So there’s an interesting new(ish) way of thinking about mindfulness and meditation, which makes a lot of sense to me. Mindfulness, psychologists are now saying, is simply a system of strategically focusing ones attention. The idea is to be aware of where one’s mind is, and to apply effort and discipline to bring it constantly back to the present moment, where real life lives. It’s only in the present, grounded in reality and fully conscious, that we have full access to all six senses, and thus contact with our best selves. One consensus is that depression emanates from a focus on the past, and that anxiety is a fear of the future. The antidote to both is then mindfulness: being grounded firmly in the present moment, and strategically focusing ones attention on a full and technicolor experience of NOW. Because NOW is really the only place where anything is happening, and if we’re not there, we’ll miss it.
We could miss our whole lives, and everything and everyone in them. Just like that. Just by not being there mentally.
But perpetual mindfulness is obviously aspirational, for most people. We’d certainly like to be more mindful, more tuned into the present moment, and less distracted, day-dreamy, anxious or melancholic. But it’s not something that seems particularly realistic.
Until we start to think of meditation not as some sort of ethereal spiritual practice in Indian ashrams… But, rather, as gym for the mind. There’s a growing view that meditation conditions the mental muscles that we need to bring our attention ever back to the here and now. That meditation primes us for mindfulness, and mindfulness creates vital and robust lives worth living. Because, let’s face it: being multi-tasking, robotic nervous wrecks, rushing mindlessly from pillar to post, without so much as noticing a gust of wind, our bodies or our mood, is destroying us. We need to slow down. But chaos begets chaos, and the more frenetic our lives become, the less inclined we are to be still, and strategically direct our focus back onto what is literally happening in the now.
And so we need to develop the mental muscles that enable us to bring our attention constantly back into the room. I used to think that meditation is a process of clearing one’s mind. I had been told that the goal was an absolutely blank brain, without a thought or a care or a sensation. And how unrealistic does that sound. Puh. Abort mission on first, inevitable failure, right?!
But that view is outdated. We now view meditation as the very deliberate focusing, re-focusing, and re-focusing, and re-focusing, of our attention, for a prescribed amount of time. The value of the exercise is not in the achievement of a blank thoughtless mind. The true value of the exercise is in skill of re-focusing. Meditation teaches us to be aware of our attention, and focus it where we want it. Over and over again. Because, to live effectively in real life, this is exactly the process that we need to be mastering. We constantly need to be aware that a thought or an action isn’t serving us, and then fetch it and realign it with our goals and objectives.
But we’re not going to be very good at that, if we haven’t developed the mental muscle group that supports such an action. Much like one cannot train for a marathon, whilst running the marathon… All of the prep work needs to have been completed by the time the starting gun sounds. And, in the game of living effectively and mindfully, meditation is the background prep work that will condition the mental muscles for such conscious and focussed living.
But how?
When I first talk to my clients about these things, I recommend that they look at some of the meditation apps available, on their smartphones. I quite like “Headspace” and “Calm”. Both offer short, guided meditations that one can listen to and participate in, easily in the course of a day. It can be really valuable to pop down to one’s car, or into a toilet cubicle, several times a day, for a quick “mental gym session”.
The objective is to consistently build such a practice into your daily life, and then monitor for the benefits that will come streaming in, once it’s persistently applied.
