Session 3 Wise Mind and Wise Body

When you are being logical, rational, and devoid of emotion, you are said to be in Rational Mind. When you are allowing your thoughts to be driven by your emotions, you are said to be in Emotional Mind. The idea of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is to achieve Wise Mind. Wise Mind is the joining of Rational Mind and Emotional Mind in perfect balance and harmony. It is a moving beyond opposites to a mindful state of acceptance. Likewise, when we come to realize that there is no line between mind and body, and that they are one and the same, we are able to move beyond the duality that implies that mind and body are separate entities. From there we see that the body can change the mind, and the mind can change the body. Wise Mind and Wise Body is the first step to living in True Self.

3.0 What is Wise Mind?

When we are being logical, rational, and devoid of emotion, we are in Rational Mind. When we are allowing our thoughts to be driven by our feelings, we are in Emotional Mind. A goal of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy (MBE) is to achieve Wise Mind. Wise Mind is the joining of Rational Mind and Emotional Mind in perfect balance and harmony. It is a moving beyond opposites to a mindful state of acceptance.

We sometimes tend to think of things in black-and-white terms. When in this mode of thought, we tend to see experiences as “all good” or “all bad.” But if we use our skills of mindful awareness to see what is really there, we may come to recognize that rarely are things all good or all bad. There is usually a little bit of bad in the best good things, but likewise there is usually a little bit of good even in the worst bad things. One of the skills of Wise Mind is seeing the gray areas of life for what they are instead of interpreting them as black or white.

If we were to graph out the idea that Wise Mind is a blend and balance of Emotional Mind and Rational Mind, the graph would look like the illustration below.

To look at an example of how this Wise Mind might appear in the real world, let’s imagine that a woman has stolen a loaf of bread to feed her children, who are starving. A person who is totally cold, calculating and logical, devoid of emotion, and operating solely from Rational Mind, might say something like, “Yes, it’s unfortunate that her children were starving, but the law is the law. She should be punished.”

But a person who is operating from Wise Mind has the ability to use a rational mind tempered by emotion. In this case, such a person might say something like, “The law is the law, but we should also have compassion. Who among us wouldn’t steal a loaf of bread if our children were starving?”

Let’s look at another example, this time from Emotional Mind.

Suppose I’m in line at the grocery store. I only have a few items, so I’m in the “ten items or less” lane. The person in front of me has a cart completely full of groceries. It’s obvious that she has far more than ten items.

If I’m operating from Emotional Mind, I might let my emotions get the better of me and make an angry comment to this person, causing a scene in the grocery store. But a person operating from Wise Mind in this situation might temper the emotional reaction with Rational Mind. Such a person might take the opportunity to say to himself, “This person is obviously going to be a while. I don’t need to let the fact that she’s breaking the rules ruin my day. Instead, I can take this opportunity to do a mini-meditation while I wait.”

When operating from Wise Mind, we are able to gain the wisdom to know what we have the power to change, and what we must accept. Once we have achieved this state of acceptance, we are able to integrate Wise Mind into Wise Body. This is because mind and body are part of the same whole. Integrating mind and body is the first step towards integrating person into nature.

3.1 Wise Mind and Wise Body

“Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries.”

 –Astrid Alauda

“Realize that this very body, with its aches and it pleasures, is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.”

— Pema Chodron

We’re conditioned to believe that mind and body are separate entities; however, this is not true. The mind and the body are one. When the mind cries out, the body suffers. When the body is in pain or ill, the mind is impacted. A healthy mind is a part of a heathy body.

How well do you know your own body? Do you know its moods and its ways of communicating with you? If you are a person who, like most of us, struggles with overeating, do you recognize the messages your body sends you when you’re full?

Maybe you have a chronic pain issue. Do you know the signs and signals your body gives you when you’re about to have an episode?

Maybe you have a problem with anger. Do you recognize the physical signs your body gives you prior to losing your temper?

Are you affected by the weather? Do you feel more gloomy and depressed when the weather changes? Do you feel happier when the sun is shining and it is warm outside?

Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy (MBE) is about how we connect to family, friends, the natural world, and ourselves. One way of connecting with ourselves is to get in touch with our own bodies. In the following sections we’ll examine how to do so.

3.2 Sensory Integration Meditation

To begin getting in touch with your body, we will use the techniques of mindful awareness to explore and integrate more fully with the information we get from our senses. One way of doing this is with a Sensory Integration Meditation. Instructions and a script for this meditation are included below. You may wish to record yourself reading the instructions below for future playback. Alternately you may wish to download the Sensory Integration Meditation from www.mbft.org. Visit the website and search for Sensory Integration Meditation to download the recording for free.

The Sensory Integration Meditation allows us to bring our minds more in tune with our bodies by focusing only on the information we get from our senses. Our senses are our only connection with the world outside of our own heads, so the more proficient we can become with exploring the world with our senses, the more we are able to integrate mind, body and nature into one perfect coherent whole.

The instructions for the Sensory Integration Meditation are as follows:

• To begin this Sensory Integration Meditation, start by closing your eyes and taking a few deep cleansing breaths.
• As you feel the air entering your lungs, you are breathing in calmness and relaxation.
• As you exhale, allow worries, tension and stress to evaporate from your body, mind and spirit.
• Allow yourself to return to a state of mindful awareness for a time, focusing only on your breathing.
• Remember that if at any time during this Sensory Integration Meditation you should encounter thoughts or feelings that are overwhelming to you, you should stop the meditation and return to it when you are calmer.
• When you are ready, allow your attention to focus around the sensation of the air flowing into your nostrils as you inhale. Feel the air entering your nasal passages.
• As you direct your attention to your nose, do you notice any aromas? Are they pleasant odors or pungent odors? Do the scents you find around you evoke any memories?
• If a memory is triggered, remember that you don’t have to follow it if it is unpleasant to you. Simply note it for future reference.
• If, on the other hand, you encounter a fragrance that triggers a happy memory, allow that happiness to embrace and envelope you.
• Linger here for a while with the aromas you find around you.
• When you are ready to move on, direct your attention to your mouth and tongue. As your breath leaves your body with each exhalation, do you detect any taste on your breath?
• It may be a subtle sensation, or not noticeable at all. If it is not a noticeable sensation, that’s okay too. If it is noticeable, describe what sort of taste it is. Is it sweet or bitter? Sour or salty? How does it compare to the fragrances you smell right now?
• Move your attention now to your ears. What do you hear? Are there any background noises?
• Can you hear the sound of your breathing?
• Can you hear the sound of your own heart beating?
• Focus for a moment on the information your ears bring to you.
• Move your attention now to your body. If you are lying down, notice how your body makes contact with the bed or floor. If you are sitting, notice how your body makes contact with the chair.
• Are there any pressure points of contact?
• Do you feel pressure from any tight clothing?
• Overall, are you comfortable, or is there some tension somewhere in your body?
• Can you melt the tension away by focusing your attention on it?
• Now move your attention to your eyes. If they are still closed, open them slowly, giving them time to adjust to the light.
• As you observe your surroundings, see them without assumptions, in a new way.
• Imagine yourself an artist. If you were to paint the scene you see before you, how would you capture the detail you see?
• Observe the variations in color, shading and light that you see around you. Focus on the spaces between objects rather than on the objects themselves.
• If you were asked to draw only the spaces you see before you, what would that look like?
• Examine every detail of everything you see before you.
• Now close your eyes again and come back to yourself.
• Did this meditation evoke any memories, thoughts or feelings? If so, note them for consideration after this meditation is over.
• As you bring your awareness back to yourself, note how you are feeling right now. Remember this feeling when the meditation is done.
• Return your attention only to your breathing. Feel the air enter and leave your body.

When you feel you are ready, open your eyes again and end the meditation feeling calm yet invigorated.

Once you have completed the Sensory Integration Meditation at least once outdoors and at least once indoors, go on to the next page and complete the exercise, Reflections on the Sensory Integration Meditation in order to gain more insight into the utility of this meditation.

3.3 Reflections on the Sensory Integration Meditation

After completing the Sensory Integration Meditation, answer the questions on the following worksheet. If it is possible to do the meditation in both an indoor and an outdoor setting, do so, noting the differences between the indoor and outdoor experiences in the space provided.

3.4 The Mindful Body and the Wise Mind

Refer back to the idea of Wise Mind in Section 3.0. Remember that Wise Mind consists of Emotional Mind and Rational Mind in balance and harmony. The way that Wise Mind manifests itself in the body is by dissolving the barrier between mind and body. We tend to think of mind and body as separate things, but this distinction does not exist in reality. Just as the body can influence what the mind thinks and does, so can the mind influence what the body does. This concept is often talked about as “mind over matter.”

Picture a little dirt road in the country. It’s a small, one-lane road without much traffic. As more people move to the country, the road gets used more often. Eventually, it has to be widened into a two-lane road to accommodate all the extra traffic. As the area gets more and more traffic, the road gets wider and wider. Eventually the road may become a six-lane or eight-lane highway. The more traffic the road has, the bigger the road gets.

Your brain works in a similar fashion. Hebb’s Postulate states, “What fires together, wires together.”

What this means is that when you have a new thought for the first time, the neurons in your brain reconnect in new pathways. The more those new pathways get used, the more neurons on those pathways connect to each other. If you practice thinking in new and different ways, then eventually the little dirt road in the country of your brain can become a superhighway. A study by Hölzel et al (2011) using fMRI and CAT scans of the brain demonstrated that using the techniques of mindfulness for as little as twenty minutes a day for eight weeks causes increases in cortical thickness in the areas of the brain responsible for good judgment, emotional regulation, and impulse control.

This means that you can actually re-wire your brain by using just the power of your mind! When you do so, you have used your power of mind to create physical changes in your body (brain).

Human beings in general are very good at getting caught in automatic negative thought processes. This probably had some survival benefits for our ancestors. You are more likely to survive if you imagine a wolf behind every bush and tree than you are if you assume that there are no wolves in the forest. In the former case you are always prepared for a wolf attack, but in the latter case you are likely to be surprised by a wolf. If we assume there are wolves out there, even if there are not any, we remain on high alert and minimize the risk of wolf attacks. It’s a very short step from this to “The wolves are out to get me!”

This natural tendency to assume the worst leads us to a natural tendency to fall into automatic negative thinking patterns. To illustrate this, try a simple experiment. Buy a bag of marbles and carry it with you all day. Every time you have a negative thought, take a marble out of the bag. Every time you have a positive thought, put a marble back into the bag. At the end of the day, is your bag full or empty?

Negative thoughts are a chain reaction. One negative thought leads to another, and another, until we find ourselves caught in a downward spiral of negativity that can lead to depression, anxiety, and poor self-esteem.

Mindfulness is a way of setting aside negative thought patterns and paying attention only to the moment. It’s not about avoiding, resisting or “fixing” unpleasant thoughts and emotions. Instead, it is a way of stepping outside of the thought stream for a moment to realize that you are not your thoughts or feelings. It is a way of accepting that you don’t have to buy into these negative thoughts about yourself and others.

Another way to picture this concept is that the more positive thoughts you have, the easier it becomes to have positive thoughts in the future. Of course, the opposite is also true. The more negative thoughts you have, the easier it becomes to have negative thoughts in the future. The choice is up to you whether you wish to have positive or negative thoughts.

To illustrate that you are not your thoughts, imagine that you are trying not to have any thoughts. Now imagine that while you are trying not to have any thoughts, a thought comes to your mind in spite of your best efforts. Your initial reaction might be, “Oh no, I’ve just had a thought.”

If that is the case, what part of you was it that recognized that you just had a thought? It couldn’t have been your thoughts that did the recognizing, because the thought was what you recognized in the first place. This means that there is an internal observer, separate from your thoughts, that is the real you. The Wise Mind of the Mindful Body recognizes that mind and body are one and the same, and that the way you think and feel becomes the way you are, in both mind and body. So you cannot be your thoughts, because your thoughts are what you recognized in the first place.

The part of you that recognized the thought was what is known as the True Self. It is the internal observer that watches the thoughts and feelings. A goal of mindfulness is the recognition of the True Self as who you really are, apart from troublesome thoughts and feelings. This wisdom leads us to be able to live more fully in True Self.

3.5 Mindful Eating

We have an obesity epidemic in this country. Fad diets come and go, but the missing component in many of these diets is how we think about eating. Remember the Last Kiss exercise from Session 1? One of the ideas of the Last Kiss exercise is that if we focus on one thing at a time while paying attention to our eating, and only to our eating, then at meal time every chocolate kiss can be as enjoyable as the last one in the bag. You may even find that if you can approach eating with a mindful attitude, by focusing only on the enjoyment of your meals while eating, you may not have to diet at all, because mindful eating means you can get more enjoyment out of less food. Less food means fewer calories, and fewer calories means more weight loss.

Does a whole bag of chocolates taste better than a single piece of chocolate? If you can truly enjoy that one piece, is there any need to polish off the whole bag? Mindful eating is about quality over quantity.

The first step in mindful eating is to fully prepare yourself for the experience of eating. Eating is not something you want to do while multitasking! If you have a habit of eating at the computer, or while watching television, or while doing any of a hundred other activities, make a conscious decision right now that from now on, when you eat, the only thing you will be doing during meals is focusing on the pleasure of eating.

If you’re a person who likes to wolf down meals, the first thing you will want to do is to learn to slow down and enjoy each bite. It takes quite a bit of time for your brain to get the signal that you are full. If you eat quickly, it is quite possible that you will continue to eat before your brain gets the signal to stop eating. Slowing down will allow your body’s natural systems the time they need to signal your brain that your stomach is full.

To practice mindful eating, first eliminate all meal time distractions. You may find it helpful to do a brief centering and grounding exercise prior to beginning the meal. To do this, simply take a few deep breaths at the table, allowing your thoughts, feelings, and other mental distractions to quiet down before beginning to eat. For further information on grounding and centering, see Session 6: Centering.

When you are centered, begin to eat by focusing only on one bite at a time. Pay attention to the flavors and textures of the food. Savor each bite for as long as possible before swallowing. Give no thought to the next bite until you’ve finished enjoying the food that is already in your mouth. As you eat, feel the sensations that your body is giving you. Can you pinpoint exactly when you are full? If you were describing this meal to a person who had never tasted anything like it before, what words would you use? Practice your observing and describing skills as you taste and savor each bite.

Another part of mindful eating is learning to distinguish between hunger and appetite. You may have a craving for your favorite sweet, but is that really hunger talking, or is it just your appetite? Hunger is more of an actual physical sensation of an empty stomach, or a rumbling sensation in the belly area, while appetite is more of a psychological craving. A psychological craving is the product of a thought and/or feeling process. If you can learn to change this thought and feeling process, you will learn to control your appetite.

As you continue to grow in your practice of Mindful Eating, pay attention to how your body experiences food. Do certain foods give you more or less energy? Do certain foods seem to change your moods? Are there foods that heighten your overall sense of wellbeing? Allow your body to teach you how it handles the food you eat, and how it responds to your diet.

The most basic necessity of life is food. How you define your relationship with food will help to define who you are as a person. It will also help you to further develop that Wise Mind/Wise Body connection.

3.6 Mindful Acceptance of Discomfort

America is a heavily-medicated society. We’ve been taught that we should pop a pill at the first sign of pain or discomfort. This heavy reliance on medication has led to a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of this “throw a pill at it” mentality is the creation of a multi-billion dollar addiction treatment industry as well. About a thousand people die annually by overdosing on prescription medications.

The good news is that studies have shown that the most effective non-pharmaceutical way to manage pain and discomfort is meditation (Carson, 2005; Snyder & Wieland, 2003; Gray, 2004; Garner-Nix et al, 2008). If you have difficulties with chronic pain or discomfort, remember that your attitudes and beliefs about pain will have a lot of influence on the sensations you will experience. Woman to Mother by Vanjie Bergum reminds us that in our culture here in the United States, “pain means something is wrong, pain means punishment, pain should be avoided or taken away.”

Our fear sense is awakened when we feel pain. We’re unconsciously (and sometimes consciously) afraid that we have suffered an injury of some sort. If we suffer from chronic discomfort, and can learn to focus on the meaning behind the pain instead of the pain itself, we can feel some power and control over it. Once we have accepted that the pain is not harmful in itself, we become more able to participate in the activities of day-to-day living without fear or stress.

Meditation can help achieve and sustain this level of control. Of course, before beginning any pain management program you should consult with your doctor to make sure that there isn’t something critical going on that would require medical attention. Once you’re sure that the source of the pain is something that cannot be treated medically, you can proceed with the techniques of the Mindful Acceptance of Discomfort exercise below.

To begin the Mindful Acceptance of Discomfort exercise, first complete a Body Scan meditation. This is done by getting into a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down, and loosening any restrictive clothing. Next, start at your fingers or toes and move up and down your body inch by inch, focusing only on a few square inches of your body at a time. It may help to imagine a laser scanner pointed at each particular part of your body as you go. That laser scanner represents your focus.

As you turn your attention each body section, pay close attention to the sensations you find in that particular body part. Is it hot or cold? Comfortable or uncomfortable? Tense, or loose and relaxed? Is there any pain here? Is it a sharp pain or a dull pain? A hot pain or a cold pain? Are there any pleasurable sensations to be found here? Can you describe them?

Proceed to scan every part of your body a little at a time, answering the questions above for each section of your body, until you have completed the body scan meditation. If you wish, you may download a Body Scan meditation for free from www.mbft.org. Go to the website and type “Body Scan” into the search box to find and download the free mp3 recording.

While doing the meditation, focus on where you are experiencing the discomfort. Observe it and describe it to yourself using the questions above. Be as specific as possible about the nature and character of the discomfort. When you have completed the Body Scan meditation, follow the instructions on the worksheet that follows to complete the Mindful Acceptance of Discomfort activity.

You will be using the mindful skills of observing and describing while answering the questions on the worksheet, and you will be using the mindful skill of acceptance while doing the meditation on your own. While doing the meditation, dwell on the idea of Going Inside the Discomfort found in optional activity below, if you wish.

Optional Activity: Going Inside the Discomfort

Our automatic reaction to discomfort is to tense up and to try to fight it. When “going inside the discomfort” we let go of any resistance to the discomfort, and welcome it in order to make peace with it. Instead of trying to fight it, we cultivate an attitude of curiosity and acceptance. What is the discomfort trying to teach me? What can I learn from it? If I accept it, will it cease to be discomfort? How can I change myself to be more accepting of the presence of the discomfort?

The next time you find yourself with discomfort, first make sure that you are not at risk of harm. If you are safe, try going inside the discomfort by greeting it with an open and accepting attitude, welcoming it and thanking it for trying to warn you of a danger.

When you do this, does it change your experience of the discomfort? How?

3.7 Wise Mind, Wise Body, and True Self

As you may remember from the beginning of this chapter, Wise Mind is a perfect balance of Rational Mind and Emotional Mind. But it is much more than that. In Session 2 we learned that wisdom is the ability to know what we can change, and what we must accept. This wisdom is a product of the Wise Mind. This concept of Wise Mind might be expressed with the graphic below.

As you look back on the Wise Body exercises we have done in this session, have the exercises helped you to be more accepting of your body and mind? Did they help you to learn how to change the things you can?

In Session 1 we learned that the ultimate objective of MBE is to be able to live more fully and truly in True Self. True Self is who we would like to be if we could stop putting limitations on ourselves. There is also another type of self, called Perceived Self. The Perceived Self is how we see ourselves now. When our Perceived Self is very close to our desired True Self, we are at peace with ourselves and with the world. But when the way we see ourselves is miles away from where we would like to be, we are stressed out, depressed, and anxious.

The more we can live in True Self, the more we can eliminate these stressful and depressing feelings. The more we can do this, the more we liberate ourselves.

There are two ways to do this. The first is to bring the True Self closer to the Perceived Self. The second is to bring the Perceived Self closer to the True Self. Using the tools of acceptance and change while engaging in mindful body activities like the ones in this chapter, we may find that there is not as much we would like to change about ourselves as we may have thought. By using radical acceptance we are able to embrace ourselves the way we are. This acceptance extends to our bodies as well as to our minds.

The mindful body of the True Self allows us to accept the vessel that carries us through this life. Mindful acceptance teaches us that thoughts such as, “I’m too fat,” or “I’m too thin,” or “I’m not attractive enough,” or “I’m out of shape,” are just thoughts. They do not have to become true unless we choose to believe that they are true.

The mindful body of the True Self also allows us to realize that pain and discomfort are a normal part of existence. This truth extends to mental pains like depression and anxiety as well as physical pains like fibromyalgia and chronic rheumatism. While we don’t have to let our pain define us, we can still accept it as a part of ourselves. When we are able to welcome pain and discomfort as a natural part of our lives, we are able to gain our freedom and to enjoy life more fully.

Think again about your True Self. How could your mind and body help you to live fully and freely as the person you were born to be? How could your True Self manifest through the power of your mindful body? Go on to the worksheet below and explore this idea by completing the worksheet, The Mindful Body of the True Self.

3.8 Mind and Body as One

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.”

– Richard Bach, Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

In this session we have learned how to temper emotion with reason, and how to enrich reason with emotion. By achieving this state of Wise Mind, we are able then move forward and recognize that mind and body are not separate entities; mind is an emergent property of body. Or to look at it from a more metaphysical viewpoint, perhaps it is more accurate to say that body is an emergent property of mind.

In either case, when we come to realize that there is no line between mind and body, and that they are one and the same, we have achieved Wise Body as well. From Wise Body we are able to move toward living fully in True Self. The True Self encompasses both mind and body, and is the sum total of who we are as individuals.

In the True Self of the Mindful Body, we are able to recognize that we are perfect, even with all of our imperfections. This is because we are the ones who get to define what “perfect” means, and if we choose, we may always define it in a way that accepts the totality of our being.