THE MANY PATHS TOWARDS A MINDFUL LIFEKATHERINE WINLAW

MYTH ABOUT MINDFULNESS

Often when people at work first hear the term mindfulness, they immediately think of someone sitting at a quiet retreat and luxuriating in the peaceful surrounds of a sanctuary for possibly hours on end.

And when asked if they want to give mindfulness a go at work respond, “Oh I haven’t got time for that sort of navel gazing, I’m too busy”.

BRING A MINDFUL APPROACH TO ANYTHING

The amazing thing about mindfulness is, it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, you can bring a mindful approach to anything.

Mindfulness is much more about your ability to notice, often thoughts, sensations and emotions, and your ability to be kind to them all.

AS A FIRST TIMER..As a first timer, mediation may cause thoughts such as “my brain won’t shut up, so I can’t be mindful”, or “I feel completely restless and can’t possibly sit still for 5 minutes”. These are just thoughts and sensations and in no way an indication that you can’t “do mindfulness”. The act of mindfulness is in noticing what you are thinking and feeling, being able to say “wow look what I am thinking how interesting”. The next and often most important step is not to judge what you are thinking or feeling as good or bad, but just acknowledge it, some say give the thought a hug and let it pass through your mind.

JUST STOP RESISTING

The trick is as you resist the thoughts, sensations and emotions, they grow. As you stop resisting whatever thought, feeling or emotion arises, they more often than not disappear or dissipate. Understanding why this happens and why mindfulness is so good for us all, requires an understanding of the brain.

AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE BRAIN

Our brains operate quickly to process information – every second there are 20 million billion bits of information racing through our brains. Scientists have proven it takes 13 milliseconds to see an image.

While speed is good, sometimes it works against us, especially when it comes to responding to others and events in our lives.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO..

Thousands of years ago the human brain was wired to fight, flight, freeze or rest. In the face of stress and danger we quickly fought, fled or froze.

The threats we faced were spaced far apart so there was plenty of rest time in between one sabre-toothed cat and the next.

TODAY..Today our brains are too often parked in overdrive and experience a constant stream of threats, or stress. These can be anything from being late to picking up the kids to making a presentation or dealing with conflict at work. While these seem insignificant in comparison to the sabre-toothed cat, our brains process them exactly the same. By turning on our limbic system, we move into fight/flight/freeze mode and the associated physical reactions take place. Prolonged situations of stress eventually affect our immune systems and make us more prone to illness, injury and disease.

GAIN CONTROL WITH MINDFULNESSPracticing mindfulness helps you gain control of your thinking and emotional patterns, which in turn enable your brain to calm down and return to the resting state rather than the stress state. As mentioned earlier you can make this happen anywhere and anytime. The reason mindfulness programs are so useful is they help you learn to train your brain to rest, a bit like going to the gym for the brain muscles. Once you develop the mindfulness muscle, you can apply it when you’re in the slow line at the grocery store, walking to a meeting that you aren’t looking forward to, cooking dinner for hungry kids or on the yoga mat when you can’t bend as far as you’d like.

HUG YOUR NEGATIVE THOUGHT

Next time a negative thought pops up, try noticing it, instead of identifying with it. Hug it and let it keep moving on. If you can do that, then you just practiced mindfulness.

REMEMBER

Mindfulness is like Christina Feldman (2001) says “neither difficult nor complex; remembering to be mindful is

the greatest challenge”.

KATHERINE WINLAW

Katherine Winlaw studied and practiced Transcendental meditation in her early life and then lost touch with it as life got ‘too busy’. Years later when she experienced adrenal fatigue she looked to the ancient art of meditation for healing properties and completed a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course. A daily practice of mindfulness not only helped restore her health but helped spark her interest in health and wellness in the workplace. She introduced mindfulness into a corporate leadership program for all staff. Her current research is examining the impacts of mindful art therapy on professionals wellbeing.