Mindfulness: What’s the point of it and why should I care?

Tell me what you are going to think in a minute. Not a guess, but precisely what you are going to think. We can’t do it. Which kind of immediately blows up the idea that I should control my life by controlling my thoughts a bit, doesn’t it. What happens is a thought, feeling, and some instruction triggered by a stimulus grabs our attention. Then we act as instructed. This stimulus could be my own previous thought, something someone said or any other input. So, really our thoughts control us, not the other way around. Mindfulness is about attention of thought.

We can’t control our thoughts, but we can impact how much our thoughts control us. We have about 70,000 thoughts a day (who counts these things?). And if we are not careful, we will repeat habitual ways of thinking, feeling and behaving continually. And not even be aware of doing so. This leaves us sort of existing our way through life. Unless I have skill at directing my attention in a manner of my choosing, I will be running on repeat based on my existing already conditioned mind. This is where mindfulness comes in.

The purpose of mindfulness

The purpose of mindfulness is to build the skill of attention, as Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it. He means that attention is a skill needs developing, much like a muscle. Like a muscle, unless you've developed it, you can't call on it when you need.

When do we need it? Thoughts, feelings and behavioural instructions grab our attention, as mentioned above. The skill to be aware that this has happened and redirect my attention to my choosing gives me a choice. It also gives me a chance to be in the present moment where everything actually happens, not repeating my conditioning.

The other gotcha here is that the more significant stress or anxiety we feel, the more we need to direct our attention, but the less we can.  Much as we would like to, we can’t call up attention based on being good people or trying hard; like a muscle, attention skills need development. 

With more awareness and control over our attention, we can more readily detach from the grip of the stressful or anxiety generating thoughts and feelings, allowing us to observe the situation in a way that’s not totally coloured by conditioning, that is, as it is. 

Mental Detox

Developed attention and the skills that go with it increase our ability to stay more present in increasingly challenging situations. This improves our chances of being less reactive and more consciously directed in our responses. We can all be mindful in the moment. Our ability to be so is greatly enhanced by how much practice we put in to enable us to do so, like any other skill.

Limiting the impact our thinking has on us is a mental detox. We all know how beneficial this can be. We have all had experiences of having our full attention on an activity at some time or other. For instance, if I ride my motorbike in the Rockies of Colorado first thing in the morning, my mind is on bends, gravel that breaks the ice, ice, deer charging across the road and so on. My dominant drive to stay alive dictates my attention.

But look what happens when I return from my trip. I am tired yet also refreshed, why, because I haven’t been doing my thoughts on myself. This kind of thing happens anytime we are fully present to what we are doing. Not thinking/talking to ourselves, in a sense. You know the sort of thing “what am I going to do about”. “I’ll never be happy”. “No one loves me” and so on. These types of thoughts pound on us like striking an open sore and dysregulate our nervous system. And this is the home of stress and anxiety regulation.

Mindfulness practice

We all know that relief from our own thoughts and feelings, but in the above scenarios, our attention disappears. We didn’t direct it, we didn’t build our muscle to do that. If the situation wasn’t there, we wouldn’t have got the relief. Mindfulness practice helps us build up the ability to more deliberately direct our attention in a manner of our choosing to call on it when we choose. The idea is to be more capable of controlling my attention absent outside props. Mindfulness also enhances my ability to be more content in myself, irrespective of what is happening outside of me.

Regular mindfulness practice builds awareness and acceptance of my thoughts and feelings, whatever they are whenever they occur. Allowing them to be there helps me not fight, avoid or attach to them. They are already here and, therefore, reality after all. From there, it’s possible to direct my attention to how I want to and be in the present.

Concerning therapy or trying to understand what I do that causes me a problem, being able to detach from my thinking and feeling puts me in a position to observe my thoughts and feeling: to reflect on and think about my thinking. Absent the ability to do this, I try to see myself from within my current thinking, which restricts me from seeing anything else. I give myself a chance at change if I can see what is going on within myself; taking my attention into an observer role allows me to do this.

Mindfulness has many aspects, layers and benefits. Increasing mindful/awareness of what I am thinking and feeling and building the ability to consciously direct my attention in a manner of my choosing is quite the start.