toilet.

It can be positioned by the remote.

Little location-based reminders to wake up.

And you just create your own rules for a 30-day challenge that is not overwhelming,

But difficult enough to be exciting to you.

And you're not going to think past these 30 days.

Another technique that is really good is implementation intentions.

So whenever you have one habit,

You can sometimes pair another habit to it.

So if you like to go to the gym,

For example,

You can just have this rule.

Before I step foot in that gym,

I've got to do two minutes of focusing on my breath.

When I leave the gym,

I've got to do two minutes of focusing on my breath.

You've only spent four minutes at that point being mindful,

A fraction of the time you probably spent at the gym.

But if you did that every time you went to the gym,

Among everything else,

You're going a long way to developing continuity of awareness.

You're increasing the dot-to-dot day,

The flow of undistracted non-meditation.

And you're also going to be kind of seasoning your day with mindfulness and relaxation.

One of the things about meditation is that even though to the outside world,

It looks like you're just sitting there,

There's a lot going on.

And there are lots of different stages of meditation.

And meditation can be literally something that heals deep trauma as well.

It can allow you to process it when you're sitting there.

But yeah,

When you meditate,

You will start to see certain patterns that come.

But the most important thing about the practice of meditation is that you just show up no matter what.

That's kind of one of the benefits,

Is you kind of just keep showing up.

There's another analogy I really like about this idea that we have the answers within us,

But we're often blocked from it.

So a lot of us within ourselves have a lot of wisdom,

But we block ourselves from it.

Someone once said,

Wisdom is being able to follow your advice.

Well,

We're all very good coaches to other people.

We often know what the people in our lives should do to live a better life,

To be happier.

But we sometimes struggle to either unlock that in ourselves or really take it seriously.

The analogy that I like is that you go on an airplane,

And you're next to someone who has the instruction manual for how to work the plane.

And they're saying to you,

I'm not going to give you this instruction manual.

You're going to make us crash.

At that point,

You have two choices.

You can either say,

Okay,

Fair enough.

Let's not fly the plane.

Or you're going to call their bluff,

And you're going to start up the engine and just start moving forward.

What will sometimes happen is that they'll give you the instruction manual because they're like,

Okay,

I guess we're going to be flying.

Let's fly safely.

And I kind of think the same is true for meditation.

If we keep practicing and sitting and practicing mindfulness,

And we don't let those negative thoughts dissuade us,

We don't let the procrastination and resistance and doubt persuade us,

It's almost like the mind just goes,

Okay,

Whatever.

We'll go with it.

But in the early stages,

It can be tough.

It can be really tough to do that.

So I used to suffer with anxiety a lot.

And that's why my first course on Insight Timer was on anxiety.

And I had the full spectrum from hypochondria to panic attacks,

Social anxiety,

Just all the different types of anxiety that can show itself.

I would struggle with it,

And it would affect my life.

I'd physically want to go certain directions or avoid certain things to be able to feel,

Like to not feel that kind of anxiety.

And one of the things that I learned is,

It's really cliche,

And I'm sure this is not new to you,

But you know that phrase,

Whatever you resist persists?

And the way that I think about anxiety now is that anxiety is actually an amazing thing.

It's a complete frame switch.

Anxiety is so useful.

For some reason,

And it makes sense,

We kind of see it as like an illness,

Like anxiety,

Oh my God,

That's an illness.

We don't want that.

We want to be like those people that don't have that anxiety thing.

But then if you think about it,

Anxiety is one of the biggest reasons you're still alive right now.

Do you know how many dangerous things there are in the world for toddlers and adolescents?

Look at cars and cliffs and water and different types of things you could have eaten,

But you didn't,

Right?

There are so many different things that anxiety has literally saved you from.

Anxiety is like a guardian angel that's been keeping you alive.

And yet we're like,

Oh,

I hate anxiety.

Which actually,

If you were anxiety hearing that,

You'd be kind of annoyed.

You'd be like,

What?

You hate me?

I'm literally here to keep you safe and you're trying to get rid of me.

That's not going to work.

I'm not going anywhere.

In fact,

I'm going to shout louder because you don't appreciate me.

And so when you take the approach of befriending anxiety,

Accepting anxiety,

Allowing anxiety,

Not wanting it to go away,

But to truly listen,

Like,

Hey,

What are you saying?

Okay,

I'm hearing you.

Then it will actually paradoxically go because it feels heard.

There's a technique that you could use as well if this is something you struggle with called the RAIN technique.

And this works for all different types of emotions.

It was popularized by Tara Brach and she is on InsideTimer.

I think she has some RAIN meditations on InsideTimer too.

And the RAIN is an acronym.

So you recognize,

Okay,

I'm feeling this.

You allow,

Okay,

You're welcome here.

You're fine.

I'm not going to try and get rid of you or change you.

And then you investigate,

Okay,

Openness,

Curiosity,

Where is this coming from?

Why did this start?

What shape is it?

And then it's non-identification.

So it's like,

Oh,

I'm not feeling this,

Just this energy in my system that is coming and going and shifting and moving.

And that will really take the sting out of a lot of the negative emotions you may feel.

And it's something that I do regularly as well myself,

The RAIN technique.

It's just a little checklist that for whatever reason seems to really always work.

Experiment with having a more welcoming,

Friendly approach to your emotions.

Again,

We don't get taught this.

Nobody teaches us this.

In fact,

The world is kind of the opposite.

Why aren't you happy?

Why are you so worried about that?

Don't be so silly.

There's nothing to be afraid of.

Those are the messages we get.

We rarely hear the message,

Oh,

You're feeling a bit annoyed.

Really good that you're feeling that annoyance.

Really feel that.

Where's it coming from?

Well done for owning up to that.

We don't hear that.

Oh,

You're feeling anxiety.

Oh,

Right.

Have you investigated that?

That's amazing.

There's a part of you that's looking out for you right now.

We don't get those messages.

Oh,

You're in a bad mood.

Oh,

Okay.

Well,

I really appreciate you being able to say that to me,

That you're not feeling so good.

And if there's anything you want to talk about and I can just listen,

Then I'm up for that.

We don't hear that.

It's like,

You're in a bad mood.

Okay.

Talk to me when you feel better.

Reviews

Excellent advice thank you for sharing your knowledge

Thank you, Jon.
As always, I've received a great deal of wisdom. I consider you my mentor.