EHS#6 - Mindfulness For Everyday Living

This talk is meant to elaborate on aspects of mindfulness meditation that sometimes provide barriers for people to ongoing practice. Several ideas are presented on how to work with these resistances so that regular mindfulness practice, both formal and informal will continue to benefit the student who wishes to continue on.

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to Expansive Health Services mindfulness meditation series.

As usual,

I'm Mike and every few meditations I hope to record a talk or some encouragement,

Some explanation about mindfulness practice and just to kind of check in with you on how your practice is going.

Guide you,

If you will,

To some things that you may have noticed already and perhaps some things that you haven't thought about or haven't noticed.

In addition to that,

I want to introduce you to the next series of mindfulness practices and kind of get you ready for the next group of practices.

I hope to be able to introduce you to two or three practices in concert,

In harmony or in collaboration with one another.

So that's something we'll do as well as we sit together and and take a few moments of our day with one another.

So as we get started in talking about your mindfulness practice,

Just stop what you're doing.

If you're multitasking or engaging in some other activity,

Maybe you're busy with work,

Maybe you're busy at home with family or listening to this as you drive in the car,

Just see if you can put down what you're doing for a moment and literally stop what you're doing.

And let's consider your breath.

Take a few mindful breaths.

Maybe take a moment to observe your thoughts,

Any emotions that you're experiencing at the moment,

Any bodily sensations that you're experiencing that stand out.

And now let's proceed.

Thank you for taking a moment to stop and thank yourself for taking that moment for yourself.

Okay,

So just a follow-up for you.

How's your mindfulness meditation practice going?

How are you feeling as you practice?

How are you feeling about practicing?

When you think about doing this,

Do you have a sense of excitement and anticipation?

Do you feel a sense of dread or wonder if you're gonna be able to focus this time?

Speaking of focus,

How is your focus during these practices,

During the rest of your day,

As you're going about your daily walk?

We mentioned in the first introduction to mindfulness talk that concentration and focus is a challenge for most all of us who are engaging in these practices.

I like to say that meditation is a slugfest.

If you're able to concentrate and focus the whole time every time you do it,

Then you know bless you.

I think the majority of us have a difficult time concentrating and so it's really about being compassionate with yourself,

Taking your time,

Just acknowledging the reality of that situation and knowing that you're not alone.

Speaking of that,

How much time are you taking to meditate?

I think in the first three practices I kept them mostly to ten minutes or less.

Is that enough time?

Is that too much time?

How much of that time do you spend in mindful awareness and how much of the time do you spend sleeping or distracted?

And I'm probably revealing more of myself from these questions or these comments than anything.

But how much time is enough?

And I would encourage you to find for yourself what works.

One of my mentors,

The man who got me involved in counseling and has coached me and guided me on some of these practices as well,

Told me on occasion that you know he had to start with one minute of meditation at a time and after a few weeks he would increase that to two minutes,

Three minutes and it took him a couple years before he got up to you know 20 minutes at a time and he's told me that he really misses that when he doesn't do that 20 minutes.

He notices after a day or two days he goes what's going on?

Things are off and realizes that he hasn't practiced for a couple of days.

So really there's no hard and fast rule about how much time is enough if you're learning things from the practices and as you engage in the practice on your own.

You know I would challenge you to listen to yourself and to answer that question for yourself how much time is enough for me?

Since we're on the subject I think another topic of this talk is just touching base with you on expectations and goals.

Many people when they get into meditation in addition to thinking that they should be able to focus the whole time,

Really say to me that I just can't get myself to clear my mind out and there's this sort of myth or expectation or goal that people have that the purpose of meditation is to clear your mind of all thought.

I'm just gonna empty everything out and just sit there in this in this void,

This expanse and you know I giggle because I I think I had that expectation at first as well and you know I was sorely disappointed in that expectation.

It definitely led to frustration and discouragement and self-blame you know thinking I am NOT doing this right or this stuff doesn't work or you know any of those kinds of things and so I guess today I just want to clarify that the goal of mindfulness really is to to be aware,

It's to pay attention,

To focus attention,

To get out of that autopilot or in psychology we use the term default mode network.

This part of our brain that daydreams,

That anticipates the future,

That reviews the past,

Just kind of doing its own thing,

Flying its own plane and really the goal of all mindfulness practices and meditative practices,

Contemplative practices is to make yourself real intentional through mindful awareness,

Get you out of autopilot and living more purposefully,

Meaningfully and sometimes that comes with contentment and ease and relaxation and calm and you know I hope we all take a moment to savor those experiences when we have them because they're special,

They're unique,

They're a blessing really and also be aware that sometimes sitting in silence or in stillness can bring up some junk in our minds and our bodies all these things that we spend a lot of time distracting ourselves from,

Present themselves in those moments of stillness and quiet and so some things can really come up and you know not shying away from those things but leaning into the discomfort,

Using your breath,

Using your body and other anchors for yourself to engage with those difficulties to have a different relationship with them,

Sort of distracting ourselves as we often often do,

Seeing if we can sit with that,

Breathe with that,

Welcome that difficulty.

Another point that I wanted to make in this talk is there are different ways to practice mindfulness and we've these guided audio recordings are what we call formal practice of mindfulness so where you're setting aside a specific time and doing a specific practice to increase your mindful awareness,

Your overall awareness of what's going on in the moment in the location that you're in.

One thing I learned through taking a course on mindfulness based stress reduction is that there's also this informal practice of mindful awareness so another way to put it is kind of mindfulness for everyday living so as you shower being really present and aware during that shower of the sensations of the water on your skin,

Of the steam in the shower room,

Of the sound of the water down the drain as you wash the dishes for example really feeling this slipperiness of the soap and the bubbles,

The water you know rinsing off the dish how it looks,

How light reflects through the water,

Droplets,

And the sounds as well as you fold laundry,

As you clean,

As you drive,

As you have a drink of juice or coffee in the morning,

Or tea in the morning,

Really taking that experience for all it's worth so to speak and being really aware of what you're doing.

This is particularly useful when we consider things like eating,

Moving throughout the day,

And we'll get into some of those practices in the next round of formal practices but considering you know how much how much time are you spending in formal practice,

How much time are you spending in informal practice,

I do think that some period of formal practice each day really strengthens your your mental muscles,

Strengthens your attention,

And again it doesn't have to be long periods of time,

But some type of formal practice each day I think makes the informal practice more meaningful as well,

And since time seems to be the recurring theme in today's talk,

Just some things that I that you may consider when it comes to making time for meditation,

For mindfulness meditation,

In addition to what I've just said about informal practice,

Maybe consider a study that was done with some physicians where they took a group of physicians in a primary care medical practice and these physicians were encouraged and agreed to do 30 seconds of stillness in between each of their patients throughout the day,

In between visiting with each of their patients throughout the day.

They actually measured about 10 outcomes in this study and some of those outcomes were you know time spent with patients,

How many tests were ordered,

The accuracy of the diagnoses,

The satisfaction of the patient,

Satisfaction of the physician,

The efficiency with which he or she conducted their practice that day,

And they found that with 30 seconds of stillness between tasks,

All 10 of those outcomes improved significantly,

Meaning that you know patients were more satisfied with their visits,

The physician spent more time with the patient,

Ordered fewer tests,

Were more accurate in their diagnoses,

More efficient,

So 30 seconds between tasks I think is something that all of us can do and that was more of a formal situation,

But you know none of us has time,

Extra time lying around to do these practice.

I'm speaking generally,

Perhaps there are some,

I think a lot of us are living in a busy hectic world,

They've got lots of commitments and roles that we're trying to fulfill and a multitude of distractions,

Things that we can keep ourselves busy or in the thick of thin things.

So maybe a way to reframe this issue with time is to think about what time will you gain by investing time in formal or informal practice,

What will that 10 minutes of meditation give you back in mental clarity and focus while you work,

And efficiency meaning you don't lose your keys as often,

You remember things better,

You don't walk around in circles or like I like to say running around like a chicken with your head cut off.

I'd like to see you just practice that for a week,

You know see what time you gain in investment,

What's your return on investment and I assure you that if you invest even just a few moments in mindful awareness it will bring ten times that back to you in time and efficiency and resources and you know of course I know that because I've done that for myself.

You may believe me and you may not need any further convincing but if you're like me and you do if you need to experience that for yourself and I would encourage you to do it,

Encourage you to be a scientist,

To take a week or a day even and consider you know how much time you're investing in mindfulness and and what you've gained back from that and I wish you the best in your experiment.

I wish you the best in your practice and I'm really grateful that you are joining me on this journey.

Thank you so much and may you find peace,

Health and ease in the coming days,

Weeks and years ahead.