Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

by Steven C. Hayes

  Mindful Eating

  The exercises above are actually tiny subsets of a much larger practice that is known as mindful eating. There are as many ways to practice mindful eating as there are schools that practice mindfulness. Some ways require you to eat slowly, some to chew each mouthful of food fifty times, some to eat a limited number of meals, some ask you to test for your hunger responses while you’re eating, and so forth.

  In many Western cultures, and particularly in the United States, we don’t pay a great deal of attention to the food we eat. In a world where everything is supersized and the burger is king, we tend to think of food as not much more than a necessary factor of survival. What’s worse, we tend to believe that this factor is as much a given as the air we breathe. We take our food for granted.

  In the context of this book, the point of eating mindfully is not the activity of eating itself. It is used as a means to practice mindfulness. Becoming aware of your eating behavior rather than just rushing through it is an excellent way to bring yourself back to the present moment. Observing yourself while you eat is a great way to practice removing yourself from the conceptualized self. It doesn’t matter whether you like the activity of eating. The important thing is to practice connecting to the present moment.

  To practice eating mindfully, you can use many of the same techniques and much the same attitude as you did while doing the exercises above, only you continue the practice for an entire meal. Set aside some extra time for yourself at your next meal and try it out.

  EXERCISE: Eating Mindfully

  To start, move through the meal slowly. Take your time performing every action and notice what your experience is, as you go through it. When you lift a fork or cut your meat, note what that is like for you. As you place a bite of food in your mouth and chew it, think about the flavors and the texture of the food. Is it enjoyable or repulsive? Don’t get hung up in judging it. Just notice it.

  Do you find that particular thoughts or feelings come up during the course of the meal? If so, simply note those as well. You might want to use some of the techniques used throughout this book to help you do that.

  Are you eating with a friend or partner? Are you eating alone? It may be interesting to watch your mind as you interact with the people with whom you take your meals. It may also be interesting to note the kinds of thoughts and emotions that come up when you are eating alone.

  Because we all have to take the time to eat in order to live, eating mindfully is an excellent way to practice staying in contact with the present moment and make the most of your time.

  EXERCISE: Listening to Classical Music

  This is an interesting exercise that may provide insight into the way you can focus your attention on specific aspects of complex sets of stimuli, concentrate on several things at the same time, or simply allow all of your experience to become wrapped up in one flowing song. Classical music can act as an interesting metaphor in this regard. Moreover, listening to classical music can be a good exercise in mindfulness in itself.

  Pick a piece of classical music. You can choose a favorite symphony, concerto, or string quartet. It doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as you choose a piece that has a number of different instruments playing together. Solo piano or violin sonatas won’t work for this exercise. (Even if you don’t “like” classical music, try the activity anyway. It can be done with other forms of music, too, but we’ve found it is a little easier to draw attention to certain distinctions that are heard more clearly in classical music than in other genres. Of course, you can also do this exercise at a concert hall.)

  Turn on the music and begin by listening as you normally would. After you have warmed up to the music a bit, bring your attention to one particular sound or set of instruments. If it is a symphony, you might start by listening for the string section. Focus on that part of the music. Be mindful of the strings. Can you distinguish between the sound of the cellos and the sound of the violins? What about the bass? Can you separate out the sound of the double bass from the other strings?

  Now shift your attention to a different instrument or section of the orchestra. Can you hear horns? What about percussion? How about woodwinds? Try to name the different instruments as you listen to them. If you aren’t especially familiar with classical music, simply note the different types of sounds.

  Do you notice anything happening as you shift your focus back and forth between the different instruments? Do you start to focus on the sound of only one instrument or section? If you do that, where do the other sections of the orchestra go? Experiment with this by shifting your focus back and forth between the different sounds.

  Now try to hold two sets of sounds in your mind at one time. For example, you might try to track the strings and the horns. Try not to get “wrapped up” in the music. Mindfully notice and label the sounds. You might further this experiment by trying to track other sets of instruments as well. Or you might watch the way your mind shifts back and forth between the sounds. At what point are you aware of only one sound? At what point are you aware of multiple sounds? If you wish, you can play around with this a little.

  When you are done experimenting with hearing single sounds as opposed to hearing multiple sounds, bring the entire piece of music back into focus. Be mindful of all the instruments playing at the same time. Do you find yourself noticing certain sounds more than others? Can you hear all the different instruments while listening to the piece of music as a whole? What happens when you listen to all the instruments together? Does it change into a different, bigger sound? Try to identify the point when single sounds are subsumed by the total piece of music. Mindfully watch the way you interact with the sound.

  If you are a music lover, this can be a particularly revealing exercise. That’s because, in some ways, the way we listen to music mimics the way we listen to the word machine we call our mind. During passionate crescendos our observer self is often swept up into the music. We are carried away on a verbal journey. However, if we can maintain a mindful posture while listening, we can enrich the experience in so many ways. What a pleasure it is to be able to recognize the individual sounds the different instruments make, and still have the choice of being carried away by a passionate passage.

  Perhaps you can learn to view your depression or anxiety as you would a symphony. There are many melancholy pieces of music that are quite compelling. Try to be mindful of your feelings, thoughts, urges, and sensations the way you might be mindful of the different instrumentation. Can you pick out different notes and chords being struck? It can be fascinating to note mindfully the music your experiences make.

  EXERCISE: Be Mindful of Your Feet While You Read This

  Bring your focus to your feet. Think about how they feel just where they are. Try to remain mindful of your feet while you read the next few lines.

  Mary had a little lamb

  Whose fleece was white as snow.

  And everywhere that Mary went

  The lamb was sure to go.

  He followed her to school one day

  Which was against the rules.

  It made the children laugh and play

  To see a lamb at school.

  Were you able to remain mindful of your feet while reading this nursery rhyme? Did you notice that your awareness was shifting back and forth between the content of the passage above and your feet? Did you become mindful of your feet only occasionally, when you remembered them? Or were you able to hold onto your feet mindfully while reading the passage above? Take a few minutes to answer some of these questions.

  _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ This exercise is particularly interesting on a number of levels. In the first place it asks you to divide your attention in half by asking you to remain mindful of your feet while reading a nursery rhyme. The other interesting thing about this exercise is that it mimics the
way we sometimes can get so wrapped up in our own stories that we forget about other things that are going on for us.

  When you get scooped up into the story of your depression, your anxiety, or your low self-esteem, often you may forget that there are many other things going on for you. That story may be the only matter you take notice of. You might also pay attention to your feet, your hands, the quality of the air around you, or millions of other factors that are taking place within you and in your environment, at the same time your psychological distress stories are being generated. Remember, though, the goal is not to think of your feet as a means of forgetting about or ignoring the pain you are in. Rather you can focus on your feet to practice being able to attend in the moment, deliberately and flexibly, as you wish.

  You can do this same exercise while reading the newspaper, or indeed this book. Pick out something specific to attend to and see whether you can focus in on it while simultaneously being very focused on your reading.

  Meditation

  All the major religious and philosophical traditions have explored the concept of the observing self. Many practices have been developed to help people train themselves to become more mindful. One of the oldest of these is called mindfulness meditation.

  In our culture, the problem with meditation is that it’s gotten a bad rap. In the West, people look at meditation from one of two perspectives. One perspective sees meditation as some kind of weird metaphysical practice that is too hard or too esoteric to be practiced by normal people. The other seems to see meditation as a time to sit quietly and allow the feeling of peacefulness to roll over the body like a gentle wave, enlightenment only a step away. Light another incense candle for us all!

  Neither of these perceptions is useful. In Zen Buddhism there is a form of meditation called Zazen that many practitioners in the West refer to as “just sitting.” That’s it, just sitting. There is no waiting for a wave of peace to wash over you, and there is no mystical component. There is just sitting.

  However, the “just” can’t be taken literally. There are many things that happen when you just sit. You can’t stop breathing for example. You can’t stop being hungry. And, by now, you ought to be able to guess at one other thing you can’t stop doing. Yes, indeed, you can’t stop thinking. This is one of the greatest misconceptions that many have about meditation. They seem to believe that meditating is a way to stop thinking or feeling while residing in some peaceful place. That is not the case at all. Painful emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations abound in meditation practice. But you are taught to simply watch them come in and go out.

  To sit still for extended periods of time and simply watch what your mind and body produce for you is an excellent way to practice acceptance, defusion, and being present. Used in conjunction with some of the other activities in this chapter, just sitting can be a particularly compelling way to develop your mindfulness practice.

  Rather than read about it, why not experience it directly? What follows is an exercise that should help you begin your own meditation practice.

  EXERCISE: Just Sitting

  Many different forms of meditation are practiced all over the world. Some are focused or guided meditations where you either direct your consciousness to focus on a particular point, thought, or word, or you guide yourself on a “journey” through a predescribed set of instructions. Sitting practice is simply sitting quietly in a position that you maintain for the duration of the meditation, without moving much at all, while watching what comes up for you in an accepting, present, and defused way. There is no religious component to it (or at least, there doesn’t have to be), and you shouldn’t have a set of expectations going into it. The goal is to get in touch with the observing self, and simply see what there is to be seen.

  The regimen. To do this, we recommend that you find a time in your day when you can consistently dedicate a designated amount of time to practice. How often you want to sit is up to you. The important thing is that you do it consistently. We suggest starting out with three fifteen-minute sessions a week. However, if this is too daunting, or you simply don’t have the time, you could sit once a week. Put aside a certain amount of time, and practice when you have decided to practice. There will always be something that could get in the way and there will always be days when you don’t feel like doing it. Simply look at these distractions and emotions for what they are, and practice when you’ve decided to practice anyway. If you sit only when you feel like it, or when it’s convenient, you will find these periods disappear over time.

  The place. It is also important to find a place where you can sit and not be too distracted. The point is not to eliminate distraction so much as it is to allow yourself the time and space to be able to sit quietly still for an allotted amount of time. If the kids come in every five minutes wanting to know what’s for breakfast, this won’t help you move in the direction you want to go. On the other hand, you will never be able to eliminate every distraction, so don’t try. We live in a world brimming over with noise and activity. Part of the challenge of remaining mindful is not to become too rigidly trapped by this activity. Part of the practice is watching yourself when you do get trapped.

  The amount of time. Don’t begin by trying to sit for an hour at a time. It is unrealistic to expect you will be able to do this and be successful. It is far more reasonable to start out with smaller increments of time and build up as you go. If even fifteen minutes is too long to sit, then scale back and start with ten minutes, and slowly build up from there. You may want to increase the length of time you sit by two or three minutes every week, until you reach your goal time. Don’t bite off too much more than you can chew. On the other hand, if you know yourself and know it will work to increase the amount of time more rapidly, then do so.

  You can set your ultimate goal based on what works best for you, but few Westerners meditate for more than thirty minutes a day. This may seem like a lot of time, but if you start to practice, you may find that you want to do this. Meditation practice can have a dramatic impact on your life. Just do it regularly and see what works for you.

  You may want to set an alarm or use some other means by which you can judge the amount of time that you will sit, without having to rely on your watch. You’ll find it is very distracting to look at your watch all the time. Besides, constantly checking the time gives you a very convenient excuse to move, which is unhelpful. Once you have practiced sitting for a while, you’ll find that your body will have a natural sense of how much time has elapsed. Ultimately, you can rely on that. In the meantime, set an alarm.

  The posture. Shunryu Suzuki, a famous Zen teacher who lived in this country in the 1960s, often said, “The posture is the practice.” Traditionally, sitting practice of the type we are discussing is done seated on a pillow on the floor in the lotus position. While in the lotus position, your legs are crossed. That is, you take your right foot in your hands and place it on your left thigh. You rest that foot on top of your thigh at the crease between your hip and your left groin. Then you take your left foot and place it on top of your right thigh, at the crease between your hip and your right groin. Your spine should be straight, chin pointed slightly downward, while the crown of your head reaches toward the sky. Your arms form a loose circle with your hands also forming a circle of their own, resting one on top of the other, thumbs touching lightly together. Seated in this position there are three points of contact with the ground: your two knees and your bottom via the pillow.

  This is a somewhat advanced yoga posture. For beginners, this position is extremely difficult to get into and it is even more difficult to maintain over long periods of time. It takes a fair amount of flexibility to get your legs into that awkward position. In fact, one of the main reasons that yoga was created was as a means to slowly condition the body to be able to sit in this strange position.

  We do not recommend that you attempt the lotus position unless you already have some experience with it, or you are naturally very flexible.
We describe it as a means of illustrating some important points about the posture you should try to maintain when you practice a sitting meditation.

  At the beginning, you will want to make a choice about sitting on the floor or in a chair. We recommend that you sit on the floor if that is possible for you. In the first place, it is an interesting experience to feel this posture. What’s more, it encourages the practitioner to maintain a stable and erect posture (two of the most important components of sitting) by the very nature of the pose. We are so accustomed to sitting in chairs that we tend to slouch and relax in them. It is most important that you maintain an erect posture for the duration of your sit. In a chair, this is less likely to happen. However, if you have suffered some injury (particularly to your lower body) or you feel too much pain when you sit on the floor, sitting in a chair is a legitimate alternative.

  There are three important principles illustrated in the lotus position. The first is that you must maintain an erect spine. You should be seated as straight as you can possibly sit. The second is to try to have three points touching the floor, your two knees and your bottom (on top of the pillow). This will ground you in the position more fully. If you are seated in a chair, the three points will be your feet (planted firmly on the ground) and your bottom on the chair. The third is the position of your hands and arms. If you allow your hands and arms just to hang at your sides, it is likely that the position of your spine will be compromised. Hence, you should follow the description above as to how to hold your hands and arms. If you can’t do this, or you don’t feel comfortable with it, place your hands in your lap.