Author: Rob Rienzo

Doing vs. Being

Making time to do nothing is important for our mental health and happiness.

“The impulse frequently arises in me to squeeze another this or another that into this moment. I have learned to identify this impulse and mistrust it. I work hard at saying no to it. It conspires with my mind to keep me unconscious. It has me unavailable to others at those times, missing the play of light on the table, the smells in the room.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of “Wherever You Go, There You Are“

We appear to be a society of pathological DOERS whose every waking moment needs to be filled to the brim with some form of activity or attentional diversion.  

How ridiculously pathetic is it that even I, now a carefree retiree, often find myself questioning moments of inactivity, wondering if such idle time wouldn’t be better spent DOING something!  

I notice that a measure of guilt and low-grade agitation tend to accompany such moments as I catch myself mentally cycling through a list of potential activities that could help fill the void. 

At such times it actually takes effort to spurn such thoughts and just settle back into doing absolutely nothing of note or import. 

Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s always that question: “So, Rob, now that you’re retired, what are you DOING?”  How silly is it that part of me feels pressured – almost obligated – to come up with an interesting response! 

I don’t recall my father or grandfather having to face this issue.  In their day there was no expectation of exotic travel or absorbing hobbies or humanitarian volunteering or any other keep-yourself-interestingly-busy undertakings – they simply retired – and the basic flow of their lives just continued. 

It is surely telling that homes back then routinely came equipped with generous porches – a place of rest specifically designed to accommodate idleness; a spot to just sit, pass the time, and watch the world go by.  In other words, to just be.

And what have we managed to turn that pleasingly sedate world into?  A place where the act of doing nothing actually requires effort and willpower!

“The meaning of life is just to be alive.  It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.  And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

Alan Watts, British writer and philosopher (1915 -1973)

This Isn’t to Say That Doing Is Always Bad  

Now don’t get me wrong, societal progress and its betterment – poverty reduction, improved health and safety, a better-educated populace, to say nothing of the greater wealth necessary to fund such initiatives – all require “doing”.

No, what I’m talking about isn’t the evil of doing but, rather, the lack of balance between doing and simply “being” that is in evidence today. 

Some examples come to mind: 

  • Cell phone addiction – while of unquestionable benefit to society, in far too many instances these wonderful devices appear to function mainly as adult pacifiers, sparing the user from having to otherwise engage with their environment.
  • Structured-play addiction – back in my day my only structured play was baseball in the summer, to which I cycled to get to the games.  In winter, I and the neighborhood kids played road hockey in front of my folks’ house (an activity now sadly banned in a number of Canadian cities).  During high school I spent many an evening simply hanging out with friends on a street corner about three blocks away from our home.  To my knowledge, despite this slow-paced existence, all of us turned out to be productive, law-abiding, contributing citizens.  Fast forward to today and it is not unusual for a child to be enrolled in multiple structured activities, most of which necessitate being driven somewhere.  I’ll leave it to you to assess which approach to life best fosters mindfulness. 
  • Work addiction – my dad was a machinist for Ontario Hydro for over forty years.  He would start at 7:30am sharp and religiously finish at 4pm, leaving more than enough time for a periodic round of golf in the summer and bowling league in the winter.  I too experienced this same certainty in my first job as a mining engineer – day’s end meant day’s end – none of today’s norm for working late or taking work home or working on weekends or while on vacation or over holidays.  And there was no checking of email at all hours of the day (we’ll politely skim over the fact that email didn’t yet exist at the time I landed my first full-time job!  Nonetheless, society somehow managed to function without it – go figure)!

“Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time.”
Excerpt from, “The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure” by Juliet Schor

Why Too Much Doing and Not Enough Being is a Problem

I, for one, find this societal change to be both sad and tragic.  Why so? For two reasons:

  • First, because minds never at rest are, by default, minds never at ease, and this contributes to the chronic anxiety and unconscious mindlessness prevalent in today’s society.   
  • Second, under pressure to always be ‘doing’ we lose the ability to pause, take note of our surroundings, and appreciate the simple joys of life – a newly-opened flower, bird song, passing clouds, the warm glow of dusk and dawn– small but important joys only experienced while simply ‘being’.

“All over the world, people are so caught up in running that they forget to take advantage of the beauty around them. We become so accustomed to speeding ahead that we rob ourselves of these moments of joy.

Being able to appreciate, being able to look closely, being able to open our minds, this is the key.”

Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun and author of, “When Things Fall Apart“

THE WONDERFUL LIGHTNESS OF BEING

Perhaps I’m guilty of nostalgia for times past, but it strikes me as tragic that the act of simply ‘being’, while once the norm in pre-industrial times, is today rarely considered a valuable use of one’s time.

And what do I mean by being?  Here are some examples:

  • While out hiking in the woods, stopping periodically to just listen – to the silence; to the breeze through the leaves; to the birds; to the distant buzz of civilization.   
  • On a rainy day, just sitting and listening to the ping of the drops against the window; watching the waves of water ripple downward.
  • While waiting in a lineup or for a bus or plane or cab, putting away your cellphone, turning off your music, putting down your book and simply cycling through your five senses – hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, and tasting – actively engaging with your surroundings and simply noticing.

“To be mindful is to be in the present, noticing all the wonders that we didn’t realize were right in front of us.”

Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and author of “Mindfulness“

The Payoff 

Why is it beneficial to seek out moments of just ‘being’? 

Because the focused attention it entails is naturally calming; it slows down our breathing and quiets our useless mind-chatter.   

By bringing us back into the present moment, the radical act of choosing to do nothing melts away our anxiety and induces a profound sense of well-being.

In short, routinely taking time to just ‘be’ provides us with true happiness; a happiness not contingent on our circumstances; a happiness we all seek but, in our unthinking busyness and haste, only rarely get to experience.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

 
 

 

 

Stress: Its Science & Management

“Research has linked even moderate levels of stress to lower life expectancy“

Economist magazine, 25 April 2015

Stress: What it’s good for

The human body is beautifully adapted to dealing with acute stress – getting blood, nutrients and energy to those muscles most needed to get us out of imminent danger – quickly!

Picture yourself at a beautiful Polynesian resort lolling about on a surfboard a couple hundred feet offshore – the sun is shining brightly, your family is frolicking happily on the beach, you’ve not a care in the world – life couldn’t be better.

And then, without warning, a siren blares out, shocking you out of your peaceful bliss – there’s a SHARK in the water!!!!

In a split second your body kicks into action:

  • Your sympathetic nervous system, the one responsible for quickly mobilizing the body, kicks into action. At the same time, your parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for calming the body, shuts down.
  • Epinephrine (aka adrenaline) is pumped into your blood stream, triggering a rapid cascade of escape-assisting activity. It’s quick release gives you that “kicked-in-the-stomach” feeling.
  • Your heart starts racing, pushing more blood and nutrients to your shoulder, arm, and leg muscles so that you can start motoring like a paddlewheel on a Mississippi steam boat.
  • Your blood pressure rises as a result of your pounding heart.
  • Under the influence of the extra epinephrine, your platelets (blood cells that promote clotting) start clumping together more readily, thus thickening your blood, helpful should you suffer bodily injury.
  • Your breathing quickens to suck in more oxygen for those hard-working muscles.
  • Insulin secretion is suppressed and fat cells’ sensitivity to insulin is reduced – no point removing glucose from the blood when it’s urgently needed.
  • Glucose, proteins, fats, and “bad” cholesterol are sucked out of your fat cells, liver, and non-essential muscles and dumped into your blood stream to provide your shoulder, arm, and leg muscles with immediate fuel – no time to wait for that bacon-and-egg breakfast to digest! In fact, digestion comes to a halt to re-direct energy to where it’s needed right now.
  • Your colon contracts making you involuntarily soil your bathing suit – and it’s the runny diarrhea kind. No point wasting energy removing water from faeces or carrying around excess weight.
  • To conserve energy, non-essential activities like appetite, digestion, bone growth, pain sensation, and sex drive are all suppressed.
  • With digestion and stomach acid levels temporarily decreased, renewal of the stomach’s acid-resistant protective lining is minimized .
  • The immune system is temporarily boosted in readiness for a short-term danger.
  • Your senses become more acute.
  • More blood and nutrients are directed to your brain, enhancing your ability to remember facts (such as how to escape from a shark)!

And then, after you make it to shore safely, the whole process reverses: the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to calm you down, your heart rate and breathing slow, your blood pressure drops, nutrients begin to be re-deposited to your fat cells, epinephrine levels go back to normal, and routine bodily activities like digestion and cell growth re-start; beautiful!

Stress: What it’s bad for

Unfortunately, this wondrous system for keeping us safe in the face of imminent, life-threatening danger cannot distinguish between real danger and things that are merely upsetting.

It also kicks in over situations like discovering a big scratch on your car door, or being overwhelmed at work, or having to rush home to feed your daughter and then get her to her 6pm soccer practice on time – across town and through rush-hour traffic.

When chronically triggered over life’s little stuff, our stress reaction turns from saviour to annihilator, leading to:  

  • A five-fold increase in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
  • A suppressed immune system.
  • Increased risk of anxiety disorders and depression in later life among children born to chronically-stressed mothers.
  • Increased risk of diabetes and greater difficulty keeping it under control.
  • Increased junk food craving and fat storage.
  • Increased sensitivity to stressors and an impaired calming system.
  • Increased risk of gastrointestinal disease such as an ulcer.
  • Increased risk of osteoporosis.
  • Increased risk of reproductive problems.
  • Increased risk of memory impairment.
  • Increased impulsivity and emotional swings coupled with impaired decision-making ability.
  • Sleep impairment (and the many harms this brings on).
  • Increased risk of depression and of anxiety disorders.
  • Among the elderly, an increased risk of memory impairment and compromised ability to generate new neurons.
  • More easily fatigued.
  • Greater risk of substance abuse.
Our Ugly Side

Aside from the physical and mental damage caused by chronic stress, it also turns us into the person no one wants to be around.  When stressed, we tend to exhibit the following traits:

  • We feel there is an urgent need to fix whatever appears to be the problem, but this at precisely the moment stress has taken our wisdom “off-line” (this by compromising our ability to access our prefrontal cortex, the locus of our executive functioning).
  • We raise our voice.
  • We lose our sense of humor.
  • We act in an abrasive manner and lose our kindness and compassion for others.
  • We lose the ability to concentrate.  We are quick to judgment and blame.
  • We say and do things that damage relationships. 
  • We are unpleasant to be around which further strains our relationships.

As covered at the outset, our stress system evolved to protect us from acute, short-term, imminent danger and it still serves this purpose – put your hand on a hot stove and you will automatically react, no need to consciously think about what to do.

However, our stress system has yet to evolve to the point where it is able to discern the difference between true danger (which is rare and short-lived) and those things we merely find upsetting (which are numerous, frequent, and often drawn out).

This latter type of stress is referred to as “psychological stress”, the kind we totally make up in our heads.

So, subject the stress system to numerous, frequent, drawn-out, troubling thoughts and we put ourselves at risk for all of the ills outined above.

In short, being chronically stressed is awful for us – physically, mentally, and socially – with implications that have the potential to extend into the future, affecting our children and grandchildren.

The Future Nature of Stress

By its very nature, psychological stress is rarely about things that have already happened (unless what happened in the past has potential future consequences, in which case, stress and anxiety are still about the future).

So, when our body is here, in this present moment, but our mind is in the future, we will inevitably experience anxiety and stress.

For example, picture yourself starting a beautiful day with a nice warm shower, joyfully breathing in the scent of your favorite shampoo, smiling inside and feeling terrific when, suddenly, into your head pops your day’s very long, very arduous to-do list: goodbye good feelings, hello stress. Your body is in the shower, but your mind is already at the office.

Whenever we do this we can immediately feel the stress reaction in our body – our muscles tighten, our stomach begins to churn, a sense of grim despair settles over us – and all because our body and mind have just entered different time zones.

A second factor that contributes to stress is the sense that we are not up to dealing with the future. After all, if our to-do list were completely manageable, we wouldn’t be stressing about it.

Such self-doubt appears to be a common human frailty, as evidenced by this snippet of wisdom from almost two-thousand years ago:

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason that today arm you against the present.”
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, 161-185 AD

Factors That Accentuate the Harm of Stress

Four factors often cited for making it more likely that a stressor will inflict harm include:

  1. Lacking a sense of control over the stressor. Work in a job where you have little or no control of your work load, the way you work, or your working conditions and you are at greater risk of the job’s stressors making you sick. Even having the perception of control is better than feeling you have zero control.
  2. Facing a stressor that is unpredictable. Even if you lack control over a stressor, knowing things like its timing, duration, or extent are still going to help lessen its impact.
  3. Lacking healthy mental coping techniques or physical outlets to deal with the stressor. Mindfulness practice is one example of a healthy outlet for dealing with stress. Another is exercise because it mimics what the stress response was created for – physical exertion to escape danger.
  4. Lacking perspective about the stressor. One person’s stressor is another’s interesting stimulation, only the thought about the stressor differs; change the thought, change the perspective, and the stressor ceases to be stressful.  This is empowering.

Stress Management

Here, then, are some techniques and perspectives on managing stress:

Techniques for Managing Stress

  1. Change the situation or remove yourself from it, if you are able. If this is not possible, then full and total acceptance is your only other sane option. Once accepted as your reality, some of the other coping techniques can then be brought into play.
  2. Practice P.B.S.:  1) Pause and close your eyes to block out sensory distractions and facilitate a calming inward focus.   2) Breathe slowly and deeply two to three times, in for four, hold for seven, out for eight.  This activates your calming parasympathetic nervous system.  3) Smile, inwardly or outwardly, even if forced.  As discussed here, this releases feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins.
  3. Practice S.T.O.P.:  1) Stop whatever it is you are doing. 2) Take a few slow, deep breaths. 3) Observe your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, becoming consciously aware of them and naming them (“I’m feeling anger”, “I’m feeling frustration”, etc.) which has been found to diminish their ill effect. 4) Proceed to do yourself a kindness; take a stroll, have a friendly chat, go grab a healthy snack, etc.  
  4. Take a moment to sense which muscles are tight due to stress. Next, breathe deeply and slowly while consciously relaxing those muscles. Because body and mind are intimately connected, it is not possible to be stressed and completely relaxed at the same time.
  5. If feasible, increase your exercise regimen. It is important to burn off all the extra energy released by your stress hormones.
  6. Practice insight (vipassana) meditation (see this post). Notice the feelings underlying your stress – anger, frustration, fear, guilt, envy, embarrassment – whatever they may be. As per the S.T.O.P. technique, mentally call them out.
  7. Practice Tonglen meditation (see this post), a technique that changes your focus away from “woe is me” to one of concern for all others in similar straits, mentally taking in all of their suffering and, in its place, sending out good wishes for them to be at peace.
  8. Re-double commitment to your mindfulness practice (see this post) to keep your focus on the present moment and so stop your anxious mind’s troubled wandering.
  9. Slow down everything you do, otherwise your rushing will send a signal to your stress system that danger is afoot. And don’t be concerned that slowing down implies that your productivity will suffer. If anything, by calming a scattered, rushed mind, your enhanced clarity of thought will make you more productive. It is no coincidence that our best ideas typically come to us when we’re relaxing in the shower or are snuggled in our bed half awake in the pre-dawn of morning; in other words, times when our minds are still – the only time our subconscious intelligence is able to reveal itself.
  10. Related to the previous point is to also slow down your life – say ‘no’ to those things you really don’t wish to do so you are able to say ‘yes’ to those things in life that bring you joy (including the joy of doing of absolutely nothing)!
  11. Seek out quiet. Noise is a stressor and so best avoided. For example, near the end of my career my employer changed to an open-concept office layout. For the sake of my sanity I invested in a good set of noise-canceling headphones.  From a stress-management perspective this returned control to me.  It also replaced the unpredictability of office noise with the predictability of my favorite classical music.
  12. Seek out soothing music and sounds.  Related to the previous point, meditative music or just gentle sounds aid in accessing your calming parasympathetic nervous system and turn off its high-alert sympathetic counterpart.  A walk in the woods to simply listen to the forest sounds also works in the same manner (with the added benefit of exercise).
  13. Seek out social support. There is a link between social isolation and having an overly-active sympathetic nervous system. As a result, staying close to family and friends not only makes you happier but also helps manage stress.

Perspectives on Managing Stress

  1. Keep things in perspective. As outlined in this post, we often place great importance on issues that, in the big scheme of things, are little more than trivia.
  2. Change your thinking. Remember that it is not external circumstances that cause your stress but, rather, your perspective about such situations that does. Change your thinking, change your perspective, and your take on the situation changes as well; a stressful situation is suddenly seen as tolerable. Remember that you are always the master of your thoughts, they are not the master of you. If you do not feed negative thoughts, if you do not give them your continued attention, they will dissipate of their own accord and healthier thoughts will take their place. Psychological stress is nothing more than troubled thoughts. Remember that thoughts cannot hurt you, they are merely ephemeral biochemical reactions going on in your brain, they have no physical existence of their own.
  3. Remember than pain and impermanence are an inescapable part of life and that resisting this reality leads directly to needless suffering, making an already unpleasant situation even worse.
  4. Have confidence in yourself and know with certainty that you already possess the innate wisdom to deal with whatever life throws at you – because you do. Remember that to access that wisdom (i.e. your prefrontal cortex) you must be in a calm state of mind as otherwise you will be thinking with your decidedly-unwise amygdala. Think of it this way; even if the future turns out to be painful, you will assuredly handle it better if you approach it mindfully, using the calm, wise, responsive, and creative part of your brain rather than the unthinking, reactive part. With mindfulness practice, you get to choose.
  5. Think of stressful situations not as problems to be gotten rid of but as opportunities to strengthen your mindfulness practice. After all, it’s easy to be mindful when things are going your way. It’s only when life throws up challenges that you truly get to put your mindfulness skills through their paces.

“The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening.”
Pema Chodron, from her book, “When Things Fall Apart“

“… the things we all find stressful – traffic jams, money worries, overwork, the anxieties of relationships.  Few of them are “real” in the sense that a zebra or a lion would understand.  In our privileged lives, we are uniquely smart enough to have invented these stressors and uniquely foolish enough to have let them, too often, dominate our lives.  Surely we have the potential to be uniquely wise enough to banish their stressful hold.”

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, from his book, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers“

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

Appendix A:  The Health Risks of Stress

Cardiovascular Disease

The stress system was designed for acute, short-term stressors which lead to  a temporary increase in your blood pressure.  However, when chronically stressed, your blood pressure becomes chronically high.

Higher blood pressure and blood flow cause your artery muscles to thicken in order to handle the higher pressure and to control the higher flow rate. In doing so, they become less elastic which serves to further increase blood pressure – a vicious cycle has begun.

The left ventricle of your heart, the one being buffeted by the high-pressure returning blood flow, also experiences a thickening of its muscles, creating an imbalanced heart which increases the risk of an irregular heartbeat.

Chronic high blood pressure also damages the interior of your arteries at branching points, creating rough spots. As a result, inflammation-suppressing cells start congregating there. In addition, these rough spots trap things like fatty cells, “bad” cholesterol, clumped platelets, and miscellaneous fibrous crud. In this manner, an artery-blocking plaque is formed which can lead to heart attack and stroke.

Finally, there is a reason that high blood pressure is known as the ‘silent killer’ because much of the damage it wreaks occurs without symptoms. It is often under an episode of higher-than-normal stress that all the damage suddenly makes itself known and results in death.

It has been found that ‘Type A’ personalities (i.e. those individuals characterized by impatience, hostility, and hyper-competitiveness) are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease due to the fact that stressors have an amplified impact on such people.

Disease Susceptibility

While the immune system is boosted in the short-term, prolonged stress begins to suppress it.  White blood cell and antibody production decline and white blood cells already in circulation are subjected to removal and destruction by stress hormones. As a result, when stressed, you become prone to catching whatever illness is making the rounds such as the flu or common cold.

In addition, frequent stress also increases the risk of developing an autoimmune disease (e.g. lupus, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis).

Generational Harm

The offspring of chronically-stressed mothers have been found to have greater “bad cholesterol” release when under stress, so your poor reaction to stress today may also harm your children.

For example, a fetus exposed to high levels of maternal stress hormones is at heightened risk of obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and Type II diabetes. Further, its own children may also be at greater risk of these illnesses.

There is also some evidence that such children are at increased risk of both chronic anxiety and impaired brain development.

Juvenile Diabetes

By suppressing insulin production and the sensitivity of fat cells to insulin, chronic stress promotes insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk of getting juvenile diabetes and making its control more difficult.

Junk Food Craving

In between chronic episodes of stress your body attempts to reverse the stress reaction process. The resulting stress hormones (known as glucocorticoids) stimulate appetite to begin replacing the energy stores that it expected you to use while fleeing from danger – danger that never happened.

And the foods these hormones lead you to prefer? That’s right, the starchy, sugary, and fatty stuff. And because these food types make you feel good (by temporarily reducing the stress response) they make you crave even more of them, leading to yet more gunk in your blood stream to amplify the arterial damage caused by chronic stress.

Further, in the presence of high insulin (remember the insulin-resistance angle), these hormones also increase the storage of this junk food.

And just to make matters worse, they preferentially pack it away in fat cells around the abdomen. This is a dangerous location because fat released from abdominal fat cells more readily finds its way into your liver which then turns it into glucose.  This leads to even higher blood sugar levels and greater insulin resistance.

Impaired Calming Ability

By chronically shutting down your calming parasympathetic nervous system you become less able to calm down after upsets.

Digestive Tract Diseases

Chronic stress-related colon contractions can lead to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a thoroughly unpleasant illness whose symptoms include cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, and diarrhea, constipation, or both.

During the recovery periods between episodes of chronic stress, stomach acid levels return to normal and are greeted by temporarily-reduced stomach wall defences, resulting in ulcers.

Osteoporosis

With the growth of new bone and the uptake of calcium restricted, stressed adults are at increased risk of osteoporosis.

Impaired Child Development

A child subjected to stressors may experience stunted growth, impaired intellect, and personality issues making it difficult for them to fit into society.

Reproductive Issues

By reducing testosterone levels in men and estrogen levels in women, stress reduces sex drive.

Further, the achievement of a male erection requires activation of the calming parasympathetic nervous system. Given that stress triggers the exact opposite – the sympathetic nervous system – impotence often results.

In females, stress reduces the secretion of key reproductive hormones leading to reduced ovulation and insufficient uterine lining changes to support the implantation of a fertilized egg.   The result is an inability to achieve pregnancy.

Memory Impairment

While short-lived acute stress enhances explicit memory (i.e. the ability to recall facts), chronic stress impairs it.

So, if you’re stressing about that big exam tomorrow afternoon, it’s likely that you won’t be able to remember all the things you studied.  Well, at least until you’ve calmed back down which, unfortunately, likely won’t be until after the exam is already over.

Executive Functioning Impairment

Stress negatively impacts the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, the locus of our executive functioning – emotional control, impulse control, and creativity. Wise decision making is compromised. 

Sleep Impairment

Stress impairs both the ability to get to sleep as well as the quality of whatever sleep you do get. This results in diminished attention, slowed working memory, an impaired ability to create new memories, reduced cognitive ability, a depressed mood, and an inflammatory response from the body (which, in turn, increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer).

In what becomes a vicious cycle, sleep deprivation itself is a stressor, resulting in elevated levels of stress hormones making you prone to all of the troubles outlined previously.

So, back to that big exam: pull an all-nighter studying and the resulting lack of sleep will impair your ability to recall all those facts you worked so hard to cram into your head.

Depression

Exposure to repeated and frequent stressful episodes increases the level of stress hormones which, in turn, increases the chance of developing depression (i.e. an inability to experience pleasure).

In part this is due to the fact that stress hormones can mess up the neurotransmitters that work on triggering the brain’s pleasure pathways (i.e. dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine) .

Women are more prone to depression than men, this thought to be due in part to their greater tendency than men to ruminate about their problems (unlike men who have a greater tendency to ignore their problems).

Stressors over which we believe we have no control can induce a feeling of helplessness, one of the symptoms of depression where sufferers give up on life.  They assume it will only get worse even in the face of contrary evidence.

Diseases of the Elderly

As humans age their ability to return to a calm state becomes impaired due to the fact that dissipation of stress hormones takes longer.

In addition, the elderly often have higher base levels of stress hormones even in the absence of stressors. These elevated stress hormones lead to all of the problems listed previously, including impaired memory and reduced production of new brain neurons.

Fatigue

Under acute stress your body taps into its existing stores of energy and postpones new deposition. If the stress is repeated and chronic, your energy level becomes depleted and you fatigue more easily.

Anxiety Disorders 

Severe stress can both damage the hippocampus (thus impairing the ability to lock away memories for future recall) and make the amygdala permanently more reactive (thus making an individual yet more sensitive to stressors). The result is anxiety over a stressor without any conscious understanding of why you are feeling anxious.

Substance Abuse

Drugs like cocaine directly trigger the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that activates the part of the brain that creates the feeling of pleasure. As a result, if stressed, such drugs take away the pain of stress.

However, three problems occur. First, dopamine levels afterward drop below where they were prior to taking the drug. You feel even worse than before and so crave another hit to feel better again.

Second, the brain has a mechanism to limit the impact of excessive dopamine by becoming less sensitive to it. The result is the need for even more of the drug to get the same ‘high’.

And third, in the absence of getting more of the drug, stress hormone levels in the brain increase greatly, leading to activation of the amygdala which triggers feelings of fear and anxiety.

Addiction is the unsurprising result – an ongoing need to make the pleasure come back and make the fear and anxiety go away.

Income Inequality

While living in abject poverty is stressful and leads to many awful health outcomes, in most Western societies it is relative poverty that predicts ill-health.

In other words, it’s not about how much money you have but, rather, how much money you have relative to others that generates stress.

As a result, the greater a society’s income inequality, the worse the health of those on the bottom looking up.

Best wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

 

 

 

 

 

Why Compassion Always? – Part 1

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

Dalai Lama XIV

The six essays on “Compassion” (i.e. this one as well as this, this, this, this, and this) all advance the same important argument – that society’s response to harmful behaviour, no matter how egregious that behaviour may be, should always be one of compassion, concern, caring, and understanding, not anger, hate, and judgment. 

In short, society’s assumption that we are responsible for our own behaviour is simply wrong, and these six essays lay out exactly why.

Here are the basic arguments that will be fleshed out:

  • Human behaviour is impacted by innumerable factors we neither choose nor control.
  • These factors are totally unique to each and every one of us, guaranteeing widely varying behaviour – none of them being right or wrong, simply different.
  • We don’t get to choose our behaviour, because we can’t – it’s physically impossible.

The material that follows directly challenges many of our deeply-held beliefs about blame, responsibility, retribution, and behavioural choice.  I ask only that you maintain an open mind.  After all, it is only by subjecting our collective assumptions to ongoing assessment that we can ever hope to build a more just, compassionate society.

Why forgive and forget needs to replace judgment and anger

We look out at the world and what do we see? We see people doing things and saying things that we would never do and never say – puzzling things, often infuriating things – behavior that is simply inexplicable – to us.

And what do we do when we don’t understand someone else’s “wayward” behavior?

  1. We assume we know why they behaved as they did.
  2. We take that assumption as reality.
  3. We sit in judgment of that person based on our assumption.
  4. We find them guilty as charged.
  5. And then we get angry with them.
  • “Look at how he’s driving! He’s obviously an ignorant, self-centered jerk!” (or, maybe he’s a dad with a sick child in the back seat, and he’s racing, scared as hell, to the hospital)
  • “She didn’t even come to the party! She’s so stuck-up and anti-social!” (or, maybe she’s an introvert and finds noisy social events draining)
  • “Look at how he’s treating his son – he’s such a terrible father!” (or, maybe he was treated that way by his own dad and that’s the best parenting he’s capable of at that moment)

While we judge our own actions and our own words by our known motives, known intentions, known mitigating factors, and known extenuating circumstances, we typically judge others based solely on their external actions.

And then, in our ignorance, we assign malign motives to those actions.

As covered in this post, this is not our fault. Our evolutionary inheritance biases us towards the use of aggression because millennia ago such behavior kept us alive – better to act aggressively and be wrong than to act compassionately and be killed.

But we no longer need to act aggressively to stay alive. By assigning malign intent to others’ behavior, we create needless conflict and discord through our ignorance, and this has serious ramifications:

  • We upset ourselves (which is terrible for our mental and physical well-being ) and we upset those around us.
  • We add to the aggression of the world rather than to its peace. In so doing, we create the world we don’t want to live in rather than the world we do.

Aware of this human bias, we can start to do better; we can choose the path of compassion over aggression and the path of wisdom over ignorance.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change”
Michael Jackson, “Man In the Mirror“

WHY COMPASSION?

This post argues that whenever we encounter upsetting behavior in others we should meet it with compassion and caring rather than judgment and anger.

This is not to say that we don’t take the necessary steps to prevent them from doing further harm, but we do so with respect and caring. 

But why should we do this?  Three reasons come to mind:

  1. We can never know why others behave as they do. As documented in this post, human behavior is impacted by innumerable factors, almost all of which are outside of our control and outside of our conscious awareness.  It is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that what goes on in our brain is nothing more than  biochemical reactions following the laws of physics. Mess with the physics and unfortunate consequences result – consequences that we then mistake as purposely-bad behavior, with no context or mitigating circumstances whatsoever.
  2. None of us signed up for these factors – they were simply doled out randomly to each of us as part of life, luck of the draw.
  3. Most people remain ignorant of mindfulness – they know of only one way to get through life – habitually and, therefore, mindlessly.  We don’t get angry with people who, through lack of training, don’t know how to read, write, or do math. Why, then, should we get angry with those who have received zero training in mindfulness and who, as a result, and through no fault of their own, act in a mindless manner?

“I began to wonder whether people were thinking at all. Decades of research later, I have found the answer is a resounding ‘no’ – mindlessness is pervasive. In fact, I believe virtually all of our problems; personal, interpersonal, professional, and societal; either directly or indirectly, stem from mindlessness.”

Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

Simply put, it is wrongheaded for us to sit in judgement of others when ignorance of mindfulness remains the norm, and when factors that we had no role in choosing, and with which we have no conscious acquaintance, drive our behavior, particularly our worst behavior.

“Most of what we do and think and feel is not
under our conscious control”
David Eagleman, neuroscientist and adjunct professor, Stanford University and author of “Incognito – The Secret Lives of the Brain“


FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE HUMAN BEHAVIOR

So, the next time you find yourself negatively judging someone’s behavior, stop and ask yourself if you know whether their actions may have been influenced by any of the factors laid out below.

Then ask yourself if compassion and understanding is not a wiser way forward – a better way forward – than getting angry and consigning that individual to your “bad person” column:

Sex

The vast majority of criminals are male (e.g. FBI data show that males make up 90% of those arrested for murder, 88% for robbery, 83% for arson, 82% for vandalism, 82% for car theft, and 80% for offences against family and children).

Under-developed prefrontal cortex (PFC)

A study of men with Antisocial Personality Disorder found that their prefrontal cortex was at least 10% smaller than average.  This compromises impulse control, emotional control, and the ability to judge the consequences of one’s actions.

Abnormal dopamine sensitivity

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate attention, learning, and emotional responses as well as acting on our brain’s pleasure centers. Affected individuals tend to be impulsive and have a reduced ability to delay gratification. 

Adolescence

The last brain region to fully mature is the prefrontal cortex (PFC), not fully functional until our mid-twenties. Given that the PFC is the locus of our executive functioning – impulse control, emotional control, and creativity – it should come as no surprise that adolescents tend to exhibit ill-judged behavior and exaggerated emotions.

Stress
Stress impairs our judgment, makes us impulsive, reactionary, aggressive, emotional, as well as more fearful.  Stress also biases us toward selfishness.

Abnormal serotonin levels
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that plays a role in our feelings of happiness and well-being. Low levels of serotonin have been associated with impulsive aggression.

Testosterone

Testosterone has been found to boost impulsivity and risk-taking while making those already prone to aggression even more aggressive.  Conversely, men with below-average levels of testosterone have been found to be rated as better parents.

Physical pain

An individual predisposed to aggression becomes even more so when in pain. In addition, those in pain often exhibit self-centered behavior with reduced empathy for others.

Hunger

When people are hungry they become more aggressive and less charitable. In one study, judges who had recently eaten granted parole in 60% of their cases whereas judges who were hungry granted almost no parole.

Social environment

In the presence of women, men become more aggressive, more risk-taking, and more impulsive – unless the setting happens to dictate that status is enhanced by being sociable, in which case they exhibit more emollient behavior.

It has been found that sustained inter-group contact generally decreases prejudice. This is supported by the observation that those states in the U.S. with the fewest immigrants as a percentage of the population tend to have the most anti-immigrant views – a prime example of ignorance breeding fear.

Neighborhood

The presence of litter, graffiti, broken windows, and public drunkenness in a neighborhood leads to increased crime as it signals that people there don’t care. 

The state of a neighborhood also communicates cultural norms to children, thus exacerbating bad behavior in bad neighborhoods and instilling good behavior in good neighborhoods.

Climate

Hot temperatures have been found to lead to higher rates of violence. 

Culture

Collectivist cultures (e.g. China, Japan) emphasize interdependence, harmony, conformity, and the needs and responsibilities of the group over those of the individual. In contrast, individualist cultures (e.g. Canada, U.S.A.) value independence, competition, personal achievement, uniqueness, and the needs and rights of the individual.

Cultures with greater income inequality have been found to have less social capital (i.e. less trust, less cooperation, less generosity, and less inclination to come to another’s aid).

Socio-Economic Status

A child born to a family of low socio-economic status is at risk of being overly reactive to stress. They are also at risk of having stunted brain development leading to poor working memory, poor emotional control, and impulsive behavior.

It has been found that rich people tend to be less kind and to demonstrate less empathy and compassion. 

Abnormal Oxytocin Sensitivity or Amount

An abnormally high level of the hormone oxytocin is associated with being more pro-social toward those similar to you and more antisocial toward those who are different from you.

Menstruation

As many as three of every four women experience some form of Perimenstrual Syndrome (PMS) whose behavioral symptoms include anxiety, depression, mood swings, irritability, food cravings, insomnia, poor concentration, and social withdrawal.

Menopause

Roughly 80% of menopausal women experience symptoms that include depression, insomnia, anxiety, and memory loss.  In one British study, nearly half of affected women said it negatively impacted their work.

Economic Factors

Economic downturns increase the occurrence of spousal and child abuse.

Judgment Biases

Attractive people are generally judged to have better personalities and higher moral standards, to be kinder, more honest, friendlier, and more trustworthy than those rated as less attractive. They are more likely to be hired and to receive a higher salary. When accused of a crime, they are less likely to be convicted.  These biases have been shown to exist in children as young as five.

Cognitive Load

A heavy cognitive load makes people more conservative, more likely to lie, less charitable, and less willing to help someone in need. 

Lack of Sleep

Symptoms of sleep deprivation include irritability, a depressed mood, difficulty paying attention, poor memory, and a tendency to be more conservative than normal.

Genes

Pedophilia and sociopathy tend to run in families, suggesting a genetic component.

Studies have found that there is a genetic component to addiction, estimated to explain about half the likelihood of becoming addicted.

“Studies on twins suggest that mathematical ability is about 60% heritable. Now research in the journal, PLOS Biology, has mapped exactly how tiny changes in DNA bless some with mathematical wizardry and condemn others to relative innumeracy.”

Economist magazine, October 2020

Pre-Natal Conditions

There is evidence that pedophilia is associated with pre-natal endocrine abnormalities.

High maternal stress can stunt fetal brain development and make the child more prone to anxiety and depression.

Maternal malnutrition, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, can impair fetal brain development.

Brain Damage

Those with damage to their prefrontal cortex tend to see moral dilemmas in very pragmatic, even cold-hearted terms. 

Those with a damaged amygdala tend to be more accepting of unkind behavior.

A large percentage of death row inmates have a history of damage to their frontal cortex, particularly in childhood before the brain is fully developed.

One thing that adult pedophiles have in common is a greater incidence of having suffered from brain injuries during childhood.

Damage to the frontal cortex can lead to socially inappropriate behavior, apathy, hyper-sexuality, bursts of compulsive gambling, stealing, and aggressiveness. Such individuals often show poor judgment in choosing friends and partners and don’t learn from past bad experience.

Those suffering from frontal cortex dementia often become disinhibited and exhibit socially-inappropriate behavior.

“Criminals do have broken brains, brains that are physically different from those of the rest of us.”

Dr. Adrian Raine, “The Anatomy of Violence“

Brain Differences

Studies of the brains of transgender individuals show that they more closely resemble the sex they feel themselves to be rather than their biological sex.

Psychopaths’ amygdalae have been found to be smaller than normal.  Such individuals are also less reactive to pain. Further, they have been found to have decreased activity in their frontal cortex and less coupling of their prefrontal cortex (the wise part of our brain) to other brain regions.

A four-year-old’s openness to new toys has been found to predict how open they’ll be as an adult to novelty and social change.

Of those on Death Row in the U.S., by some measures all of them suffer from some form of disability, and many have a low IQ.

People scoring high in conscientiousness have been found to have more brain matter in the part of the brain responsible for planning for the future and making decisions.

People scoring high in agreeableness have been found to have less brain matter in a part of the brain responsible for processing emotions and making decisions.

“Many of us like to think that all adults possess the same capacity to make sound choices. It’s a nice idea, but it’s wrong. So, when it comes to thinking about blameworthiness, the first difficulty to consider is that people do not choose their own developmental path.”
David Eagleman

Sexual Orientation

Why are gay men attracted to men? Why are lesbian women attracted to women? Why are heterosexuals attracted to members of the opposite sex? Science clearly indicates that choice has nothing to do with it.  Instead, factors such as genetics, prenatal hormone levels, brain structure, and birth order all play potential roles. For example, it has been found that the chance of male homosexuality increases for the last-born son.

Upbringing

Risk factors for developing sociopathic behavior include physical or mental abuse as a child, parental neglect, family instability, witnessing violence, and growing up in general chaos. Sociopathic behavior includes having no regard for right or wrong, ignoring the feelings of others, lying, manipulative behavior, impulsiveness, hostility, abusive behavior, risky behavior, and being irresponsible. The prevalence of sociopathy is much higher among those in prison than the general population.

Studies find that children raised in dysfunctional families have a higher risk of substance abuse, impaired cognitive ability, impaired emotional and impulse control, and a higher risk of exhibiting antisocial, violent behavior. 

“While our decisions may seem like free choices, no good evidence exists that they actually are”
David Eagleman

Drug Use

Athletes abusing anabolic steroids often exhibit increased irritability, aggression, anger, and anxiety (“roid rage”).

Opioid abusers may experience confusion, disorientation, mood swings, anxiety, and a distorted perception of reality.

Loneliness

Loneliness is associated with an increase in the number of a type of immature immune cell known to trigger anxiety.  Feeling lonely also increases the level of a type of signalling molecule in the brain associated with social withdrawal, heightened suspicion of the outside world, and an increased tendency toward decisions that involve little risk.  Loneliness is also associated with increased irritability, self-centredness, and defensiveness.  

Sexual Arousal

Studies find that, when in a state of sexual arousal, our moral judgment becomes compromised.

“… it is neither biology alone nor environment alone that determines the final product of a personality. When it comes to the ‘nature versus nurture’ question, the answer almost always includes both. This is the reason people come to the table with quite different ways of seeing the world, dissimilar personalities, and varied capacities for decision making.”
David Eagleman


WHY COMPASSION, UNDERSTANDING, and FORGIVENESS SHOULD BE OUR DEFAULT APPROACH TO LIFE

So, someone does or says something to upset us, what do we do next?

In light of the multitude of factors outlined above, all of which have the potential to materially impact human behavior, is it not patently unfair and unjustified for us to react in anger, as is the current norm in our society?

Indeed, should you still feel justified reacting in anger, then reasonable responses to these three questions seem in order:

  1. What exactly are you getting angry at?
  2. Where do you draw the line for assessing if someone should be considered ‘responsible’ for their own behavior?
  3. What would such a line even mean?

Question #1: What Are You Getting Angry At?

If you’re going to get angry over what you perceive to be someone’s errant behavior, what exactly are you getting angry at?:

That person’s hormone levels? Their hunger? Their behavioral disorder? Their prenatal conditions? Their upbringing? Their socio-economic status? Their culture? Their brain structure? Their stress level? Their cognitive load? Their neighborhood? Their lack of positive role models? Their drug addiction? Their temperament? Their peers? Their age? Their illness? Their pain? Their genetic inheritance? The economy? Their lack of sleep? Their head injury from high school? The parenting style they were exposed to as a child? The physical and mental abuse their grandfather suffered as a child? …. and on, and on, and on.

Question #2: Where do you draw the line for assessing if someone is ‘responsible’ for their behavior?

In law, it is possible for a criminal to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. In the U.S. it is possible to be spared the death penalty by reason of insufficient mental capacity to understand right from wrong.

In other words, lines are drawn to separate those who are deemed “responsible” for their behavior and those who are not.

But where do we draw such a line, and how do we justify it? For example, in some U.S. states an IQ under 70 is deemed to be the cut-off line below which the death penalty cannot be applied. But why 70? Why not 62 or 83? Why not the average of five IQ tests over the span of a two-year period? 

With any fair assessment, it quickly becomes apparent that any such line is totally arbitrary, unfair, unjust, and without validity; there is no justifiable cut-off line for being considered responsible for one’s behaviour.

Question #3: What Would Such a Line Even Mean?

Lastly, even if a cut-off line was agreed upon to distinguish between someone responsible for their behavior and someone not, what exactly would such a cut-off line mean given how different we are from each other? What exactly would such a line mean given all the biological and environmental factors that can impact human behavior, and over which we have near-zero say or control?

In truth, such a line would be totally meaningless.

“Our worst behaviors, ones we condemn and punish, are the products of our biology.”

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology, Stanford University and author of “Behave – The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst“

COMPASSION

Think of some of the most admired historical figures and the traits they hold in common – the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Each espoused compassion, understanding, forgiveness, patience, and eschewed aggression.

Given that these are some of the traits we most admire, and given the information presented herein, four things should by now be very clear:

  1. We need to substitute compassion for judgement and anger whenever we encounter others’ “wayward” behavior. 
  2. Each of us will take a turn exhibiting excruciatingly bad behavior due to factors over which we have no control and about which we have no conscious awareness.
  3. In such circumstances, each one of us would want to be shown compassion and understanding rather than anger and blame.
  4. It follows, then, that this same courtesy should be extended to everyone – sitting in judgment of others’ perceived wayward behavior simply has no justification.

At each fork in the road of life we get to choose the path of aggression or the path of compassion.

It is compassion, not anger, that is supported by the evidence.

It is compassion, not anger, that makes us better people.

And it is compassion, not anger, that makes our world a better place for us all.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

 

A Day in the Life of Being Mindful

If you’ve read some of my other posts you may be asking yourself, “Okay, concentration, awareness, acceptance, love – all great concepts – but what does ‘being mindful’ actually look like in practice?“

So, to answer this, I’m going to take you through a hypothetical work day from start to finish, highlighting what would be considered a mindful approach to each part of the day.  

The Start of a New Day

  • Wake slowly (slowing down is a feature that permeates mindfulness practice because it helps activate the calming parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and de-activate its high-alert counterpart, the sympathetic nervous system).
  • Take a few deep, slow breaths (this too activates the PNS).
  • Do a quick body-scan meditation, no more than a minute or two in duration, this simply being the turning of your attention to each part of your body in sequence to take in any and all sensations – warmth, cool, pressure points, the brush of clothes or bedding against your skin, etc..
  • Get out of bed.

Having Breakfast

  • Reflect gratefully on having abundant food.  Fostering gratitude has mental, physical, and social benefits.
  • Just eat – don’t watch TV and eat or check email and eat or mentally run through your day’s to-do list and eat – just focus your attention on the act of eating.  Actively engage your senses, noticing aroma, sound, appearance, feel, and taste.
  • Eat slowly, putting down your fork or spoon between mouthfuls.  This helps counter our tendency to rush through life.
  • Actively engage your senses, noticing your meal’s aroma, texture, appearance, sound, and taste. Doing so keeps you in the present moment and counters a wandering, anxious mind.

Showering, etc.

  • Take close notice of the scent of your body wash and shampoo, consciously feel the warm water against your skin, tune into the sound of the cascading water, and note the taste of it.  This is simply the practice of fostering present moment awareness.
  • While brushing your teeth, focus your full attention on the taste of the toothpaste, its feel in your mouth, the feel of the bristles against your gums, and the sound of the brush as it works its way around your teeth.

General Getting Ready to Head to Work

  • While dressing, just focus on dressing.  Pay attention to the scent of your clothes, the feel of them against your skin. 
  • In general, whatever task you are undertaking to get yourself ready to head to work, just focus on that task and nothing else.  Don’t think about the day ahead, just focus on what you’re doing in each moment as you prepare to get yourself ready for the day.
  • As an example of a potential upset to your morning, you discover that your husband has, once again (and despite numerous requests!) left his smelly gym socks on your dresser.  Instead of getting upset, you simply pick them up and put them in the laundry hamper.  You reflect on all the loving things he does for you, acknowledge your own infuriating habits, and realize fully that in the big scheme of life, socks left on a dresser just aren’t that big a deal.  Indeed, you acknowledge that none of life’s irritations are that big a deal, and certainly no reason to ruin your day over.    
  • Meditate 5 minutes (check out this post for the basics of how to meditate). 
  • If you have made your own version of my mindful commitment , give it a quick read and briefly reflect on your best intentions for the day.

Driving to Work

  • As you are driving, periodically take note of the feel of the steering wheel in your hands, the pressure of the seat against your behind, the feel of your clothes against your skin and the air on your face, the scent of the interior, and the sounds around you.  This helps keep you in the present moment and stops your mind from focusing anxiously on the day ahead.
  • Notice your surroundings as you drive – the clouds, sunlight, birds.  As you do, reflect on the beauty of nature and gratitude for having the great good fortune to experience life.
  • Be considerate of other drivers, ceding the right of way.  
  • Relax and remind yourself that you’re not in a hurry, so don’t speed, don’t tailgate, and don’t cut people off. 
  • If stuck in traffic, see it not as a hindrance but, rather, as an opportunity to deeply investigate your surroundings, to activate your curiosity.  Alternatively, use the opportunity to meditate, such as a quick body-scan meditation.   
  • If other drivers are inconsiderate or reckless don’t take it personally, just let it go. Remind yourself that humans are inherently mindless.  Further, it has become a cultural norm to live life in a rushed, frantic, self-absorbed manner – but you don’t have to.  And lastly, know that getting upset changes nothing, other than needlessly ruining part of your day. 

At Work

  • Focus on one task at a time.  Doing so helps keep anxiety at bay.
  • No matter what is asked of you, just do it without adding mental commentary about how stupid, boring, or useless it is.  If you can change or delegate such a task, then by all means do so, but if you can’t, then just do it.   Remember that putting up resistance to reality only makes a situation worse than it already is. 
  • Turn off email notifications and put your phone on do-not-disturb.  Distractions serve only to increase anxiety.  Set aside set times to deal with email and phone messages.
  • If you need extended alone-time to think, let your colleagues know that you are not to be interrupted.  By the same token, be considerate of your colleagues’ time and need to focus.
  • Know your limitations and set realistic boundaries.  Say no to requests you are unable to honour (or simply do not wish to do).  And if you must take on a new or unexpected task, make clear the impact on other tasks that you will no longer be able to get to in as timely a manner, if at all.
  • Set realistic expectations with management, colleagues, and clients.
  • Take regular mindfulness breaks (see this post for ideas).  Use these to check in on your mental state.  If anxious or upset, simply acknowledge this, close your eyes, take a few slow, deep breaths, consciously relax all your muscles, and smile (even if it’s a fake smile).  Know that nothing is so important as to let it ruin your day. 
  • Know that whatever you face, no matter how frustrating, it’s all simply part of life, nothing new that untold others have not also experienced.  Whatever comes your way, simply deal with it in a calm, matter-of-fact manner.
  • Take fifteen-minute morning and afternoon breaks to get a snack, stretch, go for a walk, meditate and, in general, relax and lighten up.
  • If you’re able to get out for a walk and encounter litter, pick it up and dispose of it.  Be the world you want, for everyone’s sake. 
  • Eat lunch as you ate breakfast, engaging all your senses and just focusing on the act of eating.  This is best done in a secluded, quiet spot to give your mind a break and help it slow down.  A noisy lunch room is not conducive to this.
  • Start each meeting with a minute of silence.  Creativity needs a stilled mind.
  • Before sending an email or leaving a voice message take a deep, relaxing breath to avoid unhelpful negative tone.
  • Before taking an incoming phone call, take a deep, relaxing breath (to activate your calming parasympathetic nervous system) and then smile! The subsequent conversation will go all the better for having done so.
  • Keep mindfulness reminders around your desk (I kept a Buddha figurine on my desk).
  • At day’s end, stop working, turn off your email and work phone, and go home. Your life outside work is equally, if not more, important.  Know with deep humility that the world will not come to an untimely end if you don’t get all your tasks done each day.  You’re just not that important in the big scheme of things – none of us are.

Driving Home

  • Repeat your morning process.
  • At a stop light, if solicited for cash by one of the many street people, lower your window, greet them warmly, and give them more than your brain is advising – your heart will thank you afterward.
  • Ideally, get to the gym for some exercise before heading home or work out at home.  Regular exercise benefits not only your physical fitness but also your mental health.

Eating Supper

  • Repeat your breakfast process.

Day’s End Before Bedtime

  • If you have errands to run after work, don’t rush – just focus on the tasks at hand and forego any negative mental commentary.  Know fully that even errands are part of life.

“Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick – don’t let yourself think that these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape – it is our path.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of “Wherever You Go, There You Are“

  • Spend quality time with family and friends, listening mindfully to their stories (i.e. giving them your full attention, your personal electronics turned off or ignored).
  • Consider maintaining a gratitude journal, each evening documenting those things you experienced that day for which you are grateful.
  • Meditate for at least fifteen minutes.
  • Turn off all screen electronics at least one hour before bedtime.
  • Read a few pages about mindfulness, even if it’s from the same book of wisdom over and over again every night.  Contemplate the message.

Bed Time

  • Get to bed early enough to ensure eight hours of sleep.

The essence of living mindfully

As illustrated above, living mindfully is characterized as follows:

  • You pay attention to life, right here, right now, in the present moment rather than residing in the past or the future.
  • You live as an equanimous, curious observer of the inputs from your five senses, eschewing mental commentary and judgments.
  • You accept life as it actually is rather than troubling your mind with how you wish it were.
  • You embody patience, compassion, gratitude, integrity, and kindness.  In doing so, you influence our world for the better. 
  • You realize that there’s no place to rush to and no better place to be than being present – right here, right now.  Better is just a state of mind.
  • You commit to ongoing mindfulness practice and study.
  • You are grateful for life itself and all the wonderful things it presents.
  • There is a lightness to your life, a gentleness, an ease of being.
  • You seek out moments of stillness for quiet contemplation.

Living mindfully means living consciously, aware of and alert to life’s small joys.  In this manner, you limit the remit of your stress system and find yourself supported and nurtured by a calm knowing that life is rather fine, just the way it is.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

 

Meditation: Why Bother?

What is meditation?

As I outlined in this post, mindfulness practice has two components:

  1. Informal practice – techniques deployed throughout your day to maintain present-moment awareness.
  2. Formal practice – which refers to meditation, this being the mind-training practice of focusing your attention (typically on your breath).

While there are many traditions of meditation, Zen likely being the most recognizable, there are two main goals of meditation that complement one another:

  1. Shamatha meditation enhances your ability to concentrate, focus, and pay attention.  It develops the inner calm necessary for practicing Vipassana meditation.
  2. Vipassana meditation, also known as “insight meditation”, involves contemplation of the deeper truths of life to help us become better people and lead happier, more peaceful, more compassionate lives.

Both forms of meditation are essential in that they support one another.  Concentration on its own can be aloof to the sorrows of the world and so needs insight to nurture compassion. 

On the other hand, acquiring insight is nigh impossible without first developing the ability to concentrate, to still the mind and direct your focus where you want it rather than where your mind involuntarily takes you.

“Without the steadiness of concentration it is easy to get caught up in feelings, perceptions, and thoughts as they arise.  Notice the profound difference between being aware of a thought and being lost in it.  It is the power of concentration that keeps the defilements at bay.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening”

Why Meditate?

Here are some of the benefits of making a formal meditation practice part of your daily routine:

  • It enhances attention and the ability to concentrate.
  • It enhances emotional balance.
  • It provides inner peace and psychological well-being.
  • It increases our compassion, for ourselves and others.
  • It counteracts our tendency to be self-centered and self-absorbed.
  • It has been found to decrease anxiety, decrease the risk of depression, and decrease anger.
  • It boosts the immune system and helps reduce blood pressure in those suffering from hypertension.
  • It induces positive emotions.
  • It teaches us how to deal with negative thoughts.
  • It brings us back into the present moment with a mind that is clear, calm, and attentive.
  • It gives our mind a much-needed rest, helping us to access the wise part of our brain, the frontal cortex, while quieting the reactive part of our brain, the amygdala. 

In short, meditation is good for us mentally, physically, and inter-personally. 

So, while informal mindfulness techniques are exceedingly helpful, they only get us part-way toward our goal of living a life filled with peace, joy, compassion, and wisdom.  It takes a formal meditation practice to get us over the goal line, so to speak.

“Training the mind is crucial if we want to sharpen our attention, develop emotional balance and wisdom, and cultivate dedication to the welfare of others.”

Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk and author of “Why Meditate?”

Starting a Meditation Practice

From all I have read and heard from others, my experience with starting a daily meditation practice is completely typical and one you are likely to experience as well:  

  • In the beginning I was completely unable to maintain a focus on my breath for longer than a few seconds.  Over and over I would catch myself thinking about work, or things I had to do, or friends and family, or aches and pains.   
  • In embarrassingly short order I found myself squirming on the meditation chair, tense, tight and just wanting the session to end.
  • I found myself skipping days, sometimes multiple days, between practice sessions.  I lacked commitment to the practice.

“Whether your meditation session is enjoyable or irritating, easy or hard, the important thing is to persevere.  If you get bored while meditating this is not the fault of meditation itself but is due to your lack of training.”

Matthieu Ricard

The good news is that things do get easier, and better! 

After about a year I began to notice that my ability to focus had most definitely improved, as had my stamina on the meditation chair; my squirming and discomfort had steadily diminished. 

So, just like sports training, my guidance is to push through the initial discomfort because you will come out the other side – trust me – and be all the better for it!

“Everyone knows that it takes time and perseverance to master an art, a sport, a language, or any other discipline.  Why should it not be the same with training the mind? 

It is a worthwhile adventure.  We are not talking about acquiring some ordinary ability, but rather about a new way of being that will  determine the quality of our entire life.”

Matthieu Ricard 

How to Meditate – The Basics

I am going to assume you are sitting in a straight-backed chair for your meditation.  I personally use my meditation stool or meditation futon.

Here, then, are the basic steps:

  1. Set a timer for how long you plan to meditate.  For this I use an app called “Insight Timer“, one of the most popular meditation sites.  It offers both a free version as well as a premium paid version (which I personally subscribe to).  Here you will find not just a timer but also thousands of spoken guided meditations, calming music to meditate to, as well as hundreds of short mindfulness courses.
  2. Sit comfortably, feet flat on the floor.
  3. Your back should be straight but not tense.  Keep your back away from the back of the chair.
  4. Lay your hands palm up on top of your legs in a position that’s comfortable, your elbows resting at your sides.
  5. Tilt your head slightly downward and close your eyes.
  6. Make any final adjustments to get comfortable.
  7. Consciously relax all your muscles.  Here I mentally envision all my body parts as being melting wax, softening gently under a comforting heat.  As an aside, a good opportunity to practice muscle softening is when you feel a sneeze coming on.  Rather than giving in, practice relaxing your facial muscles.  You’ll soon be amazed at your ability to stifle a sneeze just through the conscious softening of your muscles!
  8. Take two or three slow, deep breaths, inhaling to the count of four, holding for seven, and exhaling to the count of eight (or even longer as I often do).
  9. Begin breathing normally.
  10. Focus your attention on where you most easily sense your breath.  For most people this is near the tip of their nostrils, but could also be in your chest or belly.  Wherever it is, maintain a gentle focus on that spot to sense your in-breaths and out-breaths.  An excellent opportunity to practice focus is when you feel the urge to scratch an itch during a meditation session.  Rather than giving in, re-double your focus on the breath and see if the itch doesn’t just go away all on its own, this through re-direction of your attention to where you want it.
  11. If it helps maintain focus, mentally count your in-breaths and out-breaths, counting to ten and then starting over.  Alternatively, mentally repeat the words “Peace” for the in-breath and “Calm” for the out-breath.  As you gain experience you will likely find you no longer need these aids to maintain focus.
  12. Whenever you notice that your focus has wandered, just gently bring it back.  With practice you will experience less wandering and greater ability to remain focused.  This is actually one of the goals of meditation – to be able to turn your mind to where you want rather than to where it wants to take you!
  13. When the timer goes, slowly and gently move your fingers and toes, breathe deeply, stretch, and open your eyes.

Variations on Meditation Practice 

Here are instructions for doing a few of the better-known meditation practices:

Body-Scan Meditation (shamatha)

This meditation helps to develop your ability to maintain focused attention and awareness.  It also serves to bring you firmly into the present moment.

Begin by following steps 1 through 9 as outlined above. 

Starting with the small toe of your right foot, turn your attention for a few moments to any physical sensations there – tingling, pressure, warmth, etc.  In addition, mentally soften the muscles of that toe just that little bit more.

Gradually turn your attention to each part of your body in turn and simply repeat this process.

Difficult Emotions Meditation (vipassana)

This meditation helps you deal with difficult situations and to dissipate troubling thoughts.

Follow steps 1 through 10 above.

If you are going through a difficult time, it is a virtual certainty that your mind will soon wander away from your breath and latch on to your troubles. 

When it does, determine the feelings that underlie these troubles – anger, frustration, fear, envy, embarrassment – whatever they may be.

Once determined, call the feelings out by mentally naming them.  For example, if feeling afraid, gently repeat to yourself, “I am feeling afraid” or “Hello again, fear”.  By bringing negative feelings into conscious awareness, by facing them head on, they will gradually dissipate.   

To speed their departure, soften those parts of your body that are feeling tense or tight.  Because body and mind are closely linked, relaxing the body automatically relaxes the mind, and vice versa.

Once the negative thoughts and feelings have softened, simply return your focus back to your breath.

If the negative feelings return, repeat the process, remembering to be gentle and compassionate with yourself the entire time.

Loving Kindness Meditation (vipassana)

This meditation helps to enhance your compassion for others.

Once again, follow steps 1 through 9 above.

Starting with yourself in mind, mentally repeat these phrases to yourself:

May I be happy and content
May I be healthy in mind, body, and spirit
May I be safe from mental and physical harm
May I have ease of being

Next, repeat these phrases with a loved one in mind.

May she be happy and content
May she be healthy in mind, body, and spirit
May she be safe from mental and physical harm
May she have ease of being 

In succession, repeat these same wishes while envisioning a close friend, then someone you are indifferent about, and finally someone you find difficult.

When you have completed this cycle, repeat the phrases one last time to take in all living beings everywhere.

May all living beings be happy and content
May all living beings be healthy in mind, body, and spirit
May all living beings be safe from mental and physical harm
May all living beings have ease of being

Now, you may be asking yourself, “Why would I want to extend well wishes to someone I despise“?   For these reasons:

  1. If difficult people were happy, healthy, safe, and felt an ease of being, they would cease being difficult people.   
  2. People don’t choose to be difficult.  It is only through their ignorance that they remain so.  Scratch the surface and you will find an individual just like you, someone who wants the same things in life that you do – to be happy,  healthy, safe, and free of worries.
  3. As discussed in this post, Buddhist philosophy teaches that “I”, “Me”, and “Mine” are simply mental constructs that we mistake for reality.  In our ignorance of this, we create needless discord between ourselves and others.  
  4. Is sending good wishes to those you despise likely to have a discernible impact on them?  Probably not.  But it certainly has a positive impact on you for having done so – the tightness you feel every time you encounter them softens.  This in itself is no small achievement and, if sensed by that person, may indeed help produce a softening in them as well.  There’s certainly no downside to this practice and it most definitely beats the alternative.

“Meditation will start to clarify your natural ethical sense.  If you take up meditation with any degree of seriousness, you will realize that meditating regularly becomes more and more incompatible with acting in ways that harm others or yourself.”

Subhadramati, author of “Not About Being Good – A Practical Guide to Buddhist Ethics“

Tonglen Meditation (vipassana)

This meditation, similar to Loving Kindness, helps you to deal with difficult situations and enhance your compassion for others.

Once again, repeat steps 1 through 10.

Once settled, contemplate all those who are suffering just as you are, perhaps even more. 

On each subsequent in-breath, imagine you are breathing in, from all the parts of your body, the totality of their pain – all of it.  Sense the heaviness, darkness, and heat of their suffering as your body breathes it all in.

Then, on the out-breath, imagine you are sending out to them (and to yourself) an ease of being and relief from suffering – breathing in others’ troubles and breathing out relief.  While doing so, imagine a feeling of lightness, brightness, and cool accompanying each out-breath.

Wisdom Contemplation (vipassana)

This meditation reinforces key mindfulness teachings such that, with repetition, they become inculcated into your very being.

This is my favorite meditation, one I do almost every morning.  Reflecting on the core teachings of mindfulness helps point me in the direction of peace and goodwill.

Again, follow steps 1 through 9 above, then observe the routine outlined in this post.

To access a handy two-page summary of this meditation suitable for printing, click on this link.

Sound Meditation (shamatha)

This meditation strengthens your ability to focus your attention and helps bring you back into the present moment.

Again, follow steps 1 through 9 above.  Then turn your attention to any and all sounds around you. Notice their pitch, loudness, and duration.

Make a point to not label them as good or bad or to judge them in any way; simply listen intently.

Chocolate Meditation (shamatha)

This meditation is a practice in mindful eating and also serves to enhance conscious awareness of your senses.  It’s also fun and tastes great!

In turn, consciously engage each one of your senses as you slowly (!!!) go through the process of eating a piece of chocolate:

  • Touch – how does it feel in your hands?
  • Sight – notice everything about it; colour, texture, shape.
  • Aroma – take in all its many essences.
  • Sound – what sound does it make when you break a piece off?
  • Taste – there are over 300 compounds in chocolate; how many can you sense?

Next post:  “Weight Watcher’s Meditation”  🙂

Mantra Meditation (shamatha or vipassana)

A mantra is a word or phrase repeated over and over again, either mentally or aloud, during a meditation session. 

A mantra with no meaning is selected if it is to serve simply as the focus of one’s attention (rather than focusing on the breath).  An example would be a meaningless phrase such as, “Va ja poh ta may”, this one long enough to be carried through both the in-breath and out-breath.

More typical, however, is a mantra with some meaning, such as for its spiritual, affirmational, or aspirational features.  The Loving-Kindness meditation discussed above is but one example.  Another, and one of my favorites because of its sentiment, is “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu”, a Sanskrit mantra translating roughly as, “May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.”

Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, are replete with mantras, many examples of which can be found on YouTube. 

One can also use a personal affirmation such as, “I am perfect just as I am”,    to reinforce a desired attribute or belief.   

Himalayan Singing Bowl Meditation (shamatha)

This is a favorite soothing meditation of mine, and judging by the number of singing bowl recordings on YouTube, is favored by many others as well!

Here are the steps I follow:

  1. I sit comfortably on my meditation futon and set my timer.
  2. I take one of my singing bowls and cup it in the palm of my left hand, making a point to avoid touching the bowl’s side (as this would otherwise quickly deaden the bowl’s singing).  This hand rests on top of my left leg.
  3. In my right hand I hold a felt-covered wood striker .  These are available wherever singing bowls are sold and often come with a bowl purchase.
  4. I gently but firmly strike the side of the bowl with an upward motion to make it sound.
  5. I close my eyes and focus on the sound, listening intently to the various frequencies and pulsating rhythms until they fade completely away.  I then continue to listen for a few moments to the silence.
  6. I briefly open my eyes and repeat steps 4 and 5 until the timer chimes.

Very soothing and grounding!  Do try it for yourself! 

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

“Meditation is not evasion. It is a serene encounter with reality. The person who practices mindfulness should be no less awake than the driver of a car. Be as awake as a person walking on high stilts — any misstep could cause the walker to fall. Be like a lion going forward with slow, gentle, and firm steps. Only with this kind of vigilance can you realize total awakening.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and teacher, peace activist, and prolific author (1926 – 2022)

 

Keeping Life in Perspective

In the final years of my career as a personal financial advisor I had the good fortune to work on the seventh floor of an office tower that afforded expansive views in every direction. From my desk I could see the peak of the Peace Tower some eight kilometres away, such is the low-build nature of present-day Ottawa.

Passing by that building is the 417 Expressway connecting Orleans in the east to Kanata in the west, Ottawa proper being roughly equidistant between the two.

During my not-infrequent breaks to window-gaze, I would contemplate the mind-sets of all those thousands of commuters and truckers speeding by, each on their own little Mission Impossible.

And I would wonder to myself, do we not take our own little lives, our own little thoughts, and our own little spheres of personal life events far too seriously? Do we not tend to focus on the minutiae of life rather than taking an expansive view of its big picture?

I believe we very much do; which would be rather inconsequential were it not for the serious implications.

We appear to be making ourselves miserable and, as a direct consequence, mentally and physically ill with all the anxious rushing around we do to fulfill all those “important” items on our perpetually-refreshed to-do list.

To no surprise, two of the leading causes of lost time at work these days are stress and depression.

The message of this post is that, yes, we should take time to care for one another and contribute as best we can toward a well-functioning society.

But we should do so with an un-rushed ease of being and a deep humility born of knowing, fully and completely, that what we each do each day is, at once, both important and profoundly and singularly unimportant.

Understanding the seeming incompatibility of this duality requires but one thing: a broader perspective on life than we normally afford it.

So, in that vein, here are a few mind-and-perspective-altering thoughts to contemplate.

Our to-do list and “problems” from a universal perspective

If you could charter a spacecraft capable of traveling at the speed of light (~300,000 kilometres per second) you would be able to circumnavigate the earth at its equator (~40,000 kilometres) in about one-tenth of a second.

By way of comparison, a typical commercial jet flies at about 900 kph and so would need about 44 hours to complete that same journey.

So, wow, light is pretty darned fast! Yes, indeed it is. However, even if you were able to travel at the speed of light, in order to reach the outer edge of the observable universe you had better pack a good-sized lunch – because it’s going to take you roughly 47 BILLION YEARS.

But we’re only talking the observable universe here (i.e. the furthest light can have traveled since the time of the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago).   Taking this limitation into account, scientists at Oxford University in Britain have estimated that the full scale of the universe is about 250 times larger than what we can currently observe.

So, that little trip of yours to the edge of the universe at the speed of light? Well, better get comfy because you’re in for a journey lasting, oh, about 12 TRILLION YEARS.

And then there’s our so-very-important to-do list. Hmmmmm.

And to think that blood is being tragically shed over specks of land that, from a universal perspective, aren’t even the size of sub-atomic particles.

And then, of course, there’s always that neighbour who gets upset because some of “your” fall leaves blew on to “his” side of the property line just after he had finished raking.

And on and on this silliness goes, due in large part to an utter lack of perspective.

Humbling Hubble

Here is a photograph taken by the Hubble space telescope. It shows a field of view roughly the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length.

Those dots of light? Well, they’re all galaxies – thousands of them – and each one has hundreds of billions of stars.

In the observable universe there are an estimated 100 BILLION GALAXIES.

This puts the number of stars in our known universe at roughly 1 BILLION TRILLION, also known as 1 SEXTILLION or, in scientific notation, 1 x 10 ^ 21 stars. Earth circles around exactly one of them, and a rather mundane one at that.

And then there’s us, rushing around frantically on the little speck of cosmic dust we call Earth attending to our very important issues. Hmmmmm.

“Time” to Regain Perspective

The universe is estimated to have come into existence at the time of the Big Bang, roughly 14 billion years ago.

Out of this cosmic soup, the Earth coalesced about 4.5 billion years ago.

It took about 500 million years for conditions to cool and change sufficiently to support Earth’s first life forms, this occurring about 3.5 billion years ago.

Dinosaurs appeared on the scene about 240 million years ago and stuck around for roughly 170 million years; until that unfortunate asteroid incident.

The first mammals made their appearance about 65 million years ago and eventually, out of this lineage, came us Homo Sapiens, roughly 200,000 years ago.

So, let’s put our species’ experience to date into some context:

  • In our total history as a species we have only been in existence for about 0.12% of the time that dinosaurs managed. Given our propensity for war and aggression, I’m thinking the dinosaurs have a lock on that record.
  • At an average adult stride it would take someone 66 million steps (and a formidable aptitude for holding their breath under water) to walk around the Earth at the equator. If we take this number of steps to represent the age of the universe, then a human living for 90 years is only on this Earth for 220 steps, or about 130 metres of the 40,000 kilometres it takes to make it around the Earth.
  • To put the previous point a different way, if the age of the universe were condensed down to one year, a human living for 90 years experiences their entire life passing by in roughly two-tenths of a second.

In other words, while our time on Earth may seem long from our tragically-limited perspective, on a cosmic scale it is but a blink of an eye – and then it’s over.

Given the fleeting nature of our existence, how wise is it to devote any of this precious time fussing over our oh-so-important “problems”?

Nothing New Under the Sun

Over the two-hundred millenia that humans have been around, roughly 108 billion of us have died.

This means that 108 billion of us have experienced the full suite of human sorrows – the loss of loved ones, sickness, injury, to say nothing of those sorrows brought on by human ignorance; hunger, thirst, war, physical and mental assault, forced displacement, subjugation, prejudice, injustice, intolerance, greed, and so on and so on.

As we learned in this post, such pains are simply a part of life; resist them and you will suffer. Seen from a broader perspective, it is rather clear that our personal “problems” are hardly the stuff of legend; nothing to get worked up over – simply to be dealt with, mindfully.

You – Miracle!

It may sound trite to describe life as a miracle.  Certainly on our most challenging days it feels more like a burden than a miracle.  

But it’s true – your mere existence, your coming into being, is indeed miraculous.  And here’s why.

Let’s take a look at just a small portion of the long chain of events that had to go exactly your way for you to come into being:

  • Your mom and dad had to live long enough to make it to their reproductive years.
  • Your mom had to meet your dad. Of all the men she could have met, what are the odds of meeting just the right guy to make you? 
  • Of course, meeting is one thing, but hitting it off sufficiently well to want to date each other? What are those odds?
  • Okay, your folks are dating, but now they’ve got to want to turn it into a long-term relationship. Odds?
  • So, they decide to stick together and manage to do so long enough to have a child – you.
  • But for you to come into existence, the exact sperm and exact egg had to meet and successfully link up. The odds of this? Given the sperm count of the average male, roughly 1 chance in ten to the power of seventeen. Let’s just say that if this were the odds of winning a door prize, you could be waiting a really long time!
  • Now extend this process out to take into account your grandparents and great grandparents and great-great grandparents, on and on back through every ancestor since the first human came into existence, some 10,000 generations ago.

Only this EXACT chain of events could lead to YOU!

In the fascinating article where I first encountered this analysis, the odds are put at one chance in 10 raised to the power of 2,685,000! That’s a one followed by 2,685,000 zeroes!

To put this crazy big number into perspective, it is estimated that the total number of atoms in the known universe is roughly 10 raised to the power of 80. So your odds of coming into being are way lower than having to pick the correct card from a deck consisting of 1 x 10 ^ 80 cards!

Put another way, your existence is the equivalent of 2 million people getting together, each given a trillion-sided die, and with one roll they all turn up the exact same number, say 550,343,279,001.

In other words, the probability of YOUR existence?   Essentially NIL. 

I like the way the article’s author puts it:

“A miracle is an event so unlikely as to be almost impossible.  By definition, each of you – and all living things – are miracles.  I think this is something to be grateful for.”

Sort of puts our oh-so-important to-do lists and “problems” in a different perspective, does it not?

Oh, What a Lucky Man He Was

In its 2022 Global Wealth Report, wealth manager Credit Suisse broke down the distribution of wealth among the world’s adults. Here is what they report:

  • 53% of adults have a net worth under $10,000 US dollars (USD).
  • 87% have a net worth under $100,000 USD. In other words, if you have a net worth greater than $100,000 USD, you stand among the richest 13% of all adults alive today.
  • If you are fortunate enough to have a net worth greater than $1 million USD, you have more personal wealth than 98.8% of all adults alive today.

In my home country of Canada, we are fortunate indeed; median wealth among adults comes in at $140,000 USD. In other words, more than half of Canadian adults can count themselves among the richest 13% of all adults in the entire world.

To put this into perspective, India, with some 1 billion adults, has median wealth of just $3,300 USD, while China, with some 1.1 billion adults, has median wealth of only $26,000 USD.

And the U.S. itself? Well, its median adult wealth is only about 66% of that of Canada’s, coming in at $93,000 USD.

So, if you’re a Canadian adult reading this post, it’s highly likely that you have much to be thankful for and precious little, if anything, to be fussed about.

Taking Things for Granted

If you, like me, happen to have had the great good fortune to be born into one of the Western democracies, it is all too easy to take our favored lot in life for granted. From our limited perspective it is easy for us to forget that our lives are not the norm; in fact, far from it.

Here’s a broader perspective:

  • % of the world living in an autocracy: 25%
  • % of the world who are malnourished: 11% (vs. 39% overweight)
  • % of the world with no electricity: 13%
  • % of the world with inadequate shelter: 20%
  • % of the world without safe water: 33%
  • % of the world without proper sanitation: 46%
  • % of the world living on <$1.90 USD/day: 9%

What message do we take from these statistics? That the next time we’re inclined to complain about some discomforting aspect of our lives, perhaps we should instead take a moment to reflect on just how truly lucky we are and how much we have to be grateful for.

Nothing Really Matters

Here I present two facts that, while depressing to contemplate, nonetheless help put our often-frantic lives and “problems” into perspective.

The Cemetery Perspective

Pass by any cemetery and ponder if there are any friends or relatives still alive to remember who these people were, let alone know the details of their lives.

For most of them, much beyond grandchildren is a stretch. In many instances great-great grandparents are little more than a footnote on a genealogy list, in the rare case that one even exists.

The point here is that, in a relatively short span of time, our perceived self-importance and rushing to achieve life’s goals and tasks amounts to absolutely nothing.

No one is going to remember or care that we put in crazy long overtime in our job. No one is going to remember or care that in 2016 we arrived at our folk’s place for Christmas at 2:13pm by dangerously speeding down the highway rather than doing the speed limit and arriving at 4:02pm.

At the time these would have seemed important to us and, in the absence of mindfulness, would likely have been accompanied by needless anxiety and frustration. But with the benefit of time, distance, and wisdom, we see our folly.

Much of life, if not all of it, follows this same pattern; seemingly so important at the time but, ultimately, amounting to pretty much nothing at all.

The Red Giant Perspective

In about five billion years or so our sun will have spent much of its nuclear fuel and begun its transition into a Red Giant, the dying phase of a star of its type.

One of the main features of a Red Giant is its massive expansion, growing some 100 to 1000 times in size, sufficiently large in the case of our sun as to likely engulf the Earth, thus destroying everything in its wake.

At that point, assuming the continued existence of our species and barring the invention of mega-scale inter-planetary travel, all of human history will be forever extinguished.  

What, then, to make of our “important” earthly tasks and “problems”? 

Life in perspective

The truth of our existence is this: that most, if not all, of what we perceive to be important or to be a “problem” is, in reality, little more than a triviality.

And the alternative? To just lighten up and stop taking ourselves, and life, so darned seriously.

As the 70’s band Trooper‘s lyrics put it, “We’re here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time, the sun can’t shine every day”.

And how do we go about having this “good time” in the face of life’s difficulties and challenges?

Here, an invaluable trait to foster is the ability to laugh at oneself, to laugh at life’s inevitable trials and tribulations, and to smile inside whenever we come face-to-face with hardship and challenge.

Remember from this post that pain is non-negotiable, just a part of life, but adding suffering to that pain, well, that’s your choice.

If you actively nurture this mentality, the ability to laugh at and take lightly whatever life presents, you will find that your life magically smooths out, an ease of being sets in, and you will find yourself responding to life with your innate wisdom rather than unthinkingly reacting to it as is our near-universal habit.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

P.S. Credit to my wonderful and talented friend Julie for the beautiful rose portion of this post’s featured image! Thank you Julie!!

Key Mindfulness Teachings

When I first started to explore the topic of mindfulness I found the process overwhelming and confusing.  There was just so much out there with much of it not geared to my then-novice level of understanding and experience.  

Fortunately, with time, practice, and much diligent study, I was able to tease out the core teachings.  I present them here, in plain English, to spare you from having to start from scratch like I did! 

Required:  Reflection, Contemplation, and Self-Discovery 

In my experience, fully grasping the wisdom behind spiritual teachings requires regular periods of quiet reflection and contemplation – it just does. 

And why this is true is that only in moments of stillness are we receptive to the deeper lessons that mere words struggle to convey.  Most, if not all, “Aha!  Now I get it!!!” moments are experienced when our minds are still. 

Of equal importance, you must personally put the teachings to the test and assess for yourself if the lessons presented ring true. 

Why? Because wisdom cannot be taught, only seen and experienced.  

“Such knowledge can’t be grasped intellectually.  It is something that has to be realized and uncovered from within your own consciousness.”

Sydney Banks, author of “The Enlightened Gardener” 

Ten Key Mindfulness Teachings

 #1:  Resisting reality leads to needless suffering 

American meditation teacher, Shinzen Young, is credited with coming up with this insightful equation:

Suffering = Pain x Resistance

Let’s look at each component to help clarify the important point being made:

Pain 

Here we are referring not just to physical pain but include other experiences such as:

  • losing something of importance to you.
  • the death of a loved one.
  • having your deeply-held opinions and beliefs challenged.  

So, a sore arm is pain, the death of a beloved pet is pain, the destruction of a treasured family heirloom is pain, the loss of a job is pain, and on and on.

What each of these have in common is twofold:  1) They have occurred – they are already reality.   2) They are an inextricable part of life that cannot be escaped.  

In short, everyone born into this world will experience pain and there is nothing that can be done about it – we all get sick, we all eventually die, and we all will experience loss of some kind.  

Resistance

We tend to cling to the parts of life we like, not wanting to see them end – a pleasant vacation, a close friendship,  a shiny new car, the way things used to be done at work before stupid changes by management, etc., etc., etc.

Conversely, we tend to feel aversion toward the parts of life we don’t like, wanting to escape from them as quickly as possible.

However, both clinging and aversion represent resistance – an unwillingness to face up to reality, to face up to what already IS. 

Pain is a reality of life.  It is non-negotiable, non-escapable and, therefore, futile to resist.  Yet we persist in trying, to our psychological detriment.

Suffering

Suffering is the consequence of resisting the reality of an unpleasant situation.  It is the mental anguish we experience when we try to resist pain, try to resist what IS, try to resist reality.  

As the equation shows, without resistance to pain, there is no suffering.  Yes, the pain will still be there, but you won’t add needless, pointless, psychological suffering to an already unpleasant situation. Resistance just makes matters worse.

The good news is that while pain is a fact of life, suffering is optional – it’s completely up to you.  

This is an uplifting, freeing observation because it means that your mental well-being is in your own hands – you get to choose peace of mind over mental anguish.

But, as pointed out above, don’t just take my word for it, test the truth of this for yourself.  The next time you get riled up or find yourself complaining about something, see if the essence of your upset is not, in fact, simply your resistance to reality.

So what’s the alternative then?  Acceptance!  

Pain is a reality of life.  Resist this reality and you will suffer! So the only sane way forward is to accept this reality, accept the fact that you are faced with an unpleasant situation, and then just deal with it.

In other words, you simply respond to a painful situation in a calm, collected, matter-of-fact manner, because getting upset adds nothing of value. 

Indeed, getting upset just makes an already unpleasant situation worse.  It drags you down as well as all those around you. 

But that’s not the end of it.  In an upset state you are not able to think clearly – your reactive amygdala has taken you over and your wise frontal cortex has gone off-line.  As a result, in a state of agitation, you are perfectly primed to say and do things that prove utterly regrettable.  In addition, with your creativity temporarily compromised, you will struggle to come up with solutions to whatever problematic issues you may be facing.

“Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment.  What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? 

Surrender to what is, say ‘yes’ to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”

Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now“

The lesson here, then, is that there are no “problems”, simply situations to be dealt with.  Indeed, it has been said that life’s challenges are nothing more than glorious opportunities to put mindfulness into actual practice! 

And one final but important point; acceptance does not mean passivity – you can still stand up for yourself and take steps to better your situation – but you do so from a position of calm wisdom rather than habitual, unthinking reaction; the outcome will be all the better for it.

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” 

Lao Tse – Chinese philosopher, circa 500 B.C.

#2:  Impermanence is a fact of life

Impermanence is a key component of reality.  It means that all things, all situations, everything, both good and bad, eventually come to an end; nothing stays the same forever.

When it comes to the things we enjoy in life we know that resisting their eventual loss will lead to needless suffering.

If you resist the truth of impermanence, you will be constantly mourning the loss of the things you enjoy and clamoring for new pleasantries to take their place – only to have these taken from you as well.  This is an obsessive, restless, anxiety-inducing cycle that has no end.

The alternative?  To simply enjoy the pleasant parts of life while they’re around but don’t cling to them.  When their time is up, have the wisdom to let them go.  

As for the unpleasant parts of life, simply accept them as inevitable and deal with them mindfully.  And take solace in the fact that, in due time, impermanence will take these from you as well.

“Time is a sort of river of passing events and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place; and this too will be swept away.”

Marcus Aurelius – Roman emperor, 161AD – 181AD

 

#3:  A mind focused on the past or the future is an anxious mind

As referenced in this post , we are happiest when our attention is focused on the present moment rather than dwelling on an unchangeable past or fretting about or rushing to get to the future.

If something can be done about a past event that will make things better in the present, then do it, because rumination just leads to needless stress. 

As for the future, it causes us angst in two ways:

  1. When we fixate on all the many things we have to do.
  2. When we rush to get somewhere or complete something.

In the first case, we can only think about and work on one thing at a time.  Trying to do otherwise just causes stress.  Better to just focus on each task in turn.  

And if they don’t all get done?  Well, the sun will still rise tomorrow, your family and friends will still love you, and the world will keep on turning.  In other words, we’ve got to keep life in perspective.  We’re just not that important. 

As for rushing, doing so implies that the future we’re fixated on is better than the present. 

But is it really?  And is it not true that as soon as we reach that frantically-sought-after future point, there’s always another one?  When do we actually get to live right now?

And always rushing to the future comes at a real cost:

  1. The small joys of life become invisible to us.   
  2.  Everything becomes an obstacle, one frustration after another.
  3. Rushing triggers our stress response because our mind thinks we’re in danger.  Under stress we’re anxious, unpleasant, and not thinking clearly.  And if we’re always rushing, chronic stress compromises our physical well-being. 

The better alternative?:

  • Stay focused on the present moment and just deal with whatever life presents in a calm, wise manner.  
  • Keep life in perspective.  Nothing is that important that it should be permitted to ruin even one moment of your life.

“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future and not enough presence.

Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

Eckhart Tolle

“Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick – don’t let yourself think that these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape – it is our path.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of “Wherever You Go, There You Are“

#4:  External circumstances do not dictate our mood.  Rather, it is our thinking about those circumstances that does

How do we know this to be true?  After all, is it not obvious that an unpleasant situation puts us in a bad mood?  Well, no actually, and here’s why.

First, consider two people exposed to the exact same situation; they will experience it differently, sometimes materially differently.  For example, one person’s fear of public speaking is another person’s exciting opportunity – only their thinking differs.

Or consider this scenario.  You are driving to work when someone abruptly and dangerously cuts you off.  You feel a rush of anger and lay on the horn to express your feelings of outrage.  At the next red light you leer over at them in disgust. 

But then you realize – it’s your mother behind the wheel!

What happens to your anger and outrage?  It vanishes, and all that has changed are your thoughts about the situation.  

We’ve all experienced this.  You’re dealing with a difficult situation and are in a low mood.  The next day a caring friend calls on you to see how you’re feeling and you respond, “I’m in a better frame of mind today, thanks.  I’m doing fine.”  

Being in a “better frame of mind” isn’t the result of the situation changing. The only thing that has changed is your thinking about the situation.  With the benefit of time, distance, and a chance to calm an over-active mind, healthier thoughts displace unhelpful thinking. 

In her article titled, “Do You Ever Get Upset?“, Dr. Judy Sedgeman makes the point that negative feelings are simply the result of negative thoughts – nothing to get upset about or try to figure out.  If you let the negative thoughts flow on by and don’t latch on to them, wiser thoughts will soon take their place.

“So often times it happens, that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.”

The Eagles from their 1974 hit song, “Already Gone“

So, the main lessons are this:  

  1. We are in control of our thoughts, our thoughts are not in control of us. We get to decide what to think about any given situation.  Change our thinking and we change our perception – it’s that simple.
  2. It’s all just thoughts, and thoughts can’t hurt us.  
  3. By letting our mind settle into a calm stillness, troubling thoughts are soon replaced by better, wiser, healthier thoughts.  

“External problems do not generally damage our bodies directly.  What harms us is our psychological response to those circumstances; not the state of our environment, but of our mind.  And that is something we can control.”

Jo Marchant from her book, “Cure – A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body”

Of course, none of this is actually simple because we’ve been conditioned by society to react habitually and unthinkingly to unpleasant situations.  Turn on any television drama and what do you encounter? People lashing out at each other in mindless anger.  

It takes mindfulness practice to undo this tired, stale, unhelpful way of dealing with life’s challenges and substitute in its place the ability to respond with a calm wisdom.  

Responding in this manner achieves a number of beneficial outcomes:  

  1. It helps us keep things in proper perspective.  
  2. It helps us preserve relationships rather than put them under severe strain.
  3. It helps us spread peace and goodwill rather than aggression.  

It’s our choice.

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

Khalil Gibran – Lebanese poet, 1883 – 1931

#5:  When faced with an unpleasant situation we have three sane choices

In his book, “The Power of Now“, spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle lays out three sane choices when faced with an unpleasant situation:

  1. Change the situation (if you can and if this is the wisest way forward).
  2. Remove yourself from the situation (if you can and if this is the wisest way forward).
  3. If you can neither change the situation nor remove yourself from it, then accept it as if you had chosen it.

As he astutely puts it, “all else is madness”.

Why madness?  Because all other options entail resisting reality, resisting what IS, and this we know to be the path of needless suffering.  

What then is this madness?  Choosing to inflict suffering upon yourself!

“If there is no solution to the problem, then don’t waste time worrying about it.

If there is a solution to the problem, then don’t waste time worrying about it.”  

Dalai Lama XIV

#6:  A “brain on fire” yields no wisdom

By “brain on fire” (BOF) I mean an agitated state of mind brought on by situations we don’t like.  Here are some examples:

  • BOF = How you feel as you’re speeding in your car to get somewhere.
  • BOF = How you feel as you impatiently look at your watch, over and over again, while stuck in a long, slow-moving grocery line.
  • BOF = How you feel while having a spat with your spouse.
  • BOF = Dejectedly thinking about all the tasks that await you upon your return to work after a great vacation.

An agitated state of mind is brought on by the oldest part of our brain, the amygdala.  When alerted to danger, it is responsible for triggering our self-protection ‘fight-flight-freeze’ mechanism.

Unfortunately, it isn’t smart enough to be able to distinguish true danger from simple anger or frustration.

Awful physical health implications aside, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem were it not for one thing – under the influence of our amygdala our wisdom goes off-line.  

By this I mean that the amygdala over-rides the wise part of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex (PFC), the locus of our executive functioning – emotional control, impulse control, and creativity.  

As a result, under the influence of our amygdala we become reactionary rather than wisely responsive.  

Why are we set up this way?  Because if we are in a true life-threatening situation we don’t have the luxury of wisely pondering our best course of action, we must react instinctively and unthinkingly.

However, in the absence of real danger, reacting unthinkingly when simply angered or frustrated serves only to make an already unpleasant situation worse. 

So what can we do about this?  Because our PFC is only accessible when we are calm we use mindfulness practice in two ways:

  1. To sensitize us to the first signs of mental upset – a flush of heat (as the blood flows to our muscles), a tightening of the jaw and muscles, a furrowing of the brow, an empty feeling in the pit of our stomach (as the blood flows away from your organs to your muscles), a dry mouth, rapid breathing, and a pounding heart.  These are the cues that our wisdom is about to go off-line.
  2. To immediately pause, breathe deeply and slowly, relax our muscles, and smile to regain perspective. 

Doing so slows down our thinking and re-accesses our PFC and its wisdom.  In a clearer state of mind we avoid the normal, but decidedly unhelpful, habitual, and unthinking reaction to life.  

In short, nothing good comes from reacting to life.  Much good comes from responding to it.

The corollary of this teaching is that whenever you find yourself embroiled in a situation with someone whose own brain is on fire, know fully that they are not in a state of mind to listen to reason.  

For example, a teenager throwing a tantrum has BOF and so is not able to listen to what you have to say because they are under the powerful influence of their amygdala.

So, in such a situation, it is best to give the other person time to calm down so they can re-access their PFC.  Only then will you be able to have an intelligent exchange of views about the situation at hand.

“It’s extremely important to widen the gap between impulse and action, and that’s exactly what mindfulness does … it gives us a moment or two …. where we can change our relationship to our experience, not be caught in it and swept away by impulse, but rather to see that there’s an opportunity here to make a different, better choice.”

Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence“

#7 – Don’t supply fuel to negative thoughts and they will dissipate of their own accord

A brain creates thoughts all on its own; it’s what it’s designed to do. And given our documented negativity-bias, many of those thoughts tend to be unhelpful and anxiety-inducing.

But you are not your brain, and you are not your thoughts.  Your conscious awareness is separate from both.  And because of this, with practice in mindful awareness, you can go from being the slave of your thoughts to simply being the observer of your thoughts. 

Here is an analogy often used to help clarify this point:

Your thoughts are like a waterfall and you are an observer safely standing behind it, just watching the water cascading in front of you.  As an observer, the waterfall can’t hurt you.  In the same way, your thoughts can’t hurt you either, provided you just observe them and don’t get caught up in their cascade.

Supplying fuel to a negative thought means to latch on to it and follow its story line wherever it leads you.  We’ve all experienced this – we make up lengthy conversations and stories, and all of it entirely in our own mind!  

So, when a negative thought occurs, try this:

  1. Call it out for what it is.  Say to yourself, “I’m feeling anxious” or “I’m feeling envious” or whatever negative feeling the thought has conjured up.   Alternatively, speak to the thought directly: “Hello anger, I see you’re back again.”  By calling such thoughts out and putting a name to them you are shining the light of conscious awareness on them, and they lose their hold on you.
  2. Let the negative thought go.  How?  By changing the focus of your attention using one of the informal mindfulness practices outlined in this post.  Studies find that if you don’t give attention to a thought for a few short moments, it will dissipate of its own accord.  In a calmer, wiser state of mind, healthier thoughts will take its place.  Alternatively, imagine the thought is inside a soap bubble floating at eye level.  In your mind’s eye watch it rise up, and up, and up and then – ‘pop’ – gone.  Then turn your mind to a healthier line of thinking.

And always remember that thoughts have no intrinsic existence – they are just ephemeral bio-chemical reactions going on inside your head – just a routine bodily process.

#8 – Making assumptions about other people’s behaviour is the path to needless personal upset and inter-personal conflict

When someone does something that upsets us we typically assume we know why they did it:

  • “because he’s lazy”
  • “because she’s stupid”
  • “because he’s selfish and only thinks about himself”
  • “because he doesn’t care about her welfare”
  • “because she thinks her time is more important than anyone else’s”

In doing so we are making these implicit assumptions:

  1. That our beliefs and world views are correct.
  2. That our beliefs and world views are universally held.
  3. That others should act in the same manner we would in that same situation.  Further, they should know better because we sure as heck would never do what they just did.

Of course, the critical flaw in this line of thinking is that we’re not all the same and, therefore, do not have the same beliefs or world views. 

Factors impacting human behaviour are innumerable, encompassing influences such as genes, genetic abnormalities, hormones, social environment, social standing, past traumas, cultural background, personal experiences, parental upbringing, age, sex, etc., etc.  Unique combinations of such factors guarantee unique behaviour from each of us.  No surprise then that we’re often baffled by others’ behaviour.

Another critical flaw in assuming we know why another person did something is that there is every chance that they don’t even know this themselves.

But how could this be?  Well, it appears to be the case that the left hemisphere of the brain serves as an interpreter of our actions; we act in some manner and then it makes up a story to help us make sense of what we just did.

In his fascinating book, “Incognito – The Secret Lives of the Brain“, neuroscientist David Eagleman offers these cautionary words for those who want to know the “why?” behind human behaviour:

“We have ways of retrospectively telling stories about our actions as though the actions were always our idea.  It has been concluded that the left hemisphere of the brain acts as an interpreter, watching the actions and behavior of the body and then assigning a coherent narrative to these events.  Hidden programs drive actions and the left hemisphere makes justifications.

It can be disquieting to consider the extent to which all of our actions are driven by hardwired systems while we overlay stories about our choices.”

As a result, while you may get an answer to “Why did you do that?“, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

So is there a wiser way forward?  Here are three approaches to consider:

Let It Go

If it’s just not that important – and most issues aren’t – just let it go. Life is way too short to be wasting any of it over trivialities.

Make a Better Assumption

If you’re capable of making a negative assumption, you’re also capable of making a positive assumption.  After all, they’re both just make-believe stuff you cobbled together in your head.

So, perhaps the young woman on the bus who appears to be willfully ignoring her wailing child is, in fact, grieving the loss of her spouse.  That may be unlikely, but it’s not impossible, so why not go with the latter assumption and save yourself needless agitation?  After all, it’s your choice what to think about any given situation.

Use Non-Violent Communication 

If the situation is important enough for you to take action, try this approach known as “Non-Violent Communication“, developed by the late Marshall Rosenberg, known for his work in international peace negotiations:

  1. In non-judgmental language, convey to the “offender” what action of theirs you have observed.
  2. Let them know how these actions make you feel.
  3. Let them know what specific needs of yours are not being met in relation to those actions that have led you to feel this way.
  4. Let them know what you are wanting from them to address this situation so that your needs may be met and if they could see their way to doing so.
  5. Ask them how they observe the situation, how they feel about it, and what their needs are.
  6. If there are conflicting needs, come to an agreeable compromise.  

What you don’t want to do is to ask the “Why?” question.  “So, Johnny, why did you leave your dirty hockey equipment in the hallway for everyone to trip over?”

This is the road to needless conflict because asking someone to explain their behaviour is accusatory, feels like an interrogation, and conveys a sense of fait accompli, that they’ve already been found guilty as charged.  

And what do accused people do?  They defend themselves or counter-attack, neither of which will prove helpful for resolving a conflict.

“Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama.”

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of “The Four Agreements“

“One of the great misconceptions we often carry throughout our lives is that our perceptions of ourselves and the world are basically accurate and true, that they reflect some stable, ultimate reality.  This misconception leads to tremendous suffering, both globally and in our personal life situations.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening”

#9 – Taking things personally leads to needless conflict and self-inflicted hurt

What someone else says about you or thinks about you, positively or negatively, is all about them, not about you; it is about your behaviour filtered through their belief system – their “shoulds”, “ought tos”, and “musts”.

How do we know this?  Because two different people sizing you up as a person can come up with two very different opinions, one good and one bad – and both can’t be true.

Former U.S. President, Donald Trump, is a prime example of this.  Some voters wanted him impeached while others idolized him.  But he’s just one person and those two opinions are not compatible. So, it’s not about Donald Trump, it’s about each voter’s personal belief system.

So, don’t get upset over nasty things others say to you or about you because it’s got nothing to do with you, but everything to do with them.  

By the same token, don’t get your chest all puffed out when people say nice things about you – because that’s all about them too (and not everyone agrees with them)!

“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.”

Don Miguel Ruiz 

#10 – Your happiness is 100% your own responsibility and comes from within

This is a corollary of #4, this being that it is not external circumstances that dictate whether we’re happy or sad, rather, it is our thinking about those circumstances that does.

If your happiness depends on what other people think of you then you’ve got a miserable life ahead of you because you’ve just made yourself into a helpless victim – your happiness is dependent on factors outside of your control.

Similarly, if your happiness is contingent on being immersed in pleasant circumstances – enjoying a vacation, buying things, taking in a movie – then you’re guaranteed repeated episodes of abject unhappiness because life isn’t an unbroken string of pleasantries.  No, life also includes the mundane and the unpleasant – doing the laundry, getting stuck in traffic, shoveling the driveway, nursing a cold, and going to the dentist.

True happiness is independent of external circumstances and comes from being mindful – living fully in the present moment and taking joy from life’s simplest moments – even doing the laundry!  

It all boils down to what we choose to think about our circumstances. Happiness is a choice – and so is suffering.

It follows from all of this that it is not the responsibility of your spouse, or your parents, siblings, friends, or co-workers to make you happy – that’s totally up to you.  

By the same token, you are not, and cannot be, responsible for others’ happiness – that is totally up to them.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindless by Design

Do you see yourself as being a pretty good person? Of course you do – most everyone does – and is.

So why do we fall short of our best intentions so often?

The unfortunate truth is that we are not designed to be mindful – we have been dealt an evolutionary hand that inclines us to be mindless.

Fortunately, this does not mean that we’re destined to always act in a mindless manner. By being aware of this hand we’ve been dealt we can take steps to minimize its unhelpful tendencies.

Stepping Into the Shoes of a Neanderthal

To help understand these evolutionary influences, let’s consider what would have been important for the survival of our Neanderthal forebears:

Trait #1: The ability to sense potential danger

Back at the dawn of civilization when life-threatening danger was an existential risk, it would have been safer to judge a situation harshly and be wrong than to let down your guard and be wrong.

So, with this as our inherited inclination, we tend to be judgmental:

  • We tend to judge others’ behaviour and, with some frequency, find it wanting because it differs from how we would behave in the same situation. We tend to maintain a running internal dialogue about how others behave, dress, eat, drive – all in an effort to protect our deeply-held views of how the world should work.
  • We’re also self-critical. Why? Because we fear being judged by others and having them find us wanting. We desperately want to fit in and be accepted. This is evidenced by our near-universal fear of public speaking, a prime example of not wanting to be seen as “flawed” in front of others. In our own eyes we’re often not pretty enough, or tall enough, or smart enough, or good enough, or …..
  • We’re also prone to zeroing in on the “bad” things in our life rather than focusing on the “good” things. For example, we’re vacationing at a beautiful Caribbean resort and what do we fixate on? That the waiter is too slow bringing us our drinks, or that it’s too hot, or too cold, or too windy. We are cursed with what is known as a ‘negativity bias‘, the tendency to focus on the bad rather than on the good.
  • When we think about the future we’re often anxious, fretting over what could go wrong. And despite experience to the contrary, we fail to learn that the future tends to turn out just fine and that we were fully up to its challenge.

So, a mechanism that kept our ancestors safe from life-threatening danger now inclines us to be judgmental.

Trait #2: The ability to quickly react to and flee from potential danger.

When faced with potentially life-threatening danger it would have been essential to react immediately. This would not be the time to carefully ponder the wisest way forward.

As a result, all animals (including us humans) developed the ability to react unthinkingly, habitually, and automatically. This is our stress response – the fight-flight-freeze mechanism – driven by one of the oldest parts of our brain, the amygdala. While quick, the amygdala is decidedly not wise.

To be wise we need to access the newest part of our brain – the pre-frontal cortex (PFC), responsible for our executive functioning (emotional control, impulse control, and creativity).

Unfortunately, when we are upset (even by the most trivial of circumstances) our PFC goes off-line and we lose access to our wisdom – just when we need it most. And what do we do when this happens? We think and act mindlessly.

So, once again, that which helped keep our ancient ancestors alive now inclines us to be unwise, reactive individuals which results in some of our most cringe-inducing behavior and stupefyingly bad decisions.

The good news is that there are tell-tale signs when our stress response is about to take our wisdom off-line and turn us into the equivalent of Neanderthals. We experience:

  • a furrowed brow
  • downturned, pursed lips
  • a faster heart beat
  • a tightening of the muscles, especially the jaw
  • a dry mouth
  • faster, shallower breathing
  • an empty feeling in the gut

We need to become sensitized to these sensations and, when they occur, use them as our signal to not continue down that path.

Specifically, we should pause, breathe slowly and deeply, smile, relax our tight muscles, and slow down our thinking.

Doing so activates our calming parasympathetic nervous system, shuts down the amygdala, and helps us access our PFC and its inherent wisdom.

In a calmer, clearer state of mind, we choose to respond to life rather than react to it unthinkingly.

Trait #3: Protecting our own

From an evolutionary standpoint, passing one’s genes on to the next generation is the prime directive.  How is this best accomplished?  By being selfish – looking after yourself first, then those who share most of your genes, and then those who would step forward to raise your offspring should you die prematurely.  In other words, look out for Number One, then relatives, then friends.

Of course, this is a description of being self-centred and indifferent toward those you don’t know.  Little surprise that neither of these traits is compatible with being mindful.

As confirmation of these tendencies one interesting study ran a variation of the Trolley problem the essence of which is to force a participant to decide whether to sacrifice one individual for the sake of saving multiple others.  

Given what we now know, it should come as no surprise that test participants were more willing to sacrifice non-relatives.  In addition, the closer the relation the less likely they were to sacrifice that person for the survival of multiple “others”.

Aware of our tendency to be self-centered, selfish, and nepotistic, we can instead foster the opposite traits – to be generous, considerate, kind, thoughtful, caring, and helpful –  toward everyone, not just those within our limited charmed circle.

Trait #4: The ability to automate repeated tasks

We have a built-in mechanism that turns repeated actions over to the subconscious part of our brain (e.g. learning how to type, learning to play a musical instrument, or learning to play a new sport).

This is obviously a very useful system as it makes us more efficient at such tasks.  Imagine a caveman having to think about each individual muscle movement involved in tossing a spear accurately at a moving target – starvation would quickly result. 

So, through practice, this automating system makes repetitive tasks easy, requiring near-zero conscious thinking.

However, problems arise when we cede too much of our life to this automatic mode; we fail to see the roses, let alone stop to smell them.  Much of life becomes invisible to us.

We’ve all experienced this – we’re driving to work along the same route we’ve used the past umpteen years.  Being repetitive, the task of negotiating the journey is handed off to our subconscious and under the guidance of this automated system we arrive safely at our office but without any real recollection of the terrain we’ve just traversed.  

The sunny day, scudding clouds, passing birds, interesting people, beautiful foliage, while in full view are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to us.

Instead we’re lost in our little thoughts of the past, the future, or spaced out in utter fantasy (how often do we uselessly replay past conversations or do imaginary run-throughs of future ones).

If we are not careful – if we are not mindful – much of our life is lost in the trance of automated behaviour.  

In a life spanning 90 years we are, in effect, dead at 50 having lived much of our life only marginally aware of our surroundings – only marginally aware of what is actually happening in each moment lived.

Trait #5: The drive to do, achieve, and acquire

It has been surmised that the unpleasant feeling we call boredom is actually the essential trait that drove our ancient ancestors to get off their collective butts and innovate for the survival of our species.

Think of it this way – any species for whom doing nothing all day felt totally fantastic – well, they were the ones quickly expunged from the evolutionary record. 

So, while we take the act of “doing things” for granted, it nonetheless is still driven by biological nudges and impulses.  In this instance being the desire to relieve the unpleasant feeling of boredom.

In addition, we also inherited a system that makes us feel good when we are about to acquire a reward (e.g. food, sex, or buying something we crave).   In anticipation of a reward we receive a hit of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that sends signals to the pleasure centres of our brain. 

Put these two systems together – pain for not doing and pleasure for doing – and we are primed as a species to accomplish a great deal.

However, there is a dark side to all this doing and acquiring, this being that there is no logical end to it.  We do, do, do, accomplish, accomplish, accomplish, and acquire, acquire, acquire and yet still feel empty.

Why?  Because no matter how much we do, no matter how much we accomplish, and no matter how much we acquire, it’s never enough. 

As soon as we stop “doing”, the unpleasantness comes back and our craving for another hit of pleasure sends us back for more – we become addicted to “doing”. 

It is this feeling of always falling short that lies at the heart of society’s chronic anxiety, stress, and pervasive dissatisfaction with life – a sense that no matter how fast we go or how much we do, accomplish, or acquire, we never quite ‘make it’ in life; we are chronically discontent.  

Our Evolutionary Inheritance:  Mindlessness

So, these five traits, each one a part of our evolutionary inheritance, incline us to behave mindlessly: 

  • We are inclined to be critical and judgmental of others, ourselves, and situations we encounter.
  • We pay greater heed to the few negative things in life rather than the many positive things.
  • We react to life unthinkingly, habitually, and automatically.
  • We are prone to be self-centred and selfish.
  • We are lacking in compassion for those who are not our close relatives or friends.
  • We cede much of our conscious awareness – much of our life – to automated actions.
  • We are chronically discontent and, therefore, endure a never-ending cycle of doing, achieving, and acquiring.

Needless to say, this is not a great way to live a life.

“I began to wonder whether people were thinking at all.  Decades of research later, I have found the answer is a resounding “NO”.  Mindlessness is pervasive.  In fact, I believe virtually all of our problems – personal, interpersonal, professional, and societal – either directly or indirectly, stem from mindlessness.”

Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and author of, “Mindfulness”

The Solution:  Mindful Awareness

As mentioned earlier, biology is not destiny.  We can take steps to ameliorate the negative aspects of these otherwise useful traits.  How?

  1. By acknowledging their existence.
  2. By sensitizing ourselves to their negative side effects.
  3. By altering our behavior when we sense they are about to influence us to act in a mindless manner.

Only by applying mindful awareness to our base tendencies can we save ourselves from wasting much of life in a fog of mindless behaviour. 

Of course, we’re only human, and so will inevitably fall short of our best intentions from time to time.  However, that’s why it’s called mindfulness practice.  And, with dedicated practice, the frequency of our mindless moments diminishes.

Compassion, Not Judgment

As this essay has made clear, our inherited mindlessness compels us to extend compassion, rather than anger, toward those whose behavior we find offensive; because none of us chose our evolutionary inheritance and it’s not our fault that we are inclined to be mindless.

And the result of extending a compassion that recognizes the innocence of our human frailties?  A kinder, gentler, fairer, more understanding, and more peaceful world for all of us.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

 

 

 

How to be Mindful

Fortunately, mindfulness is a life skill that can be learned by anyone. And you’re going to get there much faster than I did because I’m going to let you in on all the mistakes I made on my own journey!

My personal Path to Mindfulness

What didn’t work!

During my time at university I could pretty much read the assigned textbook and pick up the required knowledge. I thought I could do the same with mindfulness – just casually read about it and, presto, I would become a mindful person.

Well, that approach failed miserably.

It soon became apparent that as long as things were going my way I was fine. However, when challenged by life, all my bad traits still reared their ugly head.

So, despite having acquired a strong intellectual understanding of the core mindfulness teachings, when life didn’t go my way I immediately defaulted back to being judgmental, reactive, unthinking, lacking in compassion, …… Well, you get the picture – I was definitely not mindful!!

What worked!

Here are the steps that turned the corner for me in my quest for mindfulness:

I implemented a daily meditation practice

I belatedly discovered that my intellectual approach to mindfulness had been doomed to failure from the start because it did absolutely nothing to fix the root cause of my mindless behaviour – it didn’t fix the structure of my brain.

In very simplified terms, repeated behaviour builds super-highways in your brain’s neuronal network. These highways become your go-to neuronal pathways. Each episode of mindless behaviour reinforces all the previous ones. Eventually you end up reacting mindlessly to every challenging situation you face, no matter how insignificant.

This is why we all tend to react to the world habitually, unthinkingly, and unconsciously – because this is what we have inadvertently trained our brains to do.

“What makes the Buddha’s understanding of the mind so powerful is the recognition that because perceptions are conditioned by our mental habits, we can also train our perceptions in a way that supports happiness and freedom.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening“

The question then is, how do we break this unhelpful cycle? And the answer? Through a dedicated, daily meditation practice.

While I was studying mindfulness a number of the books I read suggested meditation. However, I routinely ignored those passages. Unfortunately, my short-sighted attitude was, “Right, I’m going to start meditating! I don’t think so!” Meditation just struck me as so much New Age mumbo jumbo.

Well, it turns out I was dead wrong.

I simply cannot stress strongly enough that a daily meditation practice is absolutely essential to achieving mindfulness.

And the reason is this: without changing your brain’s neurological wiring you’re going to keep exhibiting the same old tired, predictable, unhelpful behaviour you’ve always exhibited.

Numerous studies make it clear that regular meditation rewires your brain. It dampens the harsh, reactive part (i.e. the amygdala and related limbic system) while enhancing the wise part (i.e. the frontal cortex).

So, please don’t make my mistake – start a meditation practice today!

I regularly read about mindfulness

As a personal financial advisor for thirty-three years I read extensively about investing from expert sources, mainly academic journals. In doing so, I often came across the same teachings but presented in different ways, each one helping to deepen my understanding. In this manner the material became deeply ingrained in my mind.

My study of mindfulness followed the exact same path; repeated exposure lead to deeper understanding. This process helped immeasurably to ingrain these teachings into who I now am – a more mindful individual.

To help you follow this same path I have provided a list of suggested readings, all from highly-respected authors and presenters.

I make quiet time to ponder what I read

The profundity of mindfulness wisdom is not readily grasped through casual reading; it just isn’t. It must be pondered. Setting aside time for quiet reflection of the teachings is essential.

Yes, I know, the thought of fitting yet another task into an already busy day may seem unrealistic. But life is always a case of prioritizing what really matters to us. Only you can weigh the importance of leading a more peaceful, contented life.

I sought out daily exposure to mindfulness wisdom

In addition to daily reading, early in my exploration of mindfulness I also made use of the following three resources to provide a quick dose of daily wisdom:

  1. “Arriving at Your Own Door – 108 Lessons in Mindfulness“, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
  2. “The Power of Now – 50 Inspiration Cards“, by Eckhart Tolle
  3. “The Four Agreements – 48 Cards“, by Don Miguel Ruiz

I incorporated some quick and simple mindfulness practices into my daily routine

When I talk about a “mindfulness practice” I am referring to two distinct parts:

  1. A formal daily meditation practice.
  2. Informal mindfulness practice. These techniques, some of which are outlined below, are quick and easy, designed to be incorporated into one’s daily routine to help keep us mindful.
Informal Mindfulness Practices

Here are some quick and easy mindfulness practices you can use throughout your day or whenever you are feeling anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed:

  1. Download a mindful-moment reminder app to your cell phone. An example is one called “Mindful Me” that can be set to chime on a frequency of your choosing.   Each time it chimes simply stop whatever you’re doing and take a short mindful break making use of one or more of the techniques outlined below.
  2. Take a 5-senses break. Stop whatever you’re doing and cycle through your senses – touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight – and focus briefly but intently on each one in turn.
  3. Use your non-dominant hand. Unless you happen to be ambidextrous, briefly using your non-dominant hand to work on a physical task forces you out of auto-pilot and into the present moment because you suddenly have to focus intently on what you’re doing.
  4. Take a ponder break. Stop what you’re doing and, using one of the wisdom-quote tools referenced above (e.g. “The Power of Now – 50 Inspiration Cards“), take a moment to ponder the wisdom presented. Doing so will bring you into the present moment and help to incorporate the wisdom deep into your brain.
  5. Keep mindfulness reminders around such as a small Buddha figurine or a mindful computer screen-saver or background image – little things to periodically snap you out of your fog of thinking and back into the present moment.  
  6. Periodically take a break and go into what I refer to as “photography mode”, looking for interesting photo opportunities.  Rekindling the curiosity from your childhood in this manner takes you out of the confines of your tiny skull and into the wonders of the present moment. This is a wonderful exercise when you’re stuck in a slow-moving grocery line or in traffic. 
  7. Practice S.T.O.P. :  1) Stop whatever you are doing. 2) Take a few slow, deep breaths. 3) Observe any troubling thoughts, feelings, and emotions, becoming consciously aware of them and naming them (“I’m feeling anger”, “I’m feeling frustration”, etc.).  Naming a feeling has been found to diminish its ill effect. 4) Proceed to do yourself a kindness; go for a brief stroll, grab a healthy snack, etc. This helpful exercise is nicely summarized by Dr. Elisha Goldstein in an article she wrote for Mindful magazine.
  8. Before picking up the phone, answering an email, or leaving a return voice message, take two mindful breaths and reaffirm your intention to be mindful and to embody compassion, understanding, peace, kindness, patience, and love – all integral components of what it means to be mindful. Your interaction will assuredly be better for having done so.
  9. Let the first minute of every meeting be one of silence.  Doing so helps calm participants’ minds, essential to accessing the creativity, emotional control, and impulse control resident in the frontal cortex of the brain.
  10. Take a gratitude break. Periodically pause whatever you’re doing and reflect on all the things you are grateful for in your life. This practice brings us back into the present moment and helps overcome our negativity bias.
  11. When doing a chore, focus your full attention on just doing the chore because doing so keeps you in the present moment and so helps alleviate frustration and impatience. This runs counter to our norm which is to begrudge having to do the chore and so try to rush our way through it. But not only does this not make the chore go any faster, it also renders it totally unpleasant because our attention is focused on its unpleasant nature. Better to simply accept that chores are a necessary part of life and just do them, minus the drama.
  12. Go for a mindful stroll. This is a form of walking meditation – you simply pay close attention to the physical sensations you feel in your feet as you walk. Doing so keeps you in the present moment and settles an over-active mind.
  13. Keep some of your favourite comics close at hand and, periodically, throughout your day, read a couple to yourself. My personal favourites are Herman (by Jim Unger), Dilbert (by Scott Adams), and The Far Side (by Gary Larson). Doing so brings you into the present moment and helps you to lighten up and stop taking things so seriously.
  14. Wear a distinctive band on your finger or wrist and each time you notice it, use it as a reminder to slow down and be mindful.
  15. Take a moment each day to practice a random act of kindness. Grand gestures are not required here, just simple acts that let others know you care.  They need not even know that you are their secret patron.  Doing so gets you out of your tiny little world of self and into the broader, joyous world of caring for each other.
  16. Do a quick body scan. Close your eyes and consciously turn your focus to each of the parts of your body in sequence, taking in the feeling of warmth or cool, tingling, the feel of your clothes against your skin, etc. This exercise, which takes only a minute or two, calms and focuses the mind and brings you back to the present moment.
  17. Practice mindful eating. Whenever you’re eating, focus all your attention on just eating, noting the appearance, aroma, taste, texture, and even the sound of what you are eating.  Again, this practice keeps us in the present moment.
  18. Half a day a week, keep a tally of all the times you experience negative feelings and emotions. This practice not only keeps you in the present moment by forcing you to stay alert to your feelings, it is also excellent practice for noticing when your wisdom is going off-line, which is each time you experience negative feelings and emotions! These are your cue to pause, slow down your thinking, breathe, laugh at yourself, accept reality with equanimity, and proceed with wisdom.
  19. Take a smile break. Periodically throughout your day stop whatever it is you are doing, take a few slow, deep breaths, and just smile, physically or just in your mind. This practice brings you back into the present moment, improves your mood, and forces you to lighten up and stop taking yourself, and life in general, so darned seriously.  The simple act of smiling, even if faked, has been found to release such beneficial hormones as dopamine (the ‘feel-good’ hormone), serotonin (calming), and endorphins (our body’s natural pain killer).
  20. Practice colour awareness. Choose a colour, any colour, and then for the next hour take note each time you encounter it as you go about your day. Doing so keeps you in the present moment and nurtures the habit of consciously noticing the world – to stop and smell the roses (or at least notice their colour)!
Some General Mindfulness Practices

In addition to the daily informal practices listed above, here are a handful of general practices that will also help you become, and remain, mindful!

  1. Slowwwwww dowwwwwwn!!!  Doing so not only reduces stress but also helps you make better decisions.  How?  By calming the reactive part of your brain (the amygdala, the locus of our fight, flight, freeze stress mechanism) and putting you back in touch with the wise part of your brain (the pre-frontal cortex, responsible to emotional control, impulse control, and creativity).  
  2. Get regular exercise.  Not only will you feel better physically, but doing so has also been shown to improve mood, decrease anxiety and stress, and helps us sleep better.
  3. And speaking of sleep, get a good night’s sleep! Lack of sleep makes us irritable, anxious, emotionally reactive, easily frustrated, impulsive, prone to negative, repetitive thinking, and lacking in empathy. 
  4. Seek out quiet solitude on a regular basis.  Give your brain a much-needed rest.  Turn off your cellphone, put away your earbuds, slip into your hiking boots, and head out for a peaceful stroll through a nearby forest (or wherever you can get away from the rush and noise of life).
  5. Set up a quiet room in your home dedicated to meditation or simply opportunities to be on your own, in peace and quiet, so you may close your eyes and decompress.   
  6. Learn to say “no” to undesired requests of your time.  
  7. Actively maintain simplicity in your life.  If you don’t set boundaries on what’s important to you, life will set them for you, and it’s most unlikely you’re going to be happy with its choices.
  8. Practice being content with doing nothing at all.  Turn an old saying on its head:  “Don’t just do something, sit there.”  In my own experience, this will not be easy, for we are a society of “doers”, anxious if we encounter even a brief moment without an activity to fill the void.  Our cellphones have become little more than adult pacifiers.  What on earth did people do before the advent of such devices!?  Relax more, perhaps?  🙂
“Patience, Young Grasshopper”  

Lastly, your journey on the path to mindfulness will be aided by nurturing these qualities:  patience, non-judgment, and perseverance.

Patience & Non-Judgment

Am I always mindful?  Of course not – I’m human!

So, as you practice mindfulness, be patient and gentle with yourself when you periodically fall short of your best intentions. Just acknowledge each stumble and then continue with your journey on the path of mindfulness.

Perseverance 

As with acquiring any new skill, some stick-to-it-ness is essential. 

“It’s not hard to be mindful, it just takes training to remember to be mindful.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening“

Should you need incentive from time to time, just keep in mind the reward for your practice:  a happier, more peaceful, better-lived life. 

How many undertakings can promise that?  Not many. 

“When Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT – based on mindfulness) was taught to abused teenagers in the Atlanta foster care system, simply being exposed to the class didn’t have a significant effect.  But the more the kids practised, the bigger the reduction in stress hormones and inflammation.”

Jo Marchant, author of “Cure – A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body“

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life


Mental Benefits of Being Mindful

In the previous post we learned what it means to be mindful. But you may be asking yourself, “Okay, so what’s the big deal? Why should we care if we’re being mindful or not?”

That’s a fair question, because becoming mindful (just like learning any new skill) will require a modicum of effort, commitment, and practice on your part. Good things rarely come easy, so there had better be a payoff in the end.

And there is, because I’ve personally experienced it.

The Promise of leading a mindful life

Based on my own personal experience (and confirmed by untold others), here are some of the benefits of instituting a daily mindfulness practice:

  1. Your stress and anxiety levels will decrease materially.
  2. Pointless moments spent dwelling on past regrets or future worries will steadily diminish.
  3. You will be calmer, more at peace, and begin to live life with an ease of being.
  4. You will notice yourself becoming less ruffled by life’s challenges and petty annoyances.
  5. Your life will feel less rushed (even if filled with much activity).
  6. You will experience less conflict with others and whatever conflict does arise, you will handle it with greater grace, ease, and wisdom.
  7. You will be less judgmental, of yourself and others.
  8. You will be more compassionate, understanding, and considerate of others.
  9. You will be more generous.
  10. You will be more patient.
  11. You will be more accepting of whatever life brings your way.
  12. You will be more easy-going, more able to lighten up and start taking life less seriously.
  13. You will be more comfortable in your own skin, less egotistic, more able to laugh at yourself, more confident about who you are as a person (warts and all), and less affected by what other people think of you.
  14. You will respond to life’s challenges with wisdom rather than react to them habitually and unthinkingly.
  15. Your external circumstances will no longer dictate whether you are happy or sad.
  16. You will experience greater joy, most noticeably from the simplest of things.
  17. You will notice and sense more and, in doing so, find that the world becomes more interesting.
  18. The feeling of boredom will virtually disappear from your life.
  19. Your ability to focus on the task at hand will increase.

In short, the promise of mindfulness practice is to help us become better people and to lead happier, healthier lives. This is why it’s worth bothering about.

Well, if it’s this good, why doesn’t everyone choose mindfulness?

I believe there are a number of reasons most people do not practice mindfulness:

  1. While mindfulness is steadily making its way into popular culture, most people remain unaware of it.
  2. Mindfulness is not yet taught in most of our schools.
  3. Most people lead such hectic lives that, even with the best of intentions, making room for mindfulness practice just doesn’t happen.
  4. Even with full awareness of mindfulness and its benefits, becoming a mindful individual requires a long-term commitment. Given society’s short attention span, this is a tall order for most people.
  5. Becoming mindful also requires quiet reflection, particularly through daily meditation sessions. In this manner the teachings become an integral part of who you are. However, society’s frantic pace is antithetical to making time for moments of quiet reflection.
  6. Our evolutionary inheritance biases us toward being mindless (see this post).
  7. Tragically, being mindless is our cultural norm and so seems, well, normal; just the way life is, with no reason to give a moment’s thought that there’s perhaps a different way – a better way – to lead a life.
Not Mindful? Then You’re Mindless

The opposite of being mindful is to be mindless.

To get a feel for what this means, take a moment to re-read the nineteen Promises of Mindfulness listed above but, this time, mentally make each one into its exact opposite.

For example, point number one becomes: “Your stress and anxiety levels will increase materially” – if you are mindless.

Take some time to observe those around you and ask yourself if this exercise doesn’t paint a pretty fair picture of most people’s lives – perhaps even your own! Needless to say, this is not a healthy way to get through life.

This is why practicing mindfulness is so important; it provides us with the means to counter our base human tendencies and become better, happier, wiser people.

“Our minds are reactive: liking and disliking, judging and comparing, clinging and condemning. As long as we’re identified with these judgments and preferences … our minds are continually thrown out of balance, caught in a tiring whirlwind of reactivity.

It is through the power of mindfulness that we can come to a place of balance and rest. Mindfulness is that quality of attention which notices without choosing, without preference; it is a choiceless awareness.”

Excerpt from “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom” by Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield

Mindfulness benefits

In the previous post this is how we defined mindfulness:

mind-ful-ness: noun. 1. on purpose, non-judgmental, moment-to-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, senses, and bodily sensations. 2.  being focused on, and accepting with equanimity, whatever you are experiencing in the present moment. 3. focusing on the present moment and not dwelling on the past or the future.  4. purposely noticing and being curious about the world around you. 5. choosing wise, compassionate behaviour rather than reacting mindlessly.

Let’s explore the rationale behind some of these components:

1. You choose to focus your attention on what is happening at this present moment.

If your mind isn’t focused on the present moment then you’ve got a wandering mind or, more colourfully, a monkey mind. In such a state your thoughts are scattered and you carry on an incessant monologue with yourself. To some extent the only difference between you and the “crazy” guy who talks to himself is that you have the good sense to keep your mouth shut!

Why this mode of thinking is unhealthy is that a mind not focused on the present moment is an anxious, unhappy mind. 

This was confirmed by an interesting study done by two Harvard psychologists who discovered that we are not thinking about what we are doing almost half the time – our thoughts are in the past or in the future – not in the present moment.

While interesting in itself, their key finding was that we are happiest when we are thinking about what we are doing. This means we are happiest when we are being mindful.

Of course, if we’re spending half our time not thinking about what we’re actually doing, then we are effectively cutting our lifetime in half! Think about it; time spent in the past or future or simply zoned out in semi-conscious auto-pilot is time un-lived. Imagine being able to double your actual lived life simply by focusing on the present moment! This is the power of mindfulness.

2. You choose not to dwell on an unchangeable past or fret about an unknowable future.

The only moment we get to experience is the present moment. Dwelling on the past just causes angst because we can’t do anything about it. The only thing we can do about past regrets is to take responsibility and make things right in the present moment.

Similarly, fussing over the future just leads to stress and anxiety because the future is unknowable and not actionable – it can only be dealt with when it becomes the present.

And the plain truth is that the future inevitably turns out to be far better than we feared. This is delightfully captured in a quote from the French Renaissance philosopher, Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592):

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”

Of course, avoiding thinking about the future doesn’t mean we don’t plan for it. But planning is obviously a very different type of thinking than the scattered, worried thoughts we have when dreading some future situation.

3. You focus on one task at a time and give it your undivided attention.

This is simply a different way of phrasing the first component of mindfulness – to focus your attention on what is happening at this present moment.

I break it out separately because we live in a world where multi-tasking has become the pernicious norm. Tragically, it is also the cause of needless anxiety and stress.

In the article, “The Perils of Multitasking“, from Psychology Today we learn that multi-tasking:

  • Interferes with learning.
  • Reduces productivity.
  • Promotes stress and fatigue.
  • Becomes addictive and chronic through use.
  • Leads to a short attention span.
  • Reduces working memory capacity.

And the stated solution to this litany of woes? To quote the article, “To use mental discipline to condition good attentiveness and thinking habits”. In other words, to practice mindfulness!

4. You experience life directly through your senses.

To become aware of your body’s sensory inputs – hearing, seeing, feeling, etc. – you have to pay attention.

Living life directly through your senses means actually noticing life as it unfolds: you make it your practice to take note of your coffee’s aroma, to consciously hear the chickadees chirping on the branch outside your window, and to feel the cool evening breeze against your exposed skin.

Living life in this manner forces us into the present moment, which is when we’re happiest. And it also gives us the opportunity to take in and treasure the richness of our world.

5. You choose to live life with the renewed curiosity of a child instead of the jaded familiarity and disinterest of an adult.  You consciously try to notice things and look for the fine details in the familiar as if experiencing them for the first time. 

Jaded familiarity and disinterest put us into auto-pilot mode, living out our life without actually consciously experiencing much of it.

But life is way too precious to waste in such a zoned-out state of mind where all we tend to experience is our old tired thoughts and judgmental commentary.

Just as with living life directly through our senses, active curiosity and noticing keep us in the present moment and help us treasure life’s simplest moments. We become grateful simply for being alive and having the opportunity to take in all of life’s many wonders.

Think of it this way – how precious would your “boring” commute to work be if you knew that by day’s end you were going to lose your ability to see and hear? How beautiful would the sky seem that day? How precious the sound of a passing jet? The answer is obvious.

6. You choose to respond to life’s challenges and frustrations with compassion rather than reacting unthinkingly and automatically with ego-centric aggression.

Simply put, getting upset over life’s unpleasant moments is a complete and utter waste of time. It achieves nothing of value but does much harm:

  • Your mental and physical health is compromised (see this post).
  • You become a decidedly unpleasant menace to those around you.

Better to accept that whatever comes your way is simply part of life. Then just deal with, with equanimity and in a matter-of-fact, calm manner because:

  1. Remaining calm permits your wisdom to come to the fore. In an agitated state you are thinking with the emotionally-reactive part of your brain (i.e. your amygdala). In such a state your resulting words and actions will inevitably be neither helpful nor wise.
  2. You do no damage to your mental and physical well-being.
  3. You do no harm, mentally or physically, to those around you.
  4. You make the world a better place, contributing to its peace rather than its aggression.

7. Through practice you develop moment-to-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations and you use them as your guide to choosing the path of wisdom.

One of the greatest gifts I have received through mindfulness practice is a greater ability to sense, in the moment, when my wisdom is going off-line.

The blizzard of negative thoughts, the furrowed brow, tensed jaw, flushed face, clenched fists, the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, and the tightness in my chest all shout out their warning: STOP!! DO NOT PROCEED!!

These are my cues to immediately pause, breathe, relax my body, and slow down my thinking. Only then is it prudent for me to speak or act because if I proceed in an agitated state the outcome will not be one I look back at with pride.

Mindfulness – my only regret

When it comes to mindfulness, my only regret is that no one told me about it in my youth. So much needless, useless, silly drama could have been avoided.

This now serves as my primary motivation to spread the gospel, so to speak, so that others may avoid my pointless moments of drama and, in doing so, live fuller, richer, happier lives.

You would be doing me a great favour were you to bring my blog to the attention of friends and family, and I thank you for doing so.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life