By Dr. Lisa Kettler, Clinical Psychologist, Embrace Psychology and Consulting
I wrote recently about why I am passionate about mindfulness and self compassion and would like to share more now about what mindfulness it is all about.
This widely used definition is the one that I like best: mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention to, or being in contact with the present moment, on purpose, and non-judgmentally.
This might sound like a very simple idea. All of us have moments in any given day, when we are fully present and engaged in what we are doing. Perhaps it is the first bite of your favourite meal. Perhaps it is when you are watching the cliffhanger ending to season one of your current favourite show on Netflix. Or maybe it’s that moment three seconds before the final siren in the AFL grand final, when your team is playing and you’re in the crowd at the game.
But how many of these moments are actually free of some aspect of judgement, or of past or future thinking? Is the taste of that meal free of the memory of the last time you ate it? Is your engagement in that cliffhanger free of your possible angst about how long you have to wait until the next season is available? Is that moment of engagement at the footy completely free of your thoughts about whether you will be stuck in traffic for ages on the way home? Perhaps you sometimes realise later that you’ve gotten more caught up in those reflections and ideas than in experiencing the moment itself. The “on purpose, and non-judgementally” aspects of mindfulness, are not actually that simple!
You might also have noticed that there are times in your day when you’ve been on autopilot- so caught up in thinking about other things, that you weren’t really present when you would like to have been. Perhaps you’ve had an entire conversation with a family member about something that happened in their day, but you can’t remember it a minute later, because you were actually mentally writing a to-do list for tomorrow at the time. Maybe you find yourself arriving in a room in your house and have no idea why you were going there? Sometimes being actually present in the moment you are in is hard to do.
Of course thinking about the past and the future, making judgements and reflecting on our emotions are fundamental aspects of our humanity. We bring them into our present moment experience to help us make sense of it and give it meaning. Those are essential skills. Imagine how bewildering and overwhelming our lives would feel if we couldn’t reference the past or think about the future. Likewise, being able to do some things on auto-pilot is a blessing. It reduces our mental load, and gives us time for sense making that we may not otherwise have.
Cultivating mindfulness is not therefore, about trying to stop these essential processes from happening, but it is about noticing them more often, and when we notice them, checking in with ourselves about that; taking a moment to observe the sense making that is happening. If, when we check in, we notice we have become caught up unhelpfully, we now have an option we did not have before; to choose a different response. We create the opportunity for the NEXT moment to be hugely and helpfully different than it may otherwise have been. After all, this moment, RIGHT NOW is a moment we will never again have to experience.
No one can be mindful all the time. But we are all capable of cultivating more mindful moments in our day. Simple cues can help. Try using the first sip of your morning cuppa, or brushing your teeth at night as your reminder to stop, check in with yourself and be fully present, with curiosity and acceptance, for whatever arises.
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