The Truth About Mindfulness: 6 Things You Need to Know
Have you been tempted to try mindfulness after hearing about its amazing benefits? Or maybe you’ve practiced a while and now feel stuck.
Mindfulness has been touted as the solution to anxiety, depression, stress, and chronic pain. It’s marketed as a means to improve focus, efficiency, sleep, relationships, and physical health. Practice mindfulness, they say, and you’ll find happiness, fulfillment, and inner peace. You’ll even extend the length of your life.
These claims aren’t all malarkey.
Research from the first Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Schooltells us:
“Published evaluations of the medical outcomes resulting from patient participation have shown a 35% reduction in the number of medical symptoms and a 40% reduction in psychological symptoms (stable over four years).”
But what does it take to actually gain these results?
If you intend to begin mindfulness training, you should know it’s simple, but not as easy as some would like you to believe.
You’ll find countless articles online that will gladly teach you to practice mindfulness in daily life. These tips may be good. But often these ‘experts’ fail to warn you it’s almost impossible to become more mindful in life if you haven’t done your time in formal sessions on a cushion or chair.
I don’t want to discourage you in the least—because mindfulness is powerful. As a former mindfulness teacher, I’ve directly witnessed its positive outcomes in many people.
I want you to be successful with mindfulness. That’s more likely to happen if you have a realistic idea of the challenges you might face.
So, let’s take a look at what really happens when you give mindfulness a go.
When I say mindfulness practice, I mean sessions done on a cushion or chair — not the watered down variety of paying attention while gardening, washing dishes, or driving. Those are good too, but they don’t come first.
As you sit alone with your mind, here are six things that commonly come up.
1. Your Emotional Habits
When you decide to practice mindfulness, your ego and emotional habits will happily come along. Whatever trips you up in life will be ever so present when you practice mindfulness too. That might include any one or more of these emotional habits:
Perfectionism
Trying too hard
Fearing your mind will never relax
Trying to meet the external expectations of a teacher or guide
Wanting to give up because it’s too hard
Resistance
Checking out, spacing out
Restlessness
Because emotional habits are strong, you may automatically blend with your response. For example, if your tendency is to try too hard, you’ll get busy doing just that without a second thought. You may not see what’s happening until it’s played out for weeks or months.
If you realize this trap in advance, mindfulness can help you notice when an unhelpful pattern arises so you can stop playing its game. Instead of automatically following the voice in your head, mindfulness gives you a choice.
By not responding in your usual way, again and again, you gradually strengthen your ability to not do so the next time. Eventually, through the repetition of awareness rather than reaction, these emotional habits lose their power.
This is ancient wisdom confirmed by neuroscience and the neuroplasticity of the brain.
Solution: It’s okay to bring your emotional habits along. It would be difficult not to. The key is to be aware of them. Use mindfulness meditation as a way to get to know your emotional habits (without thinking about them), and one-by-one, turn them around.
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
2. Resistance
You might feel enthusiastic when you begin mindfulness training, only to hit a wall a few weeks down the road.
“You mean I have to sit on my bum for another 20 minutes today?”
You’ll find 1,001 reasons why you should skip sitting practice. Cleaning the toilet will seem more appealing than sitting again all by yourself.
Skipping once may seem like no big deal. But, it does open the door to missing again. And then, again.
When resistance appears, give yourself a gentle nudge to keep going. But don’t push yourself too hard or you might create more resistance.
If you do miss a day, don’t criticize yourself. Just start again the next day. Even if you miss a week or a month, just being again.
Another way to out maneuver resistance is to set realistic goals at the start.
Commit to practice three days a week if every day is too hard.
Begin with five minutes if twenty minutes feels like a lifetime.
Solution: You’ll meet resistance at some point on your mindfulness journey. Don’t be alarmed when this happens. Find the sweet spot between strict discipline and a lax attitude that will keep you from achieving any real degree of mindfulness.
“If you meditate regularly, even when you don’t feel like it, you will make great gains, for it will allow you to see how your thoughts impose limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in miniature.” — Ram Dass
3. An Abundance of Thoughts
When people begin to practice mindfulness, they often feel alarmed by the sheer number of thoughts appearing in their mind.
Don’t be disturbed if this happens to you. It’s a normal experience when you’re looking at your mind for what might be the first time. According to a 2020 study published in Nature Communications, the average person has more than 6,000 thoughts in a single day.
The purpose of meditation isn’t to be absent of thoughts, but to be aware of whatever thoughts, emotions, or sensations you experience.
But happily, the process of simply observing without interacting with thoughts naturally settles the mind in time. That’s why the practice of mindfulness called “Shamatha” in Sanskrit means “peacefully remaining” or “calm abiding.”
While it might seem impossible at first, given what seems to be an unending cascade of thoughts, with practice, your mind will calm down.
Solution: It’s normal to notice an abundance of thoughts when you begin to practice mindfulness. The amount of time it takes to settle the mind is different for everyone. But you can trust, with practice, your mind will settle too.
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.” — Shunryu Suzuki
4. Restlessness
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition identifies two main obstacles in mindfulness meditation. The first is restlessness.
You can’t sit still. You’re itching to get up. Your mind is all over the place. Your to-do list screams at you to stop, get up, and do something else.
To address agitation, try the following:
Practice in a room that is warm and dark
Wear thicker clothing
Eat heavier food
Relax
If you practice with your eyes open, lower your gaze instead of gazing directly ahead
Solution: Be assured, restlessness is a normal obstacle in meditation. Follow the steps above.
“If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.” — Ani Pema Chödrön
5. Dullness
The second main obstacle in mindfulness practice is dullness—feeling sleepy, spaced out, or dreamy.
Use these methods to address dullness:
Open the window to let in some fresh air or keep the room temperature cooler.
Wear lighter clothing.
Eat lighter food.
Open your eyes and gaze into the space in front of you without looking at anything in particular.
Alert yourself. Adjust your position. Sit up straight.
Solution: Follow the steps above. Be relaxed and aware like a cat, but don’t sleep all the time like they do.
“I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.”—Eckhart Tolle
6. Painful Emotions
A quiet mind provides space for painful memories to arise and set off a chain of uncomfortable emotions.
Thoughts and emotions are transitory. These too will pass. If you can simply stay present to the emotions and the corresponding sensations that occur in your body, healing can begin.
The secret is to lean into the difficult emotions instead of pulling away from them. Be willing to feel and experience them without embodying them or holding onto them.
Caution: At the same time, don’t push too much and re-traumatize yourself.
Use common sense.
If an emotion arouses too much pain, take a break. Write in your journal. Call a friend. Soothe yourself with a Butterfly Hug as demonstrated by Personal Coach Evelyn Lim in the video below.
Never let a meditation teacher push you to stay present to an emotion if there’s a danger you’ll re-traumatize yourself. If you’ve experienced trauma, check with your therapist before starting on a meditation practice.
Final Thoughts
Mindfulness meditation is a powerful practice that can change your life.
Be wary of anyone who tells you it’s easy. Many people offer mindfulness instruction or write articles about mindfulness who have little or no training in the practice themselves.
For best results, be sure to vet a mindfulness teacher before signing up. Look for teachers who have received certified training from bona fide secular institutions like:
Online courses can work well too if they’re given by well-trained teachers.
Or attend a course at a Buddhist Center in your city. Each Buddhist approach—Zen, Tibetan, Vipassana—brings a different flavor to the practice of mindfulness. See which one works best for you.
Isn’t it better to know the truth about mindfulness?
You won’t waste your time with false teachers. You’ll be prepared for whatever obstacles might arise. And, most importantly, you’ll be more likely to achieve a calm and clear mind.
[Photo by Sam Carter on Unsplash]
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
You might also like to check out my Living with Ease course or visit my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always. With love, Sandra