Note: This post describes a meditative side practice — and an additional benefit of meditation — to complement my Meditation Primer and the blog post “Pull-Ups for the Mind”. For best results, both should be read (and practiced!) before the below.
The previous post on “aesthetic appreciation” was one way of using the typically internally-focused practice of meditation to engage with the outside world. A bigger step in the same direction is to do “mindfulness” practices throughout the day.
In essence, mindfulness is a form of meditation in which the main aim is to stay in the present moment, regardless of what one is doing. It’s not so much about focusing on the breath — or any other one particular thing. It’s more about quickly letting go of arising thoughts and staying truly focused in the present moment and on the task at hand.
I’m sure you have at least heard the term “mindfulness,” since it has become quite trendy ever since Jon Kabat-Zinn developed and began popularizing various forms of it in the early 90s.
Dangers & Delusions
I have a deep misgiving about mindfulness, though, and think it can actually become a detrimental practice if not approached carefully and honestly. This is because we humans are very good at deluding ourselves. As Richard Feynman famously said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
I know some people whose only meditative practice is to (ostensibly) engage in mindfulness throughout the day. And while I can never truly know what is going in their heads, based on my own personal experience and the way these people act, I am fairly convinced they are deluding themselves.
If you’ve tried sitting meditation just once, you will know how insanely easy it is to get wrapped up in thoughts for upwards of a minute before you remember that you were supposed to be focusing on your breath. And that’s while simply sitting down somewhere quiet with minimal outside distractions. Imagine how much easier it is to become lost in thought while washing dishes or cleaning the house (two of the most cliche times for practicing mindfulness).
It’s very easy to tell yourself that you are gong to be mindful while cleaning your house, and to feel good about yourself afterwards for being such a mindful person. But I am pretty sure if you had a way to record your actual periods of focus in such a scenario, you’d be shocked at how much less you were truly in the present moment than your dumb, self-validating ego told you afterwards.
Tips & Tricks
That said, mindfulness —used judiciously and carefully — can be a valuable practice. I have a few tricks and tips that I use and can share to make it more likely that your own mindfulness exercises will be effective.
(1) Sitting Meditation is Essential: I firmly believe that sitting meditation should be the foundation for any other meditative practices you might do. It’s essential to becoming mentally stronger. It’s like the difference between doing a thirty minute session of pull-ups versus spending an hour doing yard work: sure, your back and arms will get a little exercise with intense yard work, but it’s really only a proper workout that will make you stronger.
(2) Make it a Session: I make mindfulness a defined session, and decide in advance when I will do it and for how long. Being lackadaisical about your mindfulness practice and believing that somehow you will manage to “be mindful” off and on throughout the day is a recipe for fooling yourself.
(3) Set a Timer: I set a timer on my phone to ding every 90 seconds or so (and I put it in “do not disturb mode” as well). This is just often enough to help snap me back into focus when my mind drifts, but not so often that my brain will tune it out. For longer mindfulness sessions, I sometimes change the alert’s sound and/or timing halfway through, just to ensure I don’t become habituated to it.
(4) Decide on a Specific Focus: When starting a mindfulness session, I decide in advance on one specific focal object to help me stay in the present moment. Often it is sounds or my posture, but you could choose pretty much anything — to some extent the activity itself may determine an appropriate focus. Regardless of the exact focus, when I realize I was lost in thought I use it to help “prime” my mind back into the present moment.
Times & Places
As I mentioned above, around-the-house chores (washing dishes, sweeping, ironing) are classic examples of occasions to be mindful. But really any solo activity that requires minimal thought or concentration can be used. Eating, showering, walking, driving, some forms of exercise… (In fact, yoga could be defined — in an oversimplified way — as a form of “mindfulness-while-stretching.”)
Personally, I practice mindfulness most often while walking/hiking and driving. These two activities are also ideal for those just starting out, as they tend to cause less distraction than more complex activities, especially when they are done in a remote setting: driving down a long highway with minimal traffic is a good time for a mindfulness exercise, but driving in the middle of a city you don’t know is dangerous.
During walking mindfulness, I find that paying attention to my posture or how my movements are initiated become great focal points. You can count steps to help push you into a meditative zone, and/or use the sounds of nature, like birds or breezes, to help jar you back into mindfulness when mental wandering takes hold.
With driving meditation/mindfulness, you need to be careful not to get into a deep meditative trance. I find focusing on an aspect of the road to be be far safer than things internal to your body: the sound of your tires on the road, or making a point to keep your vehicle an exact consistent distance from the road stripes, for example.
Walking and driving are great starting points for mindfulness, but experiment a bit and I think you can find lots of opportunities throughout your day where you can attempt to truly stay in the present moment.