Mindfulness
“Mindfulness is the awareness that arises when
paying attention in a particular way;
on purpose,
in the present moment,
non-judgmentally.”
-Williams, Teasdale, Segal, and Kabat-Zinn (2007)
Summary of Session 1: Awareness and Automatic Pilot
In a car we can sometimes drive for miles “on automatic pilot,” without really being aware of what we are doing. In the same way, we may not be really “present,” moment- by-moment, for much of our lives: We can often be “miles away” without knowing it.
On automatic pilot, we are more likely to have our “buttons pressed”: Events around us and thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the mind (of which we may be only dimly aware) can trigger old habits of thinking that are often unhelpful, and may lead on to worsening mood.
By becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, from moment to moment, we give ourselves the possibility of greater freedom and choice; we do not have to go down the same old “mental ruts” that may have caused problems in the past.
The aim of mindfulness exercises are to increase awareness, so that we can respond to situations with choice rather than react automatically. We do that by practicing to become more aware of where our attention is, and deliberately changing the focus of attention, over and over again.
To begin with, we will use attention to eating the raisin to explore how to step out of automatic pilot. We will then use attention to different parts of the body as a focus to anchor our awareness in the moment. We will also be training ourselves to put attention and awareness in different places at will. This is the aim of the body scan exercise, which forms the main home practice exercise for next week.
To begin, we will start to work on focusing our attention. Try do do this exercise daily for a week.
After learning to focus your attention you will begin to do daily body scans. Try to do the 20 minute body scan daily, and try to do a 40 minute one at least once a week. There are two version of the 40 minute body scan to try.
The raisin exercise is designed to help you understand how our awareness can be opened up. It is also the basis for mindful eating. It is an exercise designed to help us see that our experience can be changed by focusing our attention in different ways. Try this exercise once, then use the same approach when eating meals several times a week.
Together, we will be working to change patterns of mind that often have been around for a long time. These patterns may have become habit. We can expect to succeed in making changes only if we put time and effort into learning skills.
This approach depends entirely on your willingness to do home practice between class meetings. This home practice will take at least an hour a day, 6 days a week, for 8 weeks, and involves tasks such as listening to the recorded meditations and other exercises, performing brief exercises, and so on. We appreciate how it is often very difficult to carve out that amount of time for something new in lives that are already very busy and crowded. However, the commitment to spend time on home practice is an essential part of the class; if you do not feel able to make that commitment, it would be best not to start.
Our sessions and the home practice assignments can teach you how to be more fully aware and present in each moment of life. On one hand, this makes life more interesting, vivid, and fulfilling. On the other hand, this means facing what is present, even when it is unpleasant and difficult. In practice, you will find that turning to face and acknowledge difficulties is the most effective way, in the long run, to reduce unhappiness. It is also central to preventing further depression. Seeing unpleasant feelings, thoughts, or experiences clearly, as they arise, means that you will be in much better shape to “nip them in the bud,” before they progress to more intense or persistent depressions.
Because we will be working to change well-established habits of mind, you will be put- ting in a lot of time and effort. The effects of this effort may become apparent only later. In many ways, it is much like gardening—we have to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, ensure that they are adequately watered and nourished, and then wait patiently for results.
You may be familiar with this pattern from your treatment with antidepressants: Often there is little beneficial effect until you have been taking the medication for some time. Yet improvement in your depression depended on your continuing to take the antidepressant even when you felt no immediate benefit.
In the same way, we ask you to approach the classes and home practice with a spirit of patience and persistence, committing yourself to put time and effort into what will be asked of you, while accepting, with patience, that the fruits of your efforts may not show straight away.
Homework
Do the body scan exercise six times before we meet again. Don’t expect to feel anything in particular from doing the practice. In fact, give up all expectations about it. Just let your experience be your experience. Don’t judge it, just keep doing it, and we’ll talk about it next week.
Write down each time you do the practice. Also, make a note of anything that comes up in the home practice so that we can talk about it at the next meeting.
Choose one routine activity in your daily life and make a deliberate effort to bring moment-to-moment awareness to that activity each time you do it, just as we did in the raisin exercise. Possibilities include waking up in the morning, brushing your teeth, showering, drying your body, getting dressed, eating, driving, taking out the rubbish (garbage), shopping, and so forth. Simply zero in on knowing what you are doing as you are actually doing it.
Note any times when you find yourself able to notice what you eat in the same way you noticed the raisin.
Eat at least one meal “mindfully” in the way that you ate the raisin.
A Patient’s Report
This patient had been hospitalized for depression 4 years before, after which her husband and children left her. There had been no further contact except through lawyers. She had become very depressed and lonely, although she had not been in the hospital again. She was now over the worst of her depression, and started to use the body scan exercise to help prevent her mood from deteriorating. These were her comments looking back after 8 weeks:
“For the first 10 days it was like a burden. I kept ‘wandering off’ and then I would worry about whether I was doing it right. For example, I kept having flights of fantasy. My mind was all over the place. I tried too hard to stop it, I think.
“Another problem at the start was him saying, ‘Just accept things as they are now.’ I thought that was totally unreasonable. I thought to myself, ‘I can’t do that.’
“Eventually, I just put the audio tracks on and expected to go off into a realm of thoughts. I didn’t worry if concerns came in. Gradually the 40 minutes passed without me losing him and from then on, the next time was more effective.
“After 10 days I relaxed more, I stopped worrying if I was thinking about anything else. When I stopped worrying about it then I actually stopped the flights of fancy. If I did think of something else, I picked up the audio tracks again when I stopped think- ing. Gradually the flights of fantasy reduced. I was happy to listen to him and then I started to get some value from it.
“Soon I had developed it so that I could actually feel the breath going down to the base of my foot. Sometimes I didn’t feel anything, but then I thought, ‘If there’s no feeling then I can be satisfied with the fact there is no feeling.’
“It’s not something you can do half a dozen times. It’s got to be a daily thing. It becomes more real the more that you try it. I began to look forward to it.
“If people have got to structure the time for the 45 minutes for their recordings, it may be easier to structure other things in their life as well. The recordings would prove an impetus.”