Mindfulness. In the past few years, this has become one of the hottest buzzwords around. Whether people are discussing mindful living, being mindful in the workplace, or practicing mindfulness at home. Everyone has their different understanding of mindfulness. However often, this image of mindfulness is in the form of meditation, incense, sitting still and being with your thoughts.
A couple of years ago, in the pursuit of mindfulness, one of my best friends and I went to a meditation session. We sat in a room with about 15 strangers, shut our eyes, and let a woman guide us through an hour meditation. I enjoyed the session, apart from getting cramp in my leg. My best friend did not. She really struggled to get in the zone, and instead told me that she spent most of the session thinking about what was on her to do list, and that her nose was itchy, but she didn’t want to itch it because everyone was so quiet. We did not return. Both of us had left a little sceptical about this mindfulness malarky. However, when I started studying more around coaching and especially around my DBT and CBT understanding, I started to understand what mindfulness really was all about.
You cannot complete mindfulness, you cannot tick mindfulness of a to do list, you cannot say, ‘yep, I have done my weekly mindfulness”. Mindfulness is something that is ongoing, it is something that you can practice each and every day. Think of that verb, practice, that is exactly what you are doing, you are practicing this skill, you are improving your ability to listen to your body, to the sounds and feelings, smells and sensations around you. However, even after years of practice you will always be able to continue to improve. Think of a musician, they can complete formal grades, they can practice their skills every day, but they can always learn new music, learn a different piece, and when they pick up that new bit of music, they will not be perfect, they will need to practice over and over, and there is always new music to learn. Mindfulness is the same, you always need to be practicing, learning, growing, and developing your skills, to become more aware of your body and the world around you.
So, how can mindfulness help in daily life? Well, for me it is about control. Anxiety is often caused by situations in which we do not feel safe. When we do not feel safe, our primal instinct is to fight or flight, and anxiety is our body telling us that a potential risk is nearby, and we may need to react. If you suffer from anxiety through, often these feelings can occur when there is not a ‘real’ danger, but instead a perceived danger from an underlying worry or concern, for example you may start to feel really anxious when you are around lots of new people, because you are worried about what they will think of you. The actual event of them thinking a certain way has not necessarily happened yet, but the risk in your mind is close by, causing the anxiety. So how do you manage this, well you start to focus on what you can control, and that is yourself. Enter, mindfulness. Start with your breathing, become aware of how fast or slow it is, try and focus on slowing it down to a normal pace. Focus on your hands and facial muscles, notice if they are clenched, focus your energy to relax them. Now focus on the sounds and smells around you that you know are real and there. Can you identify individual voices in a room, can you hear glasses clinking, can you smell food, or smell someones perfume. Identify what is real, what is happening right there, and what is tangible. Through identifying these things, and consciously focusing on them, you can take the energy away from your thoughts of worry or panic, which are of threats which are not tangible, and are not in your ability to control.
However, what happens if the world around you is causing the anxiety? This is a common question. For example, you are walking down a road at night, its dark, no one is around, and you start to hear footsteps behind you. Your anxiety starts to rise, because your body is preparing for an attack, it is preparing you for that fight or flight. Your heart rate goes up, and you start to panic. This situation is common, and more often than not the danger is not really there, instead it is a fellow commuter returning home, or even a delivery man with someones dinner. But it can leave you feeling panicked, out of control, overwhelmed, and even make you feel you cannot go out at night or you cannot go out at all. This is therefore impacting on your day to day living, and could become a problem. So, how do you manage this situation, using mindfulness, to remain in your ‘window of tolerance’ and feel in control?
Here is a little trick I was taught years ago, and you may well know it, but if you do not, have a go at it now. With either one hand or both hands, I want you to tap your thumb against each of your fingers in order, so thumb taps forefinger, then thumb taps middle finger, then ring finger, and then little finger, then go back again, so little finger, ring finger, middle finger, forefinger. If you are doing this with both hands, focus on making sure your fingers are tapping the same finger at the same time, so on both hands you are both at the little finger and then returning at the same time. As you are doing this, be mindful of the time you are taking to tap each finger, slow down, speed up, maybe even do a little pattern. Focus on that sensation of the fingers connecting, or the muscles moving, and be mindful of these sensations as you do them. This little exercise is something I do all the time! On the commute to work, in a stressful meeting, when I’m ordering a drink at a bar, when I am trying to fall asleep at night. Whenever I feel my anxiety start to rise, I do this. Why does it work for me? Well, it does not shut me off from my senses around me, I can still be aware of the noises behind me, or the situation in hand, but it gives me a diversion to focus on, which steadies me, meaning my anxiety does not right to the point of a panic attack or feel like I am out of control. It is my control. It is my focus. And it steadies me when the world around me does have a potential risk, and I do not want to focus or be mindful on my environment as that is causing my potential distress.
So remember, mindfulness is something you can do at any time, any where, and it is useful. It doesn’t have to be something you consciously make time for. Being mindful is about connecting to yourself, your body, your senses, your now. And whether there is a real risk or a perceived risk, you can be mindful, in your way, to help feel you have that control you need to lower your anxiety, through feeling safe. Do it now, whilst you are reading this, and think, what am I feeling right now, mindfully?
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