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This page is intended as a brief introduction to
the topic of mindfulness. There is much more to it than this, but I hope it will serve as a useful starting point for
anyone who's interested in what it is and how it can help.
Mindfulness is the practice of paying
attention to whatever arises in the present moment (e.g. thoughts, sensations, emotions) and just letting them be –
observing them, but not judging them or seeking to change them. It’s a bit like watching a passing
bus, on its designated route. You see it, watch it, and just let it go on … down Oxford Street,
or wherever. After all – what else would you do with a bus, if you weren’t getting on it, or
off it… or driving it? So you simply observe it … and let it be.
But
this ‘letting things be’ can be quite challenging, so there are exercises especially designed to help. One of the most
widely known exercises is to cultivate an awareness of the breath, in the body, in the present moment. Paradoxically, by letting things be, they often change.
A basic Mindfulness practice
Here’s a step-by-step exercise … Sit
comfortably on an upright chair, your spine straight but relaxed, your feet planted firmly on the floor, your hands resting
on your thighs, palms facing up. First
of all, to increase your awareness of the breath in your body, just close your eyes and breathe a little bit more deeply than
usual, just a couple of times, so you can really feel your breath.
Then do this…
Breathe in, breathe out and count ‘one’
Breathe in, breathe out and count ‘two’
Breathe
in, breathe out and count ‘three’
Breathe in, breathe out and count ‘four’
Continue
doing this til you get to 10.
Then just start again.
Don’t try to change the rate of the breath,
or the depth of the breath – just keep breathing naturally, and if things change, well, that’s fine.
Keep doing this… again and again… one to ten. One
to ten. For at least 5 minutes.
Why?
Because by bringing the awareness
continually back to the breath (again & again, using the counting as an anchor) you stay in your body – away
from the head, where we all tend to get tangled up.
You probably already know that an aeroplane spends more time ‘off course’ than ‘on course’, literally
crossing the line to its destination again and again in a zig zag fashion. Well, we do the same when
we cultivate mindfulness – veering away with our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and then bringing ourselves back to
that line, which is held by the breath, towards a destination of clarity. Towards mind-body integration. Towards ourselves.
Towards peace. The counting is a sort of anchor, to just keep us coming back to the sensation of the breath in
the body.
Sounds crazy?
A hundred years ago, William James, the American Philosopher-Psychologist,
expressed what he knew to be true:
'The faculty
of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character and will...An
education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence' William James (1842-1910)
Two thousand years ago, Aristotle, the Greek Philosopher, expressed what he knew to be true: ‘
We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then,
is not an act, but a habit’ Aristotle (384-322 BC)
But,
despite the assertions of thinkers like these, it is only recently that this 2,500 year old knowledge has
come to be applied to our ‘Western’ way of being. Now that we have sophisticated brain-imaging techniques at
our fingertips, we can, literally, see its benefits. Changes in the EEG, demonstrate that the simple act of mindfulness changes
the brain and promotes well-being.
In the
past decade, the groundbreaking mind-body work of Jon Kabat-Zinn (USA) has been picked up by leading academics
in both Cambridge, and Oxford Universities, here in the UK, and has been painstakingly validated. It is now offered
as part of the NHS provision, as ‘Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction’ (ask your GP). There is also a fledgling
movement to introduce Mindfulness into schools, www.mindfulnessinschools.org.
So, here in the UK, we now have what I call ‘mindfulness saplings’ in both Healthcare
and Education – their seeds were discovered, noted and shared by Jon Kabat-Zinn (after being sourced in the ‘East’)
and planted, here, by our own academics, John Teasdale and Mark Williams, resulting in a truly global integration
of mind. Ideas about mindfulness are now flourishing as the will to improve well-being grows and grows.
Why bother with mindfulness?
Mindfulness promotes the development of the pre-frontal cortex (the
very front part of the brain, which is the most evolved part) dubbed ‘the organ of civilization’.
The pre-frontal cortex develops as a function of the early mother-infant relationship and is responsible not only
for executive function, but also for things like self-regulation, attuned communication, emotional balance, insight, intuition,
and empathy. A fully functioning pre-frontal cortex makes us more fully human, more connected, more ourselves.
It makes us more flexible, more resilient and more able to cope with life's stressors.
The good news is that
even if the mother-infant relationship was not ideal in your case, for whatever reason, then the pre-frontal cortex can
still be optimized with mindfulness meditation.
And more good news, from Dr
Alan Schore, (neuropsychoanalyst
and pioneer in integrating social, biological, psychological and psychoanalytic theory) ‘there is very
specific evidence that the prefrontal cortex, more than any other part of the cerebral cortex, retains the plastic capacities
of early development’. In other words – with your will and involvement, your pre-frontal
cortex can change… however long in the tooth you are.
To learn how to develop mindfulness, and make changes in your own life, please
contact me now: phone 020 8704 0781 e-mail foksfam@aol.com
To join a Mindfulness class in Fulham & Chelsea, or just to browse a wonderful
Mindfulness resource, visit James Darby's Embrace Mindfulness website:
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