Mindfulness Meditation: I Was A Skeptic
Can Mindfulness Work For Everyone?
As recently as last year if you would have asked me about meditation and mindfulness I would have said that I hear from all of my yogi friends that it is a good thing to do and I would have probably left it at that. I will be completely transparent and honest. I thought meditation was a bunch of hooey.
Then I tried it.
It was in a continuing education class to become a better Coach. The instructor is a Psychologist in New York CIty and before class and following every break he led us through a mindfulness meditation exercise. Each exercise was no more than a couple of minutes and the result was that I was able to focus until the next break in a way I have struggled to focus ever since my grade school teacher would send me to the hall to sit on the hard tile floor because I was distracted and distracting others.
When the city shut down due to the pandemic I found a live daily meditation on Instagram. Everyday, after working from home, I laid on the floor and participated in the mindfulness practice. Sometimes I fell asleep and I almost always felt more in tune afterwards. Then day after day I found that I was becoming more aware of my ability to focus and be present when I needed to be. I wasn’t perfect, sometimes I found myself holding my phone when I should have been listening to the class I was taking. Every day I was more aware and those times were becoming less frequent. When I was distracted I was more quickly aware and able to pull myself back to where my feet were.
What was this that helped me concentrate and be present in a way that I had struggled for 40 years to find? It wasn’t hooey. The science is solid.
People have many different reasons to practice mindfulness. Everyone’s practice is their own, individual, practice. Some want to end their day with relaxation, and that is great. Some want to start their day with focus, and that is great. Some want to calm their amygdala, and that is great. Some want to levitate, and I’d like to see that. I found that after just one guided mindfulness season of ten to 12 minutes I was able to focus better than any other resource had ever allowed me to focus. Then I found that the more regular my practice the longer my focus could last. What was happening?! Before I opened the laptop to write this blog post I followed along with a guided meditation off of an app on the phone.
What happens during a guided mindfulness practice? A common way to practice is to sit or lie comfortably and focus on your breath. While there are physiological responses to slowing your breathing that is rarely my intent. My focus is on the breathing itself and being curious about my breath. Accepting how I am breathing as my state at that moment. The breath is a tool to give you something to focus on. I probably could bring focus to anything that might be around me, yet the common practice and what has been studied and verified is focusing on the breath. The act of focusing teaches the mind to focus. The more practice the mind gets in focusing, the more the brain rewires to allow better focus.
The more practice the mind gets, and the more the connections in the brain strengthen, the more I have found I am able to be present when I need to be present and focused, during practice and across my day. What can bringing more focus do for you?
To discuss the science of mindfulness and how to bring the practice in to your day reachout to marvin@nixonhealthcoaching.com.
Resources:
Book: Rest Refocus Recharge by Greg Wells at Amazon.ca or at Amazon.com.
Book: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn at Amazon.ca or at Amazon.com
