Stop doing mindfulness (and do this instead)

I’m going to start this blog post in an unusual way. I’m going to invite you to stop reading–just for a few moments–and notice where you are. Notice that you are seeing and that seeing involves noticing shapes, color, texture and shade (as well as a label of what you are seeing, like “chair”, “computer screen”, “cell phone”, etc.). Notice sounds arising. Notice how each sound has a duration and a quality. Notice that you (and I) are in the middle of an ongoing, flowing soundscape, and how sounds just arise, without any intervention on our behalf. Now, see if you can turn this spotlight of awareness back around to yourself and notice that right now you (and I) are in the middle of either taking in air from the world around us or expelling air back into the world around us. Notice how this too is an automatic process, just like hearing and seeing, and how this is often in the background of our awareness but can be brought into the foreground for a few moments while we pay attention to it. Notice that this movement of air into and out of our bodies subtly changes our body - as air moves in you might notice how the belly expands and the chest and shoulders subtly lift, as air moves out you might notice the reverse. Notice that it is possible to notice this process, and that again, as with seeing and hearing, no intervention is required. It just happens. 

This is noticing your experience of life as your experiences occur, moment by moment. This is what I’d like to call “present-moment awareness” or “just noticing”. If you set a timer for 60 seconds once you reach the end of this sentence and practice this “just noticing” of sound, sight, air movement and associated body sensations, you may also notice yourself thinking (this may be in the form of language or images or a combination of the two) and getting absorbed in the content of your thoughts, in much the same way as you get absorbed in a story in a book/movie/tv show/podcast. See if you can pull back and notice the process or ongoing flow of thinking itself, in the same way you noticed air, sounds, seeing. This is the equivalent of noticing the paper of a book, the ink of the text on a page, the screen of a tv or cinema, the sounds of a podcast. Now, most importantly, notice that there is no possible way to experience these experiences “rightly” or “wrongly”. There’s simply you (and I) noticing experience (which can comprise these different elements of sight, sound, thought, feeling, sensing) as it is happening. It wouldn’t make sense to say that you or I “failed” at noticing air/sounds/sights just because our awareness shifted to the content of thought. That’s just a normal, natural by-product of having a brain and body that produces thought, just as having a digestive system produces digestive enzymes. 

Ok but here’s the thing. In the past four years of being a therapist, almost all of the people I have worked with have been told, often by a health professional, that they ought to “try mindfulness”. And this is unsurprising, given that in the last 20 years there has been an explosion of mindfulness research, newspaper articles, books, and blogs (!). But, despite well-meaning health professionals and therapists, the context with which mindfulness is introduced really matters and can have dramatic, unintended consequences. For example, if you fall and think you have broken a bone, you go to a health professional for treatment. You want to have that broken bone healed. The health professional confirms their diagnosis with a test, and then gives you treatment (a plaster cast). You rightfully trust and expect that this will “work”, with “work” being healing the broken bone. Going to a therapist looks similar. A person (maybe you) seeks relief from suffering, whether the form of suffering is an experience we call anxiety, chronic stress, depression, or something else. The therapist then might say, “I read about this thing called mindfulness and studies show that it reduces anxiety, stress, and depression. I think you should try it.” 

So you dutifully try mindfulness, expecting relief from your suffering. And then one of two things happens. 1. You do indeed notice some benefits, which, if so, great! In my experience, this is certainly not the case for a majority of folks I see. Much more often, something else happens (2) which is that people tell me that they tried it and “couldn’t do it”, or that “it did nothing”, or “didn’t work”, or, worse still, “made things worse” (see here for a deeper exploration of when mindfulness goes bad). Then I ask, what happened next? Often I get some version of the following: “I felt like a failure”; “I blamed myself”; “I judged myself harshly” (harsh self-judgment is present in 95% to 99% of people I have worked with). And it’s no wonder that people end up blaming themselves; they won’t blame the health professional (“they are the experts''), they won’t blame the culture or society (“everyone seems to be doing it and getting some benefit”), so the only remaining explanation is that “it’s a deficiency within me”.  

What’s happening here? Something that research and society and culture says is helpful ends up causing the opposite, increasing someone’s suffering? What’s happening is this: a destination is being set up as the expectation (and of course it is, humans have deep biological programming that says move away from pain). Once mindfulness is set up as a tool to get from A (suffering) to B (less suffering), any failure to reach the goal feeds self-judgment and self-criticism. But as we demonstrated earlier, there is no way to be aware of your experience “well” or “badly”. There’s just you in the middle of your experience and your awareness of your experience. That’s it. And in this ‘practice’ (which is not really a practice but is just paying closer attention to life and your experience of it) there is no ‘goal’ to reach, no destination (even though, of course, you, and I, and everyone you know wants less suffering). Because, as soon as you set up a destination or goal that involves getting from this moment (which includes suffering) to some other moment (where you imagine/hope/want suffering to be less), you are subtly saying this moment isn’t “it”, isn’t ok, and thus, my life right now isn’t ok, I need to get over there. This sets up a battle between life as it is right now (reality) and life as you want it to be (a fantasy, albeit a normal, understandable one). 

Note that in this model, I explicitly invite people I work with to also include this battle in their noticing, which is being fed by a normal, natural, healthy desire to have less suffering. The desire for less suffering doesn’t have to be eliminated; in fact it can be acknowledged, even welcomed. And through this welcome, we move away from the battle between life as it is and life as we wish it to be. And paradoxically, this movement away from battling and toward acceptance, even of the parts of ourselves that experience anxiety, depression, stress, will likely have a by-product of reducing suffering! But again, if you set it up as the goal, it won’t happen (kind of like going to bed and not being able to sleep, being frustrated when it doesn’t happen, and then engaging in all sorts of strategies to get to sleep, which of course, makes sleep even less likely. Sleep is a process that happens when we relinquish control. For more on sleep see this excellent series of articles by Dr. Meadows from The Sleep School).  

So, my recommendation to you is to stop “doing mindfulness” and instead cultivate “present-moment awareness” or “just noticing”, which is noticing life as it is, in this moment (seeing, hearing, feeling, sensing, thinking), so that when you’re in the middle of an experience that really matters to you, like being with a loved person or engaging in a valued activity, you can be fully immersed in the experience, fully living that moment, fully living life as it is, even if you might wish it was different.   

Note: I will be facilitating an online 15-minute drop-in “anti-mindfulness mindfulness” aka “just noticing” group on Fridays at noon for six weeks, starting Friday June 3rd. Keep an eye on the Self Space homepage for further information and zoom links.