by Ed Halliwell
In one study, people with a fear of spiders were invited to walk towards, and try to touch, a live tarantula.7 The participants were divided into groups and given instructions on how to handle their fear, such as telling themselves the spider wouldn’t hurt them, or trying to distract themselves from what they were doing. The groups were measured according to how close they got to the spider, how upset they felt and how clammy their hands became.
The people who fared the best were not in the group who tried to reassure themselves, or the distraction group, but the one in which people were asked to notice and acknowledge their fear by saying, as they approached, something like: ‘I’m anxious and frightened by the ugly, terrifying spider.’ By opening with awareness to what was actually happening, they were more able to cope with a frightening situation.
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Emptying the boat
The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu gives a useful analogy.3 If we were on a river and an empty boat collided with ours, we would probably just push it away. But if there were someone in the other boat, we might start to feel upset that our boat had been struck. We might even get angry, shouting at the person who didn’t steer out of our way.
When we buy into habitual interpretations of thought and sensation, it’s as if we’re putting someone in the empty boat. When we experience those same thoughts and sensations without getting caught in them, we empty the boat. There might still be a collision, but we probably won’t get so upset about it.
If we can uncouple our interpretations from our experience, we start to be freed from bias. If an unpleasant sensation arises, can we treat this as information, without adding to the discomfort with furious rumination or resistance? We don’t have to discard our interpretations, but we can know when we’re making them and see them for what they are – opinions that we’re adding to the basic events.
What are the people like in this place?
There’s a story of a wise woman who sat at the gates to a village. A traveller came to the gates and, wondering whether he might come to stay, sought the view of the wise woman. ‘What are the inhabitants like here? Are they friendly or hostile? Will they make me feel welcome?’ he asked.
‘What were the people like in the last place you stayed?’ asked the woman. The tourist scoffed: ‘Oh, they were a horrible bunch – miserable and stupid.’ The wise woman smiled and replied: ‘I think you’ll find the people here much the same.’
We tend to see the world as we are, not as it is. By noticing from a space of kindly awareness, we can perceive more clearly our habitual patterns of perception. We start to see that thoughts are just thoughts, sensations just sensations, sights just sights, and sounds just sounds. We can choose to take these as the basis for interpretation, or we can decide to experience them as interesting phenomena that arise in the mind and body.
Either way, by noticing and getting to know our patterns, we untangle from the bind of automaticity. This process is usually a gradual one. We need reminders to come back to awareness again and again. These reminders to wake up are built into mindfulness practice: over time, as we train, we can shift from a place of unconscious habit to a place of clear seeing. This shift can be allowed to happen gently – one breath at a time.
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Practice: Taking a breathing space
This three-step breathing space practice1 can help us come into awareness, wherever we are. It can be dropped into the day at any time, and may particularly help when we feel stressed, which is often a cue for the autopilot mind to kick into gear, and we’re more likely to be driven to habit reactions. It’s best not to see the breathing space as a relaxation exercise, as this creates expectation. The intention is simply to bring consciousness to what’s happening right now, in the mind and body.
Step one: Acknowledging
Settle yourself in a dignified posture, as if starting a mindfulness of breathing session.
Notice what thoughts are happening – what’s going through the mind? Do thoughts seem heavy and charged at the moment, or lighter, more like they’re fluttering in and out? Are thoughts happening fast or slow; are there lots of them, not many, or none? Acknowledging the thoughts, you might say to yourself: Ah, this is what’s going on in my mind at the moment.
Bringing your attention now to emotions – is joy, sadness, fear or anger present? What are the actual sensations? Where in the body are you feeling them? Are they changing from moment to moment? Are they increasing or decreasing in intensity? There’s no need to try and change what you’re feeling – allow yourself to experience.
Now turn your attention to other body sensations. Maybe there’s aching, or restlessness, numbness or tingling happening within? Where do you feel these sensations? Be interested in what you find, letting go, for now, of evaluations.
Step two: Gathering
Let thoughts and sensations drop into the background, and gather your attention to the breath in the belly. Rest your attention on the rhythm of breathing – feel the expanding and dropping of the abdomen as the breath flows in and out. When you discover the mind has drifted to thoughts or other sensations, let these be and gently return to the breath.
Step three: Expanding
Open your awareness to the whole mind and body. Let thoughts and sensations be experienced as they are, without having to identify with, change or reject them. Just let them be known with curiosity and compassion.
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Week 4: practices to explore
Practise the three-step breathing space a few times a day, for a few minutes each time. You may like to set an alarm to remind you.
Continue to work with mindfulness of breathing, bringing a particular interest to how the mind wanders. Notice its patterns – are there certain types of thoughts or sensations that the mind gets drawn to more often?
Notice one pleasant moment each day and bring awareness to thoughts and sensations that arise with it. Writing down the events, thoughts and sensations can help you see them from an observer’s perspective. What happens when you notice pleasant events in this way?
Also bring awareness to one unpleasant moment each day. What thoughts and sensations arise in relation to these? What effect, if any, does noticing thoughts and sensations have on your experience of events?
Be interested in your interpretations. When making a judgement, especially if you’re in a rush or feeling stressed, you might like to stop for some mindfulness of breathing, or take a breathing space. Ask yourself: Is this interpretation I’m making based on what’s actually happening? Notice what answers come up: be interested in these too.
Choose a ‘C’ of mindfulness to work with this week, following the guidance in chapter 2.
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Simon’s experience
For me, a light bulb moment was realizing there’s a moment in space between an external event and the way you react to it. You can actually have some impact and control over that reaction — if you can be aware of the thought that comes in first. You can start inserting awareness between what’s happened externally and how you react inside. Then you can change your whole perception.
Mindfulness creates a sort of contact feedback loop that tells you how you’re feeling about a situation, perhaps spotting a little bit of anger here and a little bit of tension there. It’s like having a magnifying glass on your insides.
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Ann’s experience
The practice has been slowly changing how I think about things. It’s given me time and space, as well as a framework. I never gave myself that before because I always had to get on to the next task, or I was too tired. I’m quite impulsive in saying: ‘I’ll do this or I’ll do that’, but now I have more courage to say ‘no’ to people. I’m learning to stop myself and look at things from a wider perspective, perhaps asking: ‘Can I do this, or do I want to do it, or is it going to help?’
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Andy’s experience
&nb
sp; Often, when you’re depressed or anxious, it isn’t just the content of what’s happening that maintains the depression or the anxiety, it’s the process. It’s like having a broken washing machine: what you put in the washing machine isn’t the problem, it’s that the machine needs fixing. Mindfulness is an opportunity to step back and look at the processes in life, at how we actually perceive inside, rather than always looking out.
Some people think meditation is going to be a perfect tranquil state, with a clear mind like a clear sky. Well, I get a lot of clouds running across my sky. But it’s about being able to disengage from them, and from the busy mind. It’s allowing yourself to have a busy mind as well – being kind to yourself.
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Catherine’s experience
If you’re able to be aware of how you’re thinking, you can stand back. It gives you a moment of pause. If you notice you’re feeling a certain emotion then it doesn’t affect you as much; you’re kind of one step removed from it. Part of you may be feeling really angry, but then another part is aware, and you can say: ‘I’m going to go and calm down.’ If you notice patterns, you can change things.
If you really want to have a bar of chocolate and you say: ‘I’m thinking that I really want a bar of chocolate,’ you’ve got awareness that it’s just a thought. It’s not a truth; it doesn’t mean that you must have it. This gives you that little bit of distance. You might still have the chocolate, but after 10 times, you might not. I’ve learned, with practice, that I don’t have to identify with thoughts in my head – they’re just there and it’s my choice whether to jump on them or not.
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SUMMARY
Awareness is a way of seeing that isn’t caught in thought and sensation. With awareness, we can start to see the patterns of autopilot mind.
Each time we notice thoughts in our practice, we’re freeing ourselves from the tyranny of thinking.
With mindfulness practice, we can work gently to separate experience from interpretation. We do this simply by noticing sensations, and the thoughts that arise with them. This starts to free us from bias.
Studies show that practising mindfulness is more likely to help alleviate or regulate low mood and anxiety than rumination or suppression strategies.
The three-step breathing space practice can help us come into awareness, wherever we are. It may particularly help at times of stress, when we’re more likely to get caught in automatic reactions.
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Chapter 5
Staying embodied
‘Much of the insanity of the world comes from people not knowing what to do with their feelings.’
JACK KORNFIELD
If we want not to be drawn into automatic reactions, we need to rehearse our ability to stay present, not just at a cognitive level but by working with our whole bodies. By bringing the mind into the body, we create the possibility for true healing (meaning: ‘wholeness’).
Hark! The cannon roars
An unemployed actor finally lands a speaking part. He only has one line in the play: when he hears his cue, a loud bang from off-stage, he must put his hand to his ear, look up and declare: ‘Hark! The cannon roars.’ The director of the show says the role is so simple that the actor doesn’t need to attend rehearsals. Nevertheless, realizing this could be his big break, he practises his line over and over again.
Lying in the bath, walking down the street, and riding on the bus, the actor repeats over and over to himself: ‘Hark! The cannon roars. Hark! The cannon roars’, determined to get his delivery right. The first night arrives and he stands in the wings before his scene, still nervously mouthing his line. At last, his big moment is upon him. Right on cue, he hears the most enormous bang, immediately behind him. Leaping up in terror, he screams: ‘Oh my God, what the f*** was that?’1
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Fight or flight
The fight or flight mechanism is activated when perceived threats arise, and it can’t be turned off by thinking about it, or imagining how we should respond. When it occurs, stress sets off automatic reactions in the body – hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released, muscles tense up for action, the heart beats faster and blood pressure rises. We become hyper-vigilant, primed to attack, hide or run.
All this happens without our conscious choice – primed by evolution, the body senses danger and reacts immediately, urgently and unconsciously. When it comes to stress, we react like animals under attack.
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Being present at rehearsals might not have prevented shock at the cannon on the actor’s first night, but by choosing to practise with the experience again and again (rather than just imagining it), he might have become familiar with the feelings it produced. This might have given him the composure to say his line as planned.
When we remain still and follow the breath, choosing not to follow the powerful dictates of thought and sensation, we are rehearsing being present. Although we may feel the impulse to resist what’s happening, or grasp for solutions, we train in not being blown about by every wind. We watch what’s happening and gently unhook from the powerful energies that impel us. As we practise this again and again, working with the actual sensations in the body, gradually we can develop steadiness.
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Practice: Body scanning
Body scanning trains us in skilful connection to physical form. By attending to different parts of the body in turn – feeling whatever we’re feeling in them – we get to know and be with experience as it appears in the moment. We tune in to our ‘felt sense’, uncoupled from the thoughts that seduce attention away.
Below are some guidelines for practising a body scan. The whole session could take between three and 45 minutes, although practising for around 20 minutes is probably good to begin with.
The body scan is best practised at first using audio guidance, rather than by directing ourselves, which can draw us away from experiencing and more into thinking and self-talk.
Find a quiet place where you can lie down comfortably, perhaps on a yoga mat or a rug on the floor; cover yourself with a blanket if you like. Close your eyes if that feels okay for you.
Notice the body being held by the ground below. Allow yourself to feel this support, bringing awareness to sensations of the body in contact with what you’re resting on.
Make an intention for the practice. Remember that the goal here isn’t relaxation, or even trying to ‘achieve’ mindfulness. You are allowing some space and time to bring your mind into the body – to notice what happens, and to gently escort the attention back when it wanders.
Spend some moments in mindfulness of breathing.
Directing your attention to the feet, allow sensations here to be felt, just as they’re happening right now. This might include tingling, pulsing, touching, itching, warmth, coolness, or something else: feel whatever is here for you, letting go of trying to make anything different. Notice where in the feet you feel sensations – in the toes, the instep, the sole, the heel? If there’s no sensation in parts or all of the feet, what’s that like? Remember there are no right or wrong things to experience – the task is just to feel whatever’s here.
When you notice attention wandering, as it probably will many times, be interested in where the mind has drifted to, and return to sensations in the feet. Notice any judgements that arise, and, as best you can, let these be in the background of awareness – along with thoughts, sounds, or sensations coming from other places in the body.
Experiment with breathing into the feet on an in-breath, and breathing out from the feet on an out-breath, synchronizing this with the actual rhythm of breath in the upper body. Move attention now to the ankles and lower legs. Notice what’s happening in the muscles, the flesh, the bones. Could you experiment with breathing in and out of the lower legs – being curious about what happens when you practise this?
Now bring a warm, open-hearted awareness to sensations at the knees and upper l
egs. Continue to practise working with mind-wandering and breathing in and out of the regions selected. Be interested in any changes in sensation – does what you feel stay the same, or does it shift in intensity or quality, perhaps quite subtly?
Gradually, carefully and gently let your attention travel through the rest of the body – the pelvic region and bottom, back and shoulders, arms and hands, belly, sides and chest, neck, throat and head, experiencing each in kindly awareness.
As you practise, notice patterns of trying to grasp, ignore or push away. Let thoughts be in the background, neither buying into nor rejecting them. Come back to body sensation when you notice attention wandering.
Close the practice by spending some time opening to sensations in the whole body, letting them be experienced as they are, with interest. You could practise having a sense of breathing with the whole body, synchronizing this with the rhythm of actual breath as it flows in and out.
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Suggestions for the body scan