What is Mindfulness?
By Danny Jolly
Mindfulness helps us to shift from DIS-EASE to EASE by illuminating new and nourishing ways of relating to ourselves and our experience. Leading to inner resourcefulness and more resilience.
What is Mindfulness?
Like Yoga, mindfulness is a mind-body practice founded in eastern contemplative tradition, which incorporates gentle yoga-based movements. It is a way of paying attention to our experience - an awareness to see what is going on in our mind at any given moment and using the body to prevent becoming caught up in the emotional or mental turmoil.
Mindfulness is an empowering ally, resourcing us to actively participate in our own wellbeing by befriending our minds and bodies, to reduce the effects of mental and physical ill health. Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed the first contemporary mindfulness course, also calls it ‘Heartfulness’. It is important to note that mindfulness is a preliminary technique before meditation takes place. It is a modern version of a Buddhist practice with the traditional teachings removed for a secular audience. For more about meditation as an aid against anxiety see here.
One popular definition is:
“Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally, to things as they are.” (Williams, J. Mark G)
What are its origins?
Mindfulness in the contemporary and secular sense was first envisioned by Kabat-Zinn whilst attending a Buddhist mindfulness retreat in the late 1970’s. He saw how a mindfulness training course could be developed from two of the Buddha’s core teachings. 1. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipatthana Sutta): Mindfulness of Body,
Mindfulness of Vedana (feeling tone), mindfulness of Citta (mind/consciousness), mindfulness of Dhammas (mental phenomena and frameworks) and 2. The Four Noble Truths:
There is suffering in life
There are causes of suffering
There is cessation of suffering
There is a way to cease suffering (The Eightfold Path).
The form of mindfulness meditation practice Kabat-Zinn used and, taught other teachers to use, was heavily influenced by Chinese Buddhist Chan non-dual practice. In 1979, Kabat-Zinn delivered the first secular 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course using these principles at The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMass), initially to patients whose chronic pain and illness conditions the hospital had been unable to improve. Upon researching the outcomes from the course, it was also found to reduce stress and anxiety and improve recovery rates from psoriasis.
Connections with Yoga
Kabat-Zinn had also been practising yoga for many years and saw the potential for using yoga as another way of cultivating mindfulness (of body) in movement. This mindful yoga is incorporated into MBSR as a fundamental way of learning how to approach difficulty – how we work with resistance to a particular yoga posture/movement has parallels with how we learn to work with emotional or mental resistance and aversion.
How Mindfulness is developed
Mindfulness is developed experientially, traditionally through meditation, by paying attention to sense objects.
Paying attention is one thing, however it is how we do it which makes the crucial difference.
With mindfulness, we practice paying attention on purpose and in a particular way (with friendly curiosity, whilst suspending judgement). When we do this for more moments of our day, we begin to clearly see troublesome patterns of thought or emotion unfolding. We can then pause and respond in a way that supports our wellbeing. Over time, as we practice responding in this way, we begin to loosen the grip of stress, anxiety and other destructive habits.
Mindless-ness
You may think that paying attention is nothing special, we all do that - right? Well, we do and don’t! For instance, as you pay attention to reading this your mind might be wandering off to items on your to do list or being distracted by sounds in your environment. Maybe something you read, or the sound has triggered an interesting thought or memory that is playing out in your mind, which then makes you feel happy or sad. Or perhaps there is a familiar ache in your back which concerns you and you think about planning a visit to the physio. All this happens whilst you are trying to read this article about mindfulness.
This is just what minds do and is usually perfectly harmless or even helpful. However, when we are stressed, suffering with pain, or in an emotionally challenging situation, these same automatic thoughts, feelings and sensations can quickly hook us into habitual reactivity (e.g., worry, anxiety, fear, anger). This only serves to make the difficult experience even worse!
You Are Already Mindful!
The good news is that human beings are innately mindful. Have you ever been out in nature and felt absorbed in or connected to the sights, smells and sounds? Or maybe you have felt in tune with your body and mind whilst gardening, practising yoga, exercising, playing a musical instrument or even working? Perhaps you like drawing, painting or looking at art and have felt absorbed in the colours, textures or physical contact with the pencil or brush? These are all examples of being connected to our body and present moment experience through our five senses. Mindfulness uses this natural human sensory capacity and expands it to include noticing the activity of our heart-mind as a sixth sense.
Ultimately mindfulness empowers us to take greater care of ourselves, with people finding it an invaluable support for living a richer, more vibrant life. An 8-week Mindfulness course is a great way to learn how to cultivate these skills through regular practice with like-minded people, in a safe and nourishing environment.
The Benefits of Mindfulness – Scientific Research
A systematic review and meta-analysis in 2020 evaluated research into the benefits of the two most popular mindfulness-based trainings and includes 49 studies involving 4,733 people. The review indicates that mindfulness training significantly reduces symptoms of rumination/worry, stress/psychological distress, depression, and anxiety; and significantly improves quality of life/well-being (Querstret, D., Morison, L., Dickinson, S., Cropley, M., & John, M.)
Further research proposes that mindfulness supports people suffering with chronic pain, psoriasis, Parkinsons, cancer and multiple sclerosis.
Interested in practising mindfulness?
Danny teaches drop-in mindfulness classes for The Secret Space on Mondays at 7:45pm and Saturdays at 1:15pm. Click here to get a flavour of mindfulness by following the guidance in Danny’s free meditation videos.
References:
Williams, J. Mark G., ed. The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness. New York: Guilford Press, 2007.
Querstret, D., Morison, L., Dickinson, S., Cropley, M., & John, M. (2020). Mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for psychological health and well-being in nonclinical samples: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Stress Management, 27(4), 394–411. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000165