“Hilary, our people don’t want to attend mindfulness programmes to turn toward difficulty; they want to escape it—that’s why we want mindfulness classes.”
So, there I was, excited to sign a new contract to provide mindfulness programmes to a cohort of adults facing ongoing challenges. My words caught in the back of my throat when my contact told me that our intentions had collided. The brief silence seemed endless, and I realised everything I had learned about mindfulness was misaligned with my contact’s understanding of the practice. I honestly have no idea what I said next, but I remember my utter surprise when the email arrived offering me the contract and suggested commencement dates.
That was over two years ago, and I continue to work with the same organisation today, but I never forgot the lessons learned from the conversation or the understanding I gained from it. As humans, we naturally want to escape difficulty. Our aversion causes us to turn away from the uncomfortable and unpleasant, and wanting to escape or move away from pain is a normal, automatic reaction. So, when my contact heard my wet behind-the-ears explanation of how mindfulness helps, her reaction was also normal and automatic.
However, suffering (or Dukkha) is an inevitable part of life. Mindfulness helps us meet suffering in more skilful ways. The practice cultivates presence, helping us to remember our ability to choose our attitude and align with our intentions within difficult situations. In this way, practising mindfulness helps develop the ability to deal with unhelpful thoughts, painful emotions, and demanding situations with compassion, acceptance, and skill. Effectively, we create the ability to see beyond the problem and identify new, helpful approaches we were previously blindsided to.
Here’s an example:
Non-mindful Reaction (Autopilot)
You are driving to work after a couple of days of rest. Your mind does its thing and travels forward in time. You imagine your inbox when opening your emails. Suddenly, you are looking at reems and reems of bold text pertaining to unopened demands for your attention.
The surge of dread fills your whole body, your heart rate increases, and a knot arrives in your tummy. You take a deep breath, hold it, and wonder how you are going to get through this workload, the impatient demands, and the potential consequences. Anxiety rises as you attempt to plan the unplannable imaginary events, leading to more anxiety, dread and distress. Then you hold imaginary conversations in your head, planning what you’ll say to assumed judgment.
Before you know it, just as the lights turn green, you’re overwhelmed and have decided to leave your job and get another one, resigning to the assumed reality that you’re not being paid enough, it’s a thankless job, they don’t value you anyway, and overall, it’s just not worth it.
Ok, the drama is for effect, but you get the idea. Here is how mindfulness helps.
The Mindful Response (Being Present)
You are driving to work after a couple of days of rest. Your mind does its thing and travels forward in time to imagine your inbox when opening your emails. Suddenly, you are looking at reems and reems of bold text pertaining to unopened demands for your attention.
The difference is that this time – you notice. You notice the surge of dread arriving in your body, the increased heart rate, and the urge to catch your breath. You also notice the unpleasant thoughts and the action movie playing in your mind, foretelling events like the gospel.
You pause and rest your attention on the breath. In this way, you allow the thoughts and emotions to arrive, have their say, and pass through. You let them in and let them go without hijacking your whole system. With curiosity and resting your attention on the breath, you witness the unwelcome thoughts and emotions. Even though the dread may persist, you maintain awareness that these thoughts are real; they are not necessarily true.
On the next out-breath, you remember that you set your out-of-office reply—people know you were on annual leave. The space allows calmness to fill your veins as tension releases its grip. With self-compassion, you tell yourself that you can only do your best, responding to one email at a time in the professional, skilled manner you always do.
The lights turn green, and ease fills your whole system as you rest in the intention to do the best you can, with continued ease and self-respect throughout the day that lies ahead.
It is not what is happening. It is how we are with what’s happening that makes the profound difference to our experience and what happens next.
Jon Kabat Zinn explains that It’s not what’s happening that causes stress. Rather, it is how we are with what is happening that makes a profound difference. As we can see from this example, the mindful response to unwelcome events enables us to witness the unwelcome thoughts, emotions and physical sensations triggered by challenging events. It’s as if time slows down and enables us to recognise that the increased heart rate and holding our breath are natural reactions to fear and that thoughts are events in the mind, and our emotions, in this instance, are triggered by both. By placing our attention on the breath, we also create that tiny space to allow the thoughts to pass without creating an unhelpful emotional charge. Additionally, by becoming present, we engage our ability to be with difficulty and respond to stress in skilful ways. Finally, we see new solution-focused options and pathways beyond the problem.
(Tiny sidenote: If you have read this far, it is worth reflecting on the beneficial impact the mindful response could have on your life, happiness, productivity, and longevity. Think about your daily stresses and ask, what would be different if I responded differently?)
Our aversion to difficulty is a natural reaction. No one wants unpleasantness in their life. But it’s here, and mindfulness supports us in turning toward the unpleasant in more skilful ways that benefit our health, happiness, relationships, and communication with ourselves and each other. Rather than adding to the difficulty with unpleasant thoughts and emotions that hijack our system, mindfulness supports us in turning toward difficulty and responding in skilful ways, enabling release and resolution from the problems. In this way, there is no need for escape.
Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts, feel free to email me at info@mindconsultancy.ie. For more help regarding how mindfulness can help you reduce stress and increase your well-being or even how mindfulness could help grow the well-being culture within your organisation get in touch. Helping people thrive and flourish through mindfulness-based coaching programmes is my passion and purpose.
Wishing you all the best,
Hilary Connor,
MSc., H Dip., Adv Dip., PG Cert., MTAI, EMCC.
Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing Consultant & Coach.
MBSR Teacher
Mindfulness, Intuition & Neuroscience for Development
info@mindconsultancy.ie
www.mindconsultancy.ie
(+353) 0868494646
