Revisiting Mindfulness

Several years ago, I wrote an article on Mindfulness specifically related to exercise.  At the time I was relatively new to mindfulness and had not been utilizing it a great deal in a therapeutic sense beyond an intervention for myself.  It was something that interested me because it was becoming a buzz word and it was something I was hearing more and more about.  There was intrigue around it and I was in the process of beginning to explore the coupling of a passion I had recently developed for exercise and my career working in the field of mental health.  I knew that the patterns of focus and how much I stayed in the moment during lifts was a mindfulness practice, and one that was not often talked about at that point, so it warranted some discussion I believed. Admittedly, in the aftermath of writing that story, I did not really do a great deal to follow up on the journey that has started.  I went through some pretty significant life changes around that time and has to reevaluate a great deal.  That is an easier way of saying that life happened and I decided that I could not devote my time nor energy to that at the time.  Part of me looks back on that diversion with a sense of reticence, while the other part of me realizes that I actually have learned so much in the time since then, both in a professional/career sense but also in a deeply personal way.  One thing that bridges that professional and personal divide is the practice of mindfulness.  I have both seen as well as experienced the impact of it and that is why I wanted to share some of that here.

I would like to say that sharing this came as a result of a breakthrough in my life or a client who shared how mindfulness had left a positive impact in their life.  While both of these have happened, the notion to write specifically about mindfulness came from a far nerdier place.  I was watching a documentary series about Star Wars and one of the original people involved with Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) shared that he had struggled with depression and anxiety his entire life and said that these tasks in the earliest days of working on groundbreaking film techniques, while quite tedious, were things that probably saved his life.  He described how he was so focused on the work that he would just get lost in the work and that made things more bearable for him.  In the series they talk about everyone working really long hours, and often that might be a symptom of being a workaholic (we can talk about that another time) but for most of these people, it sounds like the long hours were more a sense of purpose and a desire to do this work that brought them joy and a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.  This man, accidentally backed into mindfulness thanks to stop-motion animation.  Where his time away from work was heavy and he found life to be difficult often, when he was at work, he was so focused on a task that would be tedious and almost monotonous to the majority of us, but for him he loved the work so much, and so appreciated the outcome, that he would be so in the moment that nothing else was weighing him down during those times.  At one point he said that this work probably kept him alive.  Between the sense of purpose the work gave him and the fact that he created a separation from the heaviness he was able to stay afloat and eventually got into treatment which helped him even more. 

Mindfulness is not just us sitting in a corner in the traditional meditative pose, but rather it is being so deeply focused on a task that we are able to truly be in the moment.  For most of us, we are constantly worried about tomorrow or about mistakes we have made in the not-too-distant past.  While we certainly need to learn from mistakes and prepare for a future, we often find ourselves taking for granted TODAY.  For me, being mindful is something that got me through the fallout of the end of an abusive relationship as well as me going into business for myself without the planning that would have given me a greater sense of comfort and stability.  I had been forced to give up exercise in my abusive relationship, and reclaiming something that had such a deep meaning to me was crucial to my existence.  However, I started to find that the benefit was far more than physical.  As I learned to be more in the moment and focus on just what I was feeling, seeing, hearing and experiencing right then, right there, right now, I felt things shifting for me.  Yes, I was still stressed, yes, I was still hurting and dealing with some symptoms of anxiety and depression, but they were far less acute and far more manageable.  I was appreciating things as simple as walking my dog.  We do a brisk two miles almost every day of the week, and I have learned to appreciate the time, the fresh air and sunlight and some of the sights and experiences I share with my fluffy companion.  What had been a chore initially for me, is now something that grounds me and helps me feel less anxious.  It is as much a part of my daily routine as lifting or eating at this point. 

But mindfulness is accessible to all of us, even if we have limitations on mobility. I have had clients who were musicians, and for them playing the instrument they love and being fully and deeply present with that, feeling the way the instrument responds to their touch, hearing the sound, and appreciating the experience is deeply gratifying. For a surgeon, they often find that when they are performing a procedure it is a place that requires such deep focus that it serves just as much as a mindfulness practice as anything else. It is just a matter of us finding the thing we can truly delve into and that will allow us to experience it in such a way that we create a sense of separation from everything else, where we do not seek to avoid pain or problems, but rather set them down for a few minutes while we appreciate the now. Sure, it can be a little woo-woo for some, but it is also something that is effective and has tons of articles and literature around. I would be willing to bet that you have something that is not purely a distraction and not just a way to numb yourself, that if you allowed yourself to focus on for a period of time you would begin to feel some of these same benefits. Will it cure anything? Not really, but it WILL help you improve your relationship to things, especially those that are heavy or weight you down. Ultimately, I think we all can benefit from a little less weight on our shoulders in the world most days.