Mindful Awareness is a way of tuning in to what is happening right now, at this moment. It is a shift from Doing Mode into Being Mode. Mindful Awareness involves the skills of Observing, Describing, Fully Participating, Being Non-Judgmental, and Focusing on One Thing at a Time.
1.0 What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness simply means paying attention to the present moment. Think about the last time you were stressed out. Did the stress have anything to do with something that happened in the past? Did it have anything to do with something that may or may not happen in the future? How much of the stress had to do with what is going on right now, in this present moment, as you are reading this sentence?
The modern world has conditioned us to live in our heads. We so often get caught up in our thinking cycles that we forget how to pay attention to what’s going on right now in the world around us. This thinking process kicks into overdrive when we’re caught in depressing or anxious thought cycles. One negative thought leads to another, and another, until soon we’re caught in a snowball of negativity.
We’re so conditioned to these thought cycles that sometimes we aren’t even aware that they’re happening until we suddenly find ourselves stressing out. It’s as if our thoughts are a film running at double speed.
What if we could somehow slow that film projector so that we could look at each thought frame by frame? By engaging our ability to observe and describe our own thoughts to ourselves, we are able to do just that. Mindfulness is a way to engage the internal observer that lives inside of each of us so that we can pay attention to life moment by moment.
Each of us has an upstairs brain and a downstairs brain. The upstairs part of the brain is the part that does the thinking, and the downstairs part of the brain is the part that does the feeling. When stressful or depressing thoughts and feelings become too much to bear, our downstairs brains engage. This downstairs brain is only concerned with three things: fighting, fleeing, or freezing. When downstairs brain is in charge, our natural tendency is to want to do something to fix the situation. The problem there is that the upstairs brain is the part that comes up with solutions to problems. So when downstairs brain is engaged, the only solutions we can see are those involving fighting, fleeing, or freezing. In short, when we’re stressed or depressed, the part of the brain that does the doing is temporarily out of order.
1.1 Doing Mode vs. Being Mode
One way mindfulness can help in this situation is by moving from doing mode to being mode. In doing mode we’re trying to come up with solutions, or trying to stop the anxiety or depression, or trying to escape from the repercussions of the problem. In being mode, we’re just allowing ourselves some space to be in the moment, without trying to push the problem away or solve it (remember, trying is doing).
The first step to leaving doing mode is to become aware of the ways in which we engage in it. To explore this idea, go to the exercise on the worksheet download below.
1.2 Engaging in Being Mode
When we move our attention from the thinking cycle to the sensing cycle, we often find that it is not necessary to do anything right now. When we leave doing, we enter being.
Think of it this way: Imagine that I held a belief that I should never have a cloudy day. This belief says that every time I go outside the sun should be shining. If I held such a belief, I’d be setting myself up for disappointment, because cloudy days are a natural part of the weather. If I expected that the sun would always be shining, I would have an unrealistic expectation of the way the weather works.
We sometimes create unrealistic expectations for ourselves by assuming that stressful or depressing thoughts and feelings are somehow not ‘natural.’ In fact, just the opposite is true. It is perfectly natural to have stressful or depressing thoughts and feelings from time to time.
Try this sometime: Ask everyone you know if they’ve never in their entire lives had a depressing or stressful thought. I’m willing to bet that you won’t be able to find anyone who would say that they’ve never been depressed or anxious. That’s because, like cloudy days, stressful and depressing feelings are a natural part of being alive.
If we can accept that we don’t have to do anything to fix cloudy days, we can accept that we don’t have to do anything to fix negative thoughts and feelings as well. In fact, sometimes our attempts to fix such thought cycles could be the very thing that makes them worse. Here’s an example of how this process works:
Suppose I am prone to panic attacks. One day I find myself feeling anxious. I can tell by the way my thoughts are racing and by the way my body feels that my anxiety is rising. I know from previous experience that rising anxiety has led to panic attacks in the past. As I realize this, my anxiety increases even more because I’m afraid that I’m about to have yet another panic attack. So I try to do something to stop it by trying to force myself to calm down. But “trying to calm down” is doing mode. The harder I try to calm down, the more I stress out about the fact that I can’t calm down. The more I stress out about the fact that I can’t seem to calm down, the more my anxiety rises, because I’m trying to do something to fix it, and what I’m doing isn’t working. The more I fail at fixing it, the more I stress out and try even harder to fix it. This cycle builds and builds until I have another full-blown panic attack.
What if, when I felt my anxiety rising, I was able to say, “Oh, that’s another panic attack about to happen. I’ve had them before. Yes, they’re unpleasant, but I’ve managed to survive them. No need to try to stop it.”
In this case, I’m not trying to do anything. I’m not trying to stop the attack. I’ve consciously chosen to sit with it and be in the moment with the experience, paying attention to and describing the sensations to myself. Because I’m not engaging in doing mode by trying to fix something, I’m not adding to the anxiety. I’m just allowing things to happen in their own time, while I observe with my senses. From this perspective, even if I do have another panic attack, I’m being still with it and observing it rather than interacting with it. I know from previous experience that it won’t kill me, however unpleasant the experience might be. I’m engaging my internal observer to be with the experience.
This ability to pay attention to the present moment is the essence of being mode. To gain some insight into how to explore Being Mode, go on to the next worksheet download on the link below and complete the exercise on Ways to Engage in Being Mode.
1.3 Skills of Mindfulness
For purposes of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy, the primary goal of mindfulness is to leave doing mode and enter into being mode. This may be accomplished through the following six skills:
- Observing
- Describing
- Fully participating
- Focusing on one thing at a time
- Being non-judgmental
- The power of intention
The next sections will describe each of these skills in turn. As you read the sections below, think about how each of the skills of mindfulness would help you to focus on your moment-to-moment experience of the world, and to leave doing mode and enter into being mode.
1.4 Observing
The next time you’re out in the woods, find a tree and look at it closely. It may be a tree that you’ve walked past several times before. This time, look at it in a different way. Imagine you’re an artist who is about to draw or paint this tree. Do you see it differently when you think about it in these terms? Do you notice how many different shades of color there are in its bark and leaves? Do you see how the light and shadow fall on it? How many leaves are there? How many branches? Is your experience of the tree completely new when you look at it in this way? The mindful skill of observing allows us to be present with the tree, or with our environment, or with others, by focusing on our moment-to-moment experience. It is a way of leaving thinking mode and entering into sensing mode. When we leave thinking mode, we become open to what our senses are telling us in the here and now.
This technique may also be used to observe our own inner cycles of thinking and feeling. If we are experiencing strong emotional states like anxiety, sadness, or depression, we may use the skill of observing, along with the skill of describing, to simply note the experience in the moment without having to react to it.
This
observation of our own inner states is an eventual goal of Mindfulness-Based
Ecotherapy, but for now we’re just going to practice observing and describing
things with neutral emotional content, like trees, plants, and other objects
readily found in nature.
1.5 Describing
Describing works hand-in-hand with observing. It is a way of noting what our senses are telling us. In the example of the tree above, describing would be used to note the characteristics of each detail of the tree. Perhaps the leaves are various shades of brown. In the fall, they may be a rainbow of autumn colors. In the spring, blossoms might present a different palette. The texture of the bark might be rough or smooth, with fine variegations or with large reticulations. There will be a specific aroma associated with each individual tree.
There may also be sounds that a particular tree makes as the wind blows through the leaves. If you were a sightless person, would you be able to distinguish one tree from another simply by the sound the wind makes in the leaves? Would you be able to identify a tree by its aroma?
These are the describing skills of mindfulness. By describing our moment to moment experiences to ourselves in context, we are able to live richer and more meaningful lives. We are also able to consciously choose to shift attention away from troubling thought and feeling patterns and onto the world of our immediate experience.
When it comes to regulating our emotional states, we may also use our describing skills to experience strong emotions in the present. By describing these states to ourselves, we are able to step outside of the maelstrom of feelings that they generate. We are able to focus on the bigger picture without becoming overwhelmed.
This is an eventual goal of the tool of describing, but for now we’re just going to gain practice with the technique by examining things with neutral emotional content.
Go to the next download below and complete the Observing and Describing Nature exercise.
1.6 Reflections on Observing and Describing
Did you note any differences in your stress level before and after the exercise? If so, what happened is that you moved your mental energy from the thinking part of your brain to the sensing part of your brain. Your brain only has a finite amount of energy it can devote to a given task. By re-directing your brain’s energy to the activity of observing and describing your chosen plant, you took energy out of any stressful thought cycles. So if you observed any decrease in stress after the exercise, you starved the anxiety wolf and fed the sensory wolf. This means that you moved energy out of the anxiety cycle and put energy into the sensory cycle, adding to your experience of the present moment.
Optional Activity: The Last Kiss
(For each session there will be optional exercises that you may do on your own, or under the guidance of a facilitator if you are taking this course as part of a workshop. They will be included in these insert boxes in the materials for each session)
I love chocolate. There have been times when I’ve been absent-mindedly eating chocolate kisses while working on the computer. On occasion I’ve reached into the bag only to find it empty. At those times I’ve thought to myself, “I wish I’d realized that the last one I ate was the last kiss in the bag! If I had known, I would have paid more attention to it!”
There was nothing different about the last kiss in the bag. It was just like all the other kisses in the bag. What was different was the fact that I should have been focusing my attention on it.
What if we were able to focus our attention on every kiss? What if we could make every kiss as important as the last one? Try this exercise with a piece of chocolate. If you cannot eat chocolate, you may wish to use a raisin or other small food item.
- Hold the chocolate in your hand. Observe it and describe it to yourself. Picture yourself as an artist about to draw this piece of chocolate. How many colors do you see? What is its shape? How do the light and the shadow fall on it?
- Now unwrap the chocolate and hold the wrapper up to your ear. Close your eyes and rub the wrapper between your fingers. What does it sound like? If you were a blind person, would you be able to identify the wrapper simply by the sound it makes?
- Now place the chocolate on your tongue, but don’t bite it. Allow it to slowly dissolve. Where on your tongue can you first taste it? The four basic taste buds are sweet, sour, salt and bitter. Can you taste each of these sensations?
- Pay close attention to your sense of smell. Can you notice any aroma as you eat the chocolate?
- Now savor the chocolate as if it is the last piece of chocolate on earth. There is nothing to do right now but to enjoy this piece of chocolate.
Did the exercise above change your experience of chocolate in any way? If so, you’ve learned the art of fully participating.
1.7 Fully Participating
Many of us live inside our own heads from time to time. We get caught up in thinking about the day-to-day tasks of living. We all have to-do lists that we constantly go over during the day. Sometimes these lists become so long that we begin to feel overwhelmed. When this happens, the art of fully participating allows us to slow down and enjoy the experience of each moment. Fully participating is another way to shift from Doing Mode into Being Mode.
Think about the last time you talked to a loved one. Were you fully participating in the conversation, or were you busily texting someone on your cell phone while conversing? Were you one-on-one with the other person, or were you watching television while chatting? Were you really there for them, or were you also plugging away on your laptop computer while attempting to hold a conversation?
How about the last time you went for a drive in the country? Were you focusing on absorbing the scenery, or was your mind on something else? Did you take the time to enjoy the experience, or were you so busy thinking things over that you forgot to stop and smell the roses?
Fully participating means putting all of your attention into what’s going on right now, at this moment. By participating in life moment to moment we are able to live life more fully. To experiment with Fully Participating, try the optional Last Kiss exercise on the previous page.
1.8 Focusing on One Thing at a Time
The mindful skill of focusing on one thing at a time works together with fully participating. Focusing on one thing at a time means not getting caught up in endless to-do lists until we overwhelm ourselves. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. If we focus on the thousand miles, we’ll be too overwhelmed to take the first step; but if we focus only on the first step, then the next, then the next, eventually the journey will be over and we will have reached our destination.
Focusing on one thing at a time is the realization that the way to complete a thousand-mile journey is to avoid the temptation to focus on the thousand miles. If we focus on the thousand miles to come rather than on the first step, we may become so overwhelmed that we never want to take that first step. By focusing only on one step, or on one thing, at a time, mindfulness allows us to let go of the anxiety that comes with having a full agenda.
A way to practice focusing on one thing at a time in our daily lives is to ask ourselves, “What is the smallest step I can take today that will make a difference?” while remembering that sometimes the answer to that question might be, “No steps at all.” Mindful awareness allows us the wisdom to know that sometimes it’s okay if the only things we do today are to breathe and to enjoy life in the moment.
One way to accomplish this goal is to ask ourselves, “What is the worst thing that could happen in this situation?”
This doesn’t mean that we’re being dismissive of the situation. Instead, it means that we are consciously evaluating things to see what might happen if we lose sight of our goals. If we can identify what the worst thing is in a given situation, and we can prepare ourselves for it, then anything else that may happen is already accounted for.
For example, if I’m stressed out about a huge project at work, I am probably worried that I might not get the project completed by the deadline. If I don’t make the deadline, the worst thing that can happen in that situation is that I may get fired if I don’t complete the project on time. I could prepare myself for the worst thing by asking myself, “Is it really likely that they’d fire me for not completing this project on time? Can my company really afford to lose an employee who stresses out this much about missing a deadline?”
If I judge the answer to this question to be “yes,” then I might want to ask myself if I really want to work for a company that places so little value on employees who try their best. And of course, if the answer is “no,” then I may be needlessly stressing myself out over an outcome even I don’t think is likely to occur. In such a case, the ability to focus on one thing at a time might actually be the thing that allows me to set aside my anxiety and concentrate on the job at hand so that I can complete it one step at a time, and to make the deadline.
1.9 Being Non-Judgmental
Think about how many times in the past stressful and depressing thoughts may have arisen because you misjudged a person, place or situation. Such misjudging usually happens by making assumptions about the person’s intentions or about the situation. The mindful skill of being non-judgmental is the skill of letting go of our preconceptions and assumptions about others. It means letting go of judgments about the way the world works, especially if those judgments lead to negative consequences. It also means letting go of our own negative self-judgments.
Consider this example of how judgments can alter our reality:
Suppose I have a bad experience that leads me to make the judgment that “everyone is out to get me.” That judgment is going to set my perception filter to look for evidence that confirms this assumption, while rejecting evidence that denies this assumption. This means that I’m going to see only the things that I want to see. In this particular case, the things I’ve set my perception filter to see are the things that affirm my judgment that “everybody is out to get me.”
Notice that once I’ve set my perception filter in this way, everyone starts looking like they’re out to get me. Suppose I meet someone who is being nice to me. This person is treating me well, because this person is not out to get me. But since my perception filter is set based on the assumption, “everyone is out to get me,” I’m going to perceive this person’s niceness as an attempt to butter me up so that they may take advantage of me later. My perception filter sees a person who is being nice because they want something from me.
Now further suppose that I go around treating everyone as if they’re out to get me, based on this judgment and this assumption. What’s going to happen? Isn’t it true that all the nice people in my life will eventually get tired of being treated like they’re up to something? When they finally get tired of being treated in this way, they’re going to stop trying to interact with me. That means that the people who really aren’t out to get me will eventually go away, and soon the only people who will interact with me are the people who really are out to get me. So by making a judgment, I’ve created a reality in which everyone I meet is out to get me.
Being non-judgmental teaches us not to have false senses of expectation about ourselves and others. Being non-judgmental means not making assumptions that can cause our perception filters to create realities we may not want to experience. When we have learned the art of being non-judgmental, we have learned to be with others and with ourselves in the moment, free of judgments, assumptions and false perceptions about ourselves, others, nature, and the world around us.
1.10 The Power of Intention
We can talk about problems all day, but until we start talking about solutions, nothing will ever get solved. The way to solve a problem is to take positive, intentional steps towards finding a solution.
All of the skills of mindfulness come together in the power of intention. A mindful life is a life lived deliberately. Such a consciously lived life is not driven about on the winds of whim and fortune. It is a purposeful life. The power of intention helps us to solve problems in a purposeful manner. It is possible to live a life of purpose through tapping into this power. The way to use the power of intention is to begin by asking two questions:
1. What am I trying to accomplish here?
2. Are my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors going to help me to achieve this goal?
To practice the power of intention, go on to the next worksheet below and try the Power of Intention activity.
1.11 Achieving Mindful Awareness
By using the six mindfulness skills outlined in Session 1, we are able to move towards achieving mindful awareness. The skills of observing, describing, fully participating, focusing on one thing at a time, being non-judgmental, and the power of intention allow us to experience life more fully in the present moment by consciously choosing to focus on our immediate experiences.
It has been said that there are three ways to deal with a problem. The first is to solve it. If it is a problem that cannot be solved, then the second way to deal with it is to change the way we think about it so that it is no longer a problem. If we can’t change the way we think about it, then we may just have to accept that this is the way things are.
The more experience we gain in achieving mindful awareness, the more we are able to move towards a state of radical acceptance. Such acceptance allows us to deal with life as it really is, in the present moment.
The most basic feature of mindfulness involves simply paying attention to the present moment. One way to do this is to focus only on your breathing, without thinking about anything. If a thought comes to mind, simply note it and let it go, without judging yourself or the thought. It’s perfectly natural that thoughts will try to surface, because we are taught to be thinking creatures. However, as you practice with mindful awareness, it will get easier to let those thoughts go, so don’t get frustrated if it is difficult at first.
Remember that it’s not a question of trying not to have any thoughts.
A better way to picture it is as ripples on a pond. The water in the pond is your thoughts. The ripples are the troublesome or negative thoughts. If you try to smooth out the pond you’ll only succeed in making more waves. But if you sit quietly and wait for the pond to settle down on its own, soon your pond will be as smooth as glass.
The features of mindfulness are tools that we may use to help to smooth out the surface of our own inner ponds. When we are able to achieve such a state at will, we have achieved mindful awareness.
Mindfulness is a skill like any other. It can sometimes be difficult to learn at first, because it is so diametrically opposed to the way we’re accustomed to thinking, acting, and doing. Some of the techniques of mindfulness may feel strange at first, simply because they are different.
“Different” doesn’t mean “better” or “worse,” it simply means “different.”
There’s an old saying in therapy circles that, “Insanity is doing the same thing in the same ways and expecting different results.” To put it another way, if what you’re doing isn’t working, then doing more of the same isn’t going to work either. If we’ve been doing things that lead to negative consequences, we’re probably doing those things because they feel familiar to us. But the way to get different results is to do things in different ways. This leads to different consequences for our actions. It’s only natural that doing things differently will feel strange or weird at first. If it didn’t, chances are you already be doing things that way. So learning to get different results means being willing to do things differently.
Mindfulness is a way to do things differently.
Although meditation is a part of mindfulness, mindful awareness is much more than a meditative technique. Mindfulness is a way of life. The techniques of mindfulness can be applied to any of our day-to-day experiences. They are not restricted to the realm of meditation.
Like anything else that has to be learned, mindfulness is a skill that requires practice. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa the first time he picked up a paintbrush. Likewise, you probably won’t be able to jump right into mindful awareness mode of being without a lot of practice. That’s okay. Give yourself permission to practice once in a while.
The more you do so, the more mindful you’ll become!
In Session 2 we will learn more about radical acceptance and how to achieve it.
