by Ed Halliwell
Instead, by practising acceptance, we create a gap between experience and reaction, a willingness to dwell in space. This can sometimes be uncomfortable, but it can also free us from the stress of living automatically. As we train in this over and over again, our relationship to experience can change, from unconscious clinging or rejection to gentle acceptance. We develop the ability to work with, rather than against, our patterns.
Week 5: practices to explore
Practise the body scan once a day this week. Let go of expectations: just do it as best you can and be interested in what happens. Notice any changes that occur. Be aware of judgements.
Continue to practise mindfulness of breathing each day, and if you like, extend this to include 10 minutes of mindfulness of body practice. Practise the mountain meditation whenever you like.
Notice signs of stress in the body, being interested in patterns of events, sensations and thoughts. You might like to practise a three-step breathing space, or some moments of mindfulness of breathing or body. It can also be helpful to direct attention to sensations of feet on the floor. Let go of expectations that this will produce a particular result, such as calmness. Notice what does happen.
Notice also sensations of physical contact during daily life. The touch of clothes on your skin, the feel of sitting on a chair, the tap of computer keys on the pads of your fingers, the sensation of the soles of the feet on the floor. What do you feel when you turn a door handle, walk on a pavement, embrace a loved one?
Choose a different ‘C’ of mindfulness to work with this week, following the guidance in chapter 2.
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Simon’s experience
The results of practising on the mindfulness course were beyond what I’d ever imagined. I remember in the first session we lay down and did a body scan and I couldn’t believe how calm and relaxed I felt afterwards.
That experience spurred me on – I thought: It works! After practices like the three-step breathing space and mindful movement, I found it a lot easier to insert space into my reaction to things. It’s as if it helped me with an immunity to reacting. After a body scan, it takes a lot more to get to me than if I haven’t done one. It’s easier for me to pause.
Sometimes I ‘lose it’, but I’m aware that I’m losing it as I’m losing it! Last week my email froze and I thought some really important stuff on the computer had been wiped. I temporarily lost my temper, but I immediately recovered. One of the great things about mindfulness is that you’re allowed to let yourself off these lapses.
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Ann’s experience
It’s very important to me now not to make instant decisions. I have that habit of taking time out in the day to think things through. I can take myself away and say: ‘Give me a minute, or five minutes,’ or ‘I’ll get back to you in a day or two.’ My normal habit is to be impulsive and go straight into things. I’m learning through mindfulness that I don’t have to do that because I have that space and that framework. The anxiety levels are so much less when I do this, and higher if I don’t.
You notice these things when you start trying to live in a mindful way. You become aware of what you’re doing – it’s very subtle.
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Andy’s experience
Initially, the most important thing for me was dropping out of my head and into my body – into a sense of feeling myself. My head is where I tend to spend most of my day, either beating myself up or worrying about things that might be coming up. I think I went for years hardly being in the present at all. Formal practices like the body scan, actually focusing on my body, are enough to press a reset button.
Being in the body gives me a sense of ‘terra firma’, a ‘being here right now’. That sense of feeling the air on my skin, my feet on the floor, allows me to settle into myself, to refocus and respond in a different way, rather than just react habitually. That’s a great skill because it gives you the opportunity to do something different.
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Catherine’s experience
Once I’d been practising regularly for a few months, I felt calmer. I was less irritable and didn’t need to react immediately if I was angry or something triggered me. I was really able to give it that microsecond pause.
Practising being present makes you more grounded. You breathe, and feel: This is where I am, which slows everything down. You feel more contented and at peace, so maybe there’s not so much conflict or busyness going on inside you. In that state, it’s easier to deal with things, as opposed to when you’re in that stressed-out mode; when you’re just reactive.
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SUMMARY
In order not to be drawn into automatic reactions, we need to rehearse our ability to stay present.
Our experience of life is embodied. Attending to the body brings us into the here and now.
Body scanning trains us in skilful connection to physical form. It also strengthens stability and flexibility of attention.
Mindfulness of body offers space to experience sensations fully, openly and with awareness, and to let go of reacting impulsively.
The mountain meditation helps us cultivate centring.
Mindfulness practitioners are less likely to be affected adversely by difficult situations, and to react in harmful ways. Brain and body changes indicate more adaptive responses to stress.
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Chapter 6
Shifting towards
‘Don’t turn your head. Keep looking at the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.’
RUMI
If we can approach what’s happening with courage, curiosity and cheerfulness, we’re developing real power, no longer dependent on circumstances to make us happy. When we make friends with our enemies, we no longer have a reason to fight.
In 2003, at a biotech company called Promega in Wisconsin, USA, a group of employees signed up for an eight-week mindfulness course. At the end, like many people who take such courses, they reported feeling happier and less stressed. However, unlike most people who take a mindfulness course, they also had their heads wired up to EEG machines, which measure brain activity.
The results showed that over the course of the eight weeks, there had been a shift in activity at the front of the participants’ brains – whereas before there had been greater activity in the right prefrontal cortex, by the end there was more going on in the left prefrontal region. The shift was strongest in those who reported the largest benefit to wellbeing, and was still evident when the participants’ brains were measured again four months later.1
This was one of the first studies to associate mindfulness practice with sustained neural changes. It’s significant because previous research had shown that when there’s more left-sided activity, people feel happier, less anxious, and more able to deal with the challenges of life – they have what’s called an ‘approach’ mentality.
Meanwhile, people who have more right-sided activity in this part of the brain tend to be more fearful, and to shy away from new things – an ‘avoidant’ mentality. Taking a mindfulness course not only resulted in the participants saying they felt better, the evidence could be seen in their brain’s ‘left shift’.
What had happened to produce such a change? The course participants had spent two months learning and practising a new way of being. They’d repeatedly trained themselves to manage stress by paying attention and bringing awareness to it – approaching their experience rather than trying to avoid it. As well as attending the course sessions, they practised meditation at home for around 30 minutes a day. Over an intensive period of training, they’d applied the mindfulness prescription to their lives.
Saying ‘yes’ to the present moment
Once we’ve developed a foundation of attention and awareness, and are working to stay present and embodied, there’s a further step we can take. We can develop our approach mentality, even when thing
s are difficult. Whatever it brings, we can train ourselves to say ‘yes’ to the present moment, welcoming it in with open hearts. We can move towards experience, even when it feels frightening or painful.
This can sound a little crazy. Who on earth would welcome in pain, fear, angry thoughts, frustration, bad habits or cravings? Let’s be clear: approaching the difficult doesn’t mean putting your head in a crocodile’s mouth, or running in front of a bus. These are the kind of situations the fight or flight mechanism is well designed for, and we can gladly follow its warnings.
We also don’t have to go looking for difficulties – life presents enough without our having to seek them out. It doesn’t mean we should allow ourselves to get walked over, or invite situations of abuse or neglect. In these kinds of circumstance, we may need skilful action to remove us from danger. But not all situations are transformed with action. And even if doing something can influence what happens next, sometimes the only thing we can do to shift our experience is to change our way of relating to it.
When we wall off what we don’t want to face, it drains our energy and obscures our view of reality. In letting our defences drop, we release ourselves from struggling with the parts of life that we don’t like. They seem to call for attention anyway, even as we block them out. As the old saying goes, what we resist, persists. Whether it presents in the form of depression, chronic pain, fatigue, anger or rumination, turning gently towards difficulty is a transformative shift that dissolves barriers to effective living.
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The science of turning towards
Remember the study in which people afraid of spiders were asked to approach a tarantula? The group that openly acknowledged their anxiety were best able to manage it. They not only turned towards the object of their fear, but towards the fear itself. Although it might feel counterintuitive, the more we gently practise this ‘turning towards’, the more it seems we’re able to handle problems.
In another experiment, people were exposed to a painful stimulus before and after a few sessions of mindfulness. After they’d learned to meditate, the study participants reported a 40 per cent reduction in pain intensity. They also rated the pain as 57 per cent less unpleasant. Their tolerance had increased, perhaps because they experienced the pain as less troubling, and so were less averse to it.1
During another study, in which people were asked to label expressions on people’s faces (e.g. angry, scared), those who were more naturally mindful showed less activity in the amygdala, suggesting a smaller fight or flight reaction, and more activity in the prefrontal cortex, indicating a greater capacity for regulating emotion.2 The mindful participants seemed more comfortable with acknowledging troubling emotions on the faces in front of them.
Whether it’s spiders that worry us, or pain, or unpleasant thoughts, or unopened bills, or relationships with others, when we avoid difficult experiences that can’t be put off forever, problems seem to mount. But when we practise a mindful approach, we open a reservoir for coping that can help see us through hardship.
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Perhaps this is why, in great mythical narratives, there are so many tales of the rejected becoming majestic – the ugly ducklings that grow into beautiful swans, or frogs that turn into princes when kissed. Somehow we know the seeds of beauty exist in the unwanted, difficult, and painful things in life, and that we can release their potential by greeting them with love.
This is not easy. It goes against all the conditioning, all the impulses, all the logic which tells us: ‘Get me away from this feeling, this thought, this unpleasant experience.’ It can bring up all our resistance, doubt and anxiety, and we may be tempted to try and fight or deny these too. When we feel the cold, dark night upon us, the last thing we want is to rest in the open.
But ultimately we’ve nothing to lose – we’re exposing ourselves only to what’s here anyway. With the light and warmth of awareness, we offer our attitude as fuel for transformation. When we practise this wholeheartedly, courageously, repeatedly, compassionately, over time we may find that even when our frogs don’t turn into princes, we might nevertheless learn to love the frog.
Is such a radical shift possible? Yes, according to practitioner reports over thousands of years, and the new data from brain-measuring technology. However, it requires practice, method and courage.
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Practice: Turning towards difficulty
This practice is usually best done in small doses at first, and preferably with difficulties that aren’t overwhelming. It’s also sensible to have established a stable foundation by practising mindfulness of breathing and body for some time first.
Settle into a dignified sitting posture, and practise mindfulness of breathing and body for a while.
Notice sensations that seem more unpleasant and difficult to be with – such as aching, throbbing, churning, or tightening. If it feels manageable, experiment with taking your attention to a region of intensity, gently opening to the sensations you find. Be interested in the qualities of and changes in sensation from moment to moment – rises or falls in intensity, or shifts in location or texture. If this feels too much, it’s always okay to continue with or return to mindfulness of breathing or body, or to stop practising for a time. Gentleness is paramount.
If you are choosing to stay with the intensity, notice what happens – are there impulses to resist or pull away? Perhaps you find your attention pulled into thoughts? As best you can, include these reactions in your noticing, allowing space for them to be experienced, along with the sensations themselves.
If you like, experiment with breathing into the region of intensity, opening to sensations on the in-breath, and softening on the out-breath. This isn’t to try and change what’s happening, but rather to offer a skilful relationship to it – flowing with it, as we’ve practised already with the breath. You could smile softly, and silently say to yourself something like: It’s okay. I can be with this feeling or thought. Let me experience it fully, in awareness. Let me offer it warmth. Let me stay present with kindness.
Stay with the intensity only for as long as feels manageable. If you like, gently move your attention away from and then back towards the intensity, noticing what happens. After a period of working in this way, you can return to mindfulness of breathing or body, or bring your formal practice to a close.
If there are no strong sensations present at the moment, experiment with bringing to mind a difficult situation that’s alive for you – some troubling issue or problem that you’re working with (it’s best not to choose the most challenging thing in your life right now – let it be something that feels workable to bring to mind and experience). Allow the sense of the difficulty to enter you, inviting any sensations that arise, and moving attention to them. If lots of thoughts come up, let go (as best you can) of trying to fix or solve the problem. Just notice the patterns of thinking in awareness.
If you find yourself getting caught up in thought, bring your attention down into the body and any sensations you notice here, or come back to mindfulness of breathing, anchoring your attention to the rhythm of the breath.
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Compassionate abiding
Being with difficulty in this way is what meditation teacher Pema Chödrön calls ‘compassionate abiding’.2 Staying present to what ails us, we allow ourselves to notice, approach and fully feel what’s here, offering a tenderness of heart to what we may formerly have demonized.
It’s important not to create expectations. As soon as we’re moving into the difficult with the hope it’ll disappear, we’ve turned away from an intention simply to befriend what’s present. If nothing happens when we practise, then we can befriend nothing happening. If resistance comes up, we can befriend resistance. If there’s anger and pain, or anger at pain, we can feel that intimately, without holding on to it or rejecting it, or buying into stories about it.
If we feel we’re failing even at befriending, that too becomes something to embrace with compassion. I
t’s okay to be with whatever comes up, including feeling not okay to be with it. With this radical acceptance, as it’s sometimes called, we’re no longer in opposition to life. We have put out the welcome mat. We have moved into flow with things as they are.
When times are tough, most of us rage against this approach – it doesn’t seem right to stop fighting when we hurt. It doesn’t feel right to allow our suffering. But adopting the way of mindfulness isn’t to deny the value of skilful action – it just means recognizing that the only skilful way to be with this moment is to compassionately embrace it, treating it as a trusted teacher.
Opening to the difficult can’t be rushed or forced. Sometimes it’s best to wait before turning towards, especially if our experience feels overwhelming. Sometimes we need to seek the support of others first – friends, family, or a counsellor – to talk with and be supported by. We can accept that sometimes things feel too much to bear – we aren’t deficient for feeling flooded. Defences are put in place for a reason, and while they may become unhelpful, they can be honoured and respected for the job they try to do. If we choose to drop them, we can do so gently, when we’re ready.
Acceptance and compassion are essential components of turning towards. Without them, the approach can feel like a forced endurance test, a having to ‘put up with our lot’ that can seem harsh or self-blaming. When we turn towards difficulty with a muttering of ‘Just deal with it’ or ‘Can’t you be more mindful?’, we’re subtly rejecting what’s happening, and our feelings about it, rather than engaging warm-heartedly. In mindfully turning towards, we’re making an offer of loving connection. This work isn’t easy, and it helps to bring with us a sense of self-care. Our hearts are best coaxed to open gently.