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Typically, we do not feel like doing anything when we are depressed. This includes doing what it takes to get out of depression. Now some of us are able to keep busy in our depression, but this kind of busyness is usually just a distraction from feeling bad. This is not an altogether bad strategy really, but we can do much better. For instance, we can be busy with intention and awareness, which is to say that we are actually aware that we are busying ourselves to stave off the bad feelings that are trying to drag us down. This may be an effective strategy within a more comprehensive plan, but we have to actually come to terms with what is our baseline experience. Who wants a life of continual busyness and distraction? We want to be fully present for our lives and fully engaged in a meaningful way.
So this brings up one of the cornerstones of Mindful Action Therapy, which is awareness. Mindfulness practice is about cultivating awareness. And here is one of many times and many ways that I will try to put together words to describe awareness. You may be thinking, “try, aren’t you claiming to know something about this?” I put it that way because even my most skilled descriptions will never fully convey “awareness” in the way we are using the term here. One must experience this kind of awareness for themselves. Descriptions merely point the way.
One of the more succinct definitions of mindfulness comes to us from Jon Kabot-Zin, who thirty years ago began bringing meditation into the mainstream of Western culture with his stress reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. He really legitimized meditation in the eyes of the medical/scientific community. His mindfulness-based stress reduction program was very recently adapted by three prominent cognitive scientists into their work in preventing depression relapse. This work is called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression. The authors, Segal, Williams & Teasdale, paraphrased Kabot-Zin in this definition:
Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are.”
Please read that another time or two and let it sink in before continuing.
That is radical when you think about it. When was the last time you took in your experience without judging it in some fundamental way? We’re always assessing whether something is good or bad; whether what is happening fits what we wanted to happen or expected to happen, which points to the fact that we are rarely in the present moment to begin with. I mean, if you are expecting things to turn out a certain way, how present can you be to what is actually happening? You’re looking for signs of things going your way! So how is that we really experience our lives? Well, as I have said in a previous post, primarily we experience our lives through the filters put into place by interpretations of past experience and expectations of future outcome.
So what comes from mindful awareness? What is the impact on our lives as a result of cultivating awareness?
The benefits are many; the impact profound. We come to realize how much of our life is actually a creation of our minds and that these creations don’t often serve us. Another realization we come to, which is particularly radical from a Western psychological perspective, is that we don’t necessarily have to pick apart all these creations. We discover the reason for this, and this is the best part, is that beneath these creations of mind is a bit of sanity. Awareness reveals an inner wisdom and wholeness, that we don’t have to change ourselves as much as uncover that which is already there.
This is not to say that change is not required. We don’t have to change ourselves fundamentally, but we do often need to change our behavior. You see, we’ve been mislead a bit by the emphasis that we put on thinking in our culture. I’ll spare you and me the long analysis of Western philosophy and psychology as to how this came to be. I doubt this will be a revelation to anyone- that we spend a lot of our time lost in thought. In mindfulness terms, we call it the “doing” mode. We are constantly analyzing and strategizing about what this or that means and what we might do next and what it meant that so and so said that and whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing and on and on ... And just when we think we have put it all together into some cohesive understanding of anything - circumstances change, and what was once true is no longer.
So what I have just done is point to present moment awareness by explaining what it is not, by describing our usual way of operating. We sometimes refer to mindful awareness as the “being” mode, as opposed to the “doing” mode. Being mode assumes nothing, expects nothing, wants nothing other than what is in each unfolding moment. Being mode can even accommodate the thoughts that run through your mind because in being mode there is a brilliant understanding that you are not your thoughts, that you have thoughts, but that they do not define you. Furthermore, you do not have to refute them. With the practice of mindfulness we learn to let them be. Let them rise and fall as we know they do. Our experience tells us this. Sure they return, perhaps again and again because they are habits - but repetition does not make truth, except in marketing and politics. (I really do find a sense of humor invaluable in this process)
Mindfulness is also about compassion - the non-judgmental part - for ourselves and for others because we also come to realize that we are all going through the same process, whether we are depressed, anxiety ridden or seemingly without “disorder.” The fact of the matter is that there is enough disorder to go around. Depression rates haven’t risen so drastically because we are reproducing more and more biochemically imbalanced individuals. Perhaps we are more and more depressed because we are having trouble adapting to the society we are creating rather haphazardly.
I’m going to stop for now, as this is getting to be rather long. Thank you, if you have made it this far. I encourage you to not think about what you have just read. Instead, just sit for a moment in an upright and dignified posture, close your eyes, focus on your breath and trust that what you have just read has been taken in on some deeper level, below “thinking” mind. Just notice what arises in you, whether it be words, images, or feelings; touch them all lightly with your awareness as you return to your breath. Do this over and over noticing too, any frustration that may arise if and when your mind wanders - then, return to the breath again and again. This is mindfulness of the breath. This is the foundation of mindfulness practice, the seed of awareness.
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~Forest