Mindfulness is the buzzword of the moment. But what is it all about exactly?

Mindfulness – also known as meditation – is a valuable skill that has been taught for thousands of years in many of the world’s wisdom traditions including Chritianity, Buddhism and Islam.

Mindfulness is a way of living in the present so that you don’t worry about past mistakes and painful experiences or live in the future worrying about possible mistakes and painful experiences.

Stop for a second. Where are you at this very moment? Are you right here, right now, fully focused as you hear these words, or has your mind taken flight and gone AWOL – as usual? It is normal for the mind to wander – that is what it is designed to do, but to allow yourself to focus on the present moment can be very helpful.

CyberShrink offers mindfulness-based techniques and interventions as well as mindfulness meditation in Cape Town.

In the context of dealing with overwhelming emotions:

Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and actions – in the present moment – without judging or criticising yourself or your experience.

What does this mean?

You might be doing many things at the moment – driving in your car while listening to the radio, sitting in a chair listening to the radio, doing housework and listening to the radio.

We cannot all be mindful 100% of the time, but mindfulness will certainly help you deal with overwhelming emotions.

Mindfulness includes:

Living in the moment
Being non-judgemental
Using radical acceptance: tolerating something without judging it or trying to change it.

Examples of mindlessness:

Gulping down meals
Raging in traffic
Panicking about deadlines
Driving on auto-pilot and not remembering how you got as far as you are – or forgetting the roads you took
While having a conversation, you suddenly realise you have lost track of the conversation
Or anticipating what you are going to say next in the conversation before the person has stopped speaking
Walking into a room you forget what you came to get
While taking a shower you are planning you day and forget if you have washed your hair or not

These examples are harmless, but for people with overwhelming emotions not being mindful can have devastating consequences by reacting rather than responding

Why are mindfulness skills important?

Mindfulness helps you focus on one thing at a time in the present moment, by doing this you can better control and soother your overwhelming emotions
Mindfulness helps you identify and separate judgemental thoughts from your experiences – these judgemental thought are what fuel your overwhelming emotions
Mindfulness helps you develop a skill called wise mind

You’ll also be able to catch yourself when you’re living and start responding to situations instead of reacting to them, which makes coping a whole lot easier.

The main leaders in the field of Mindfulness are:

Dr Jon Kabat Zinn – Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
Drs Zindel Segal, mark Williams and John Teasedale – Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Marsha Lineham – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

Mindfulness has shown to help with:

a heterogenous patient population
chronic pain
psoriasis
binge eating
reducing relapse of depression
increasing tolerance of distressing emotions
increasing relaxation
increasing skills to cope with difficult situations and overwhelming emotions

Living mindfully doesn’t remove life’s problems or stresses; it teaches you a different approach that can make them a lot more manageable.

What skills are we going to talk about?

Focus more fully on the present
Recognise and focus on your thoughts, emotions and physical sensations
Focus on your moment to moment stream of awareness
Separate you thoughts from your emotions and physical sensations
How to use wise mind
Radical acceptance

Focus more fully on the present

I am going to give you an exercise to break out of auto pilot and ground on the present moment and focus on what is most important in the present moment and what you are feeling

STOP Exercise

If you don’t remember anything else – remember this.

STOP is an acronym, in brief it stands for:

is for Stop.

is for Take a breath. Steady your mind.

is for Observe, observing, your body, your feelings and your mind – is it busy or calm?.

is for Proceed. Carrying on with what is important after you have taken a moment to ground yourself so that you can respond rather than react.

Stop

Get in a seated position with a sense of a straight spine in a relaxed position. Mindfulness is also called a practice of falling awake. Keep eyes open or keep them closed.

Take a breath

Collect your attention and become aware of your breath and you release it in or out

Notice where you notice your breathing most prominently – the nose, the chest or the belly. Be aware of breathing and using it

Use your breath as an anchor in this moment.

Observe:

As you are breathing, Notice your body – is there any tension or tightening? Not judging anything as right or wrong, just being aware of how it is. How are you feeling at the moment? – frustrated, irritated border, excitement or joy? Again, not judging anything as right or wrong., just being aware of how it is. Bring attention to the mind. Is it busy or calm? Does it feel clarity? Is it clear?

Proceed:

Now with this awareness and breaking out of auto-pilot ask what is most important right now and what do you want to do? What do you want to do now? As an answer arises continue with that and respond, rather than react.

With thanks to Elisha Goldstein. For a YouTube video see here:

Recognise and focus on your thoughts, emotions and physical sensations

In the STOP process, you STOPped to take time to breathe and focus on your thoughts, emotions and physical senations.

Focus on your moment to moment stream of awareness

While breathing, you focused on your breath from moment to moment. You can come back to the stop process again and again throughout your day. Remember S is for Stop.

T is for Take a breath. O is for Observe, observing, your body, your feelings and your mind. P is for Proceed, carrying on with what is important after you have taken a moment to ground yourself so that you can respond rather than react.

Separate you thoughts from your emotions and physical sensations

While observing you took the time to notice your emotions, your thought and you physical body. Take the time to separate them and remember that our thoughts usually lead to our emotions.

How to use wise mind

Wise mind is also known as intuition.

Learning to make good decisions in life in a process that evolves and there is not one way of doing it

When you make a decision are you being mindful of both the emotions (emotional mind) and the facts (logical mind)
Does the decision feel right?
You can sometimes tell if you have used wise mind by examining the results of your decision

Radical acceptance

Radical acceptance involves tolerating something without judging it or trying to change it.

Action: Take time to notice and make a journal of negative judgements like:

I don’t like what my partner is wearing
Being angry with yourself for staying up too late
Thinking about how much you hate your boss or how you are unappreciated
Many more

Radical acceptance means you approach people and situations in your life without judging them to be good or bad, positive or negative. This doesn’t mean that you should never trust someone – one should practice discernment. What is does mean is you can approach it with what we call Beginner’s Mind: entering every situation and relationship as if you were seeing it for the very first time.

Remember that judgements and labels:

Can trigger overwhelming emotions
Can lead to disappointment and suffering
Can prevent you from being truly mindful and living in the present moment so that that you are able to experience it without worrying about past mistakes and painful experiences or worrying about possible future mistakes and painful experiences

Action: keep a journal of your non-judgemental approach using beginners mind