Remember the breath The breath is always there for you. It anchors you in the present. It is like a good friend. It reminds you that you are OK just as you are.
* * *
It’s important to be realistic. Each of us needs a positive reason to carry on meditating. But the word “positive” does not capture the full potential of what is available to us. If you’ve got this far into the program, then you probably already know why you wish to continue, but it is, nonetheless, important to ask, really ask, why it might be important, based on your experience of mindfulness, to continue cultivating it.
A good way of doing this is to close your eyes and imagine dropping a stone down a deep well. The stone represents the question: What is it that is most important to me in my life that this practice could help with?
Sense the stone dropping down into and beneath the surface of the water. There’s no rush to find answers. If one answer comes, let the stone fall further—see if other answers come. When you hear some answers—even if they’re only tentative—take some time to reflect, then write them on a postcard or piece of paper and keep it somewhere safe, ready to be looked at should you ever become despondent about the practice. You may find several answers to the question. Perhaps:
for my parents
for my children
to safeguard my happiness
to remain calm and energized
to remain freer from anger, bitterness and cynicism
The aim of allowing the question to be asked is to show you how sustaining your practice will help you to reclaim your life in a profound way, day by day, and moment my moment, rather than seeing it as yet another thing to “do” or “get done” for some negative or prescriptive reason. Most of us do not need another “should” or “ought” to add to the already long list of things we have to do each day. So, writing your own answers on a card and keeping it safe ensures that you have something that reminds you of the positive discoveries that you have made in the practice of mindfulness that encourage you to explore further. There will be many times in the future when your commitment to practice falls away or wears thin. At such times, you can easily become despondent or angry with yourself. When this happens, it is good to have your original motivations readily at hand.
Making the choice
It is time for you to decide which practice or combination of practices you think is sustainable for you in the long term. You should be realistic and remember that your choice is not set in stone. You can change it from day to day, from week to week or from year to year, to match the demands being made upon you and what it is you want to explore through your practice. Sometimes, you may feel the need for reconnecting with the body in the Body Scan (see p. 97), while at other times, you might choose deliberately to bring a worry or problem right into the center of your practice, using the Exploring Difficulty meditation from Week Five (see p. 172). The choice is yours. You now have the skills to decide for yourself.
How long should you meditate for? The practice itself will teach you. Recall that meditation was first developed when humans lived in and off the fields. Indeed, one of the words that we translate into English as “meditation” actually means “cultivation” in the original Pali language. It originally referred to cultivation of crops in the fields and flowers in the garden. So how long should the cultivation of the mindfulness garden take each day? It is best to go into the garden and see for yourself. Sometimes ten minutes in the garden of meditation practice will be needful, but you may find, once there, that your cultivation will slip effortlessly into twenty or thirty minutes. There is no minimum or maximum time. Clock time is different from meditation time. You could simply experiment with what feels right and with whatever gives you the best chance to renew and nourish yourself. Every minute counts.
Most people find that it is most helpful to combine some regular (every day) formal practice with mindfulness in the world. There is something about the “everyday-ness” of the practice that is important. By every day we mean that a majority of days each week will find you taking yourself away to be by yourself for a period, no matter how short.
Remember the advice of yoga teachers: the most difficult move in yoga is the move on to your mat. Similarly, the most difficult aspect of formal mindfulness practice is getting on to your chair or stool or cushion. So, if you find you have missed it for a while, why not come and sit for one minute?
Just one minute.
Listen to your mind’s reaction. What? Just one minute! That’d be no good. There’s absolutely no point in doing anything unless I can do it properly. Listen to the tone of voice that has appeared in your mind. Is it helpful or is it hindering your best intentions with its hectoring perfectionism?
Come. Just come—for one minute. There’s no need to try and stop the hindering voice. Carry it with you as you come and give yourself the rich blessing of one precious minute of sitting—one moment in which to remind your mind and body that there is a different, wiser, quieter voice to be heard.
And that is enough for today.
Whichever practices you decide upon, many find that making space in the day for the Breathing Space is a great blessing. It’s always there for you in moments of stress or unhappiness. It’s the perfect way of checking in with yourself during the day. In many ways, the main meditation practice that you eventually decide upon is there to support your Breathing Spaces. It’s your parachute. Many people on our courses say that it’s the most important thing they’ve ever learned.
Practice as if your life depended on it, as in many ways, it surely does. For then you will be able to live the life you have—and live it as if it truly mattered.
Sometimes poetry captures the soul of an idea more than anything else. This poem, by Roger Keyes, was inspired by the paintings of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849). Hokusai’s message in his paintings—captured in this poem—sums up the message of this book and its invitation. We offer it to you as food for the journey.
Hokusai Says5
* * *
Hokusai says Look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.
He says Look Forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
You just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it’s interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,
Every one of us is ancient,
Every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find
A way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive—
Shells, buildings, people, fish,
Mountains, trees. Wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
Or write books. It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
And stare at the ants on your verandah
Or the shadows of the trees
And grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives
through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
Is life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the han
d.
Let life live through you.
—Roger Keyes
* * *
Notes
CHAPTER ONE
1. Ivanowski, B. & Malhi, G. S. (2007), “The psychological and neurophysiological concomitants of mindfulness forms of meditation,” Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 19, pp. 76–91; Shapiro, S. L., Oman, D., Thoresen, C. E., Plante, T. G. & Flinders, T. (2008), “Cultivating mindfulness: effects on well-being,” Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(7), pp. 840–62; Shapiro, S. L., Schwartz, G. E. & Bonner, G. (1998), “Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and premedical students,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21, pp. 581–99; Siegel, D. Mindsight: The New Science of Transformation (New York; Random House, 2010).
2. Fredrickson, B. L. & Joiner, T. (2002), “Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being,” Psychological Science, 13, pp. 172–5; Fredrickson, B. L. and Levenson, R. W. (1998), “Positive emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions,” Cognition and Emotion, 12, pp. 191–220; Tugade, M. M. & Fredrickson, B. L. (2004), “Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, pp. 320–33.
3. Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Kreitemeyer, J. & Toney, L. (2006), “Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness,” Assessment, 13, pp. 27–45.
4. Jha, A., et al. (2007), “Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention,” Cognitive Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 7, pp. 109–19; Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., et al. (2007), “Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US), 104(43), pp. 17152–6; McCracken, L. M. & Yang, S. Y. (2008), “A contextual cognitive-behavioral analysis of rehabilitation workers’ health and well-being: Influences of acceptance, mindfulness and values-based action,” Rehabilitation Psychology, 53, pp. 479–85; Ortner, C. N. M., Kilner, S. J. & Zelazo, P. D. (2007), “Mindfulness meditation and reduced emotional interference on a cognitive task,” Motivation and Emotion, 31, pp. 271–83; Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A., Lutz, A., Schaefer, H. S., Levinson, D. B. & Davidson, R. J. (2007), “Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US), 104(27), pp. 11483–8.
5. Hick, S. F., Segal, Z. V. & Bien, T., Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Relationship (Guilford Press, 2008).
6. Low, C. A., Stanton, A. L. & Bower, J. E. (2008), “Effects of acceptance-oriented versus evaluative emotional processing on heart rate recovery and habituation,” Emotion, 8, pp. 419–24.
7. Kabat-Zinn, J., Lipworth, L., Burncy, R. & Sellers, W. (1986), “Four-year follow-up of a meditation-based program for the self-regulation of chronic pain: Treatment outcomes and compliance,” The Clinical Journal of Pain, 2(3), p. 159; Morone, N. E., Greco, C. M. & Weiner, D. K. (2008), “Mindfulness meditation for the treatment of chronic low back pain in older adults: A randomized controlled pilot study,” Pain, 134(3), pp. 310–19; Grant, J. A. & Rainville, P. (2009), “Pain sensitivity and analgesic effects of mindful states in zen meditators: A cross-sectional study,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 71(1), pp. 106–14.
8. Speca, M., Carlson, L. E., Goodey, E. & Angen, M. (2000), “A randomized, wait-list controlled trail: the effect of a mindfulness meditation-based stress reduction program on mood and symptoms of stress in cancer outpatients,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 62, pp. 613–22.
9. Bowen, S., et al. (2006), “Mindfulness Meditation and Substance Use in an Incarcerated Population,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 20, pp. 343–7.
10. Davidson, R. J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S. F., Urbanowski, F., Harrington, A., Bonus, K. & Sheridan, J. F. (2003), “Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, pp. 567–70.
11. Godden, D., & Baddeley, A. D. (1980), “When does context influence recognition memory?” British Journal of Psychology, 71, pp. 99–104.
CHAPTER TWO
1. www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/projections/en/index.html.
2. Zisook, S., et al. (2007), “Effect of Age at Onset on the Course of Major Depressive Disorder,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 164, pp. 1539–46, doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2007.06101757.
3. Klein, D. N. (2010), “Chronic Depression: diagnosis and classification,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, pp. 96–100.
4. Twenge, J. M. (2000), “Age of anxiety? Birth cohort changes in anxiety and neuroticism, 1952–1993,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, pp. 1007–21.
5. Michalak, J. (2010), “Embodied effects of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 68, pp. 311–14.
6. Strack, F., Martin, L. & Stepper, S. (1988), “Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: A nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, pp. 768–77.
7. Way, B. M., Creswell, J. D., Eisenberger, N. I. & Lieberman, M. D. (2010), “Dispositional Mindfulness and Depressive Symptomatology: Correlations with Limbic and Self-Referential Neural Activity During Rest,” Emotion, 10, pp. 12–24.
8. Watkins, E. & Baracaia, S. (2002), “Rumination and social problem-solving in depression,” Behavior Research and Therapy, 40, pp. 1179–89.
CHAPTER THREE
1. The distinction between Doing and Being modes of mind was first made in Kabat-Zinn, J., Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (Piatkus, 1990), pp. 60–1 and 96–7.
2. See Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness (Piatkus, 2005) for more detailed discussion of these issues.
3. Adapted with permission from Brown, K. W. & Ryan, R. M. (2003), “The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, pp. 822–48.
4. In this book, we provide an eight-week course for you to taste the benefits of mindfulness directly. In our clinic, participants are invited to do longer meditations over eight weeks, and if you wish to sample these, you could look at www.mindfulnessCDs.com and the book that describes MBCT, which this book is based on: The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal & Jon Kabat-Zinn (Guilford Press, 2007).
5. Davidson, R. J. (2004), “What does the prefrontal cortex ‘do’ in affect: Perspectives on frontal EEG asymmetry research,” Biological Psychology, 67, pp. 219–33.
6. Davidson, R. J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S. F., et al. (2003), “Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, pp. 564–70.
7. Lazar, S. W., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R. H., Gray, J. R., Greve, D., Treadway, M. T., McGarvey, M., Quinn, B. T., Dusek, J. A., Benson, H., Rauch, S. L., Moore, C. I. & Fischl, B. (2005), “Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness,” NeuroReport, 16, pp. 1893–7.
8. Craig, A. D. (2004), “Human feelings: why are some more aware than others?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 8, no.6, pp. 239–41.
9. Farb, N., Segal, Z. V., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., Fatima, Z. & Anderson, A. (2007), “Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, pp. 313–22.
10. Singer, T., et al. (2004), “Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain,” Science, 303, p. 1157.
11. Farb, N. A. S., Anderson, A. K., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D. & Segal, Z. V. (2010), “Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness,” Emotion, 10, pp. 225–33.
12. Fre
drickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J. & Finkel, S. M. (2008), “Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, pp. 1045–62. See Barbara Fredrickson’s Web site at www.unc.edu/peplab/home.html.
13. Shroevers, M. J. & Brandsma, R. (2010), “Is learning mindfulness associated with improved affect after mindfulness-based cognitive therapy?” British Journal of Psychology, 101, pp. 95–107.
14. See http://www.doctorsontm.com/national-institutes-of-health.
15. Schneider, R. H., et al. (2005), “Long-Term Effects of Stress Reduction on Mortality in Persons > 55 Years of Age With Systemic Hypertension,” American Journal of Cardiology, 95 (9), pp. 1060–64 (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1482831/pdf/nihms2905.pdf).
16. Ma, J. & Teasdale, J. D. (2004), “Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: Replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, pp. 31–40; Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G. & Teasdale, J. D., Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse (Guilford Press, 2002).
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