You may not be familiar with the concept of being in the present moment and being aware of yourself and your body in the present moment. In modern society and everyday living, you can all too easily become disconnected from yourself, tending to live in your head which is lost in thoughts, future plans and worries. This chapter is about reconnecting with yourself using your mind, body and breath.
I describe three different styles of meditation: one focused mainly on the body; another focused on increasing your whole awareness; and the third focused on increasing attention to your thoughts and emotions. All three styles of meditation overlap in the sense that they incorporate all the three elements, but getting to know a range of different techniques is helpful, as is discovering what you find easiest or most comfortable when practising mindfulness.
Each meditation has different benefits for managing anxiety, but I suggest that you do them in the order I set them out in this chapter because they gently help increase your awareness step by step.
Have you ever noticed a tendency to live in your head? Most people do on a day-to-day basis, without ever connecting with their body. Some people refer to it as the “talking head”. They think of their body as just a structure that serves to carry the brain around! They don't take much notice of the rest of the body, unless they feel pain, are hungry or need to use the bathroom!
Getting into this unhelpful mental state is easy. Factors such as too much paperwork, a stressful job and a busy lifestyle can all contribute to this disconnection from your body. In fact, multitasking is the ultimate factor in becoming disconnected from the body, something that modern society doesn't help with by emphasising how you can better multitask with all the available gadgets!
You can correct this disconnection from the body with simple exercises, such as the body scan. The body scan helps you reconnect mindfully with your body by using kind, nonjudgemental, nonstriving, gentle attention on the body itself. You do so by kindly focusing your mindful awareness on zones of the body bit by bit, perhaps together with your breathing.
Ever tried breathing through your toes? Sounds a bit odd, I know, but in fact this is one of the ways that you can use to guide your breath and mindful attention through your body!
The body scan has many benefits:
The body scan is about getting back in touch with your body. It's a time totally for yourself. Find a comfortable place where you won't be disturbed for 10 to 30 minutes depending on how long you decide to practise for.
The body scan is about accepting yourself as you are, not pushing to improve yourself, so try allowing whatever happens to just happen.
You may find it relaxing, but the aim of this practice isn't just to try to relax. In fact, your experience of the body scan may well be different every time, so don't worry about trying to find a right or wrong way to practise. Instead, the body scan is about simply allowing your experience to be, just as it is.
Sometimes, practising the body scan is easier when you listen to a guided meditation. Have a search for some at www.youtube.com using the keywords ‘guided body scan meditation’, go to my website (www.joellemarshall.com) or listen to the audio that accompanies Mindfulness Workbook For Dummies by Shamash Alidina and myself (Wiley). (Use Track 2 at www.dummies.com/go/mindfulnessworkbookuk.)
Allow yourself 10 to 30 minutes for the following meditation or whatever feels right for you. Wear comfortable clothes and loosen any tight clothing.
You can cover yourself with a blanket if you think you're likely to feel cold later in the practice.
Close your eyes.
Decide that you're going to allow and accept whatever arises in this meditation as best you can.
Feel the contact of your whole body with the ground from your head to your heels.
Don't force your breathing to be a certain way; just try to notice it as it is.
If imagining your breath going down your body doesn't work for you, you don't have to do it.
Does it feel cold or warm? Can you feel any contact of, say, the socks with your toe?
What does the sensation feel like? If you can't feel anything, just be aware of the lack of sensation.
Focus on the heel and ball of the foot. What do they feel like? Again, if you don't feel anything, just be aware of the lack of sensation.
Bring curiosity to each body part, again being aware of any sensations or lack of sensations. Breathe deeply and imagine the breath going all the way down the body into the part you're focusing on. Does your left leg now feel different to the right?
Repeat the process you did with the left leg in Steps 7 to 10.
Breathe into them and imagine you're filling them with nourishing oxygen. If doing so helps, visualise your pelvic region as a bowl situated in between your hips and focus on filling it with your breath.
This area is where emotions can get stored in the body. Without judgement, see whether you can accept whatever arises. If you feel anxiety or some other emotion, see whether you can just accept the experience as it is. If that's too overwhelming, you can always come back to your breathing or the feeling in your feet.
Feel your ribcage rising and falling. Be aware of any emotions rising from the heart area. Again, just allow them to be present without judgement.
Imagine the breath moving upwards through both arms, past the elbows and into the shoulders.
Bring a sense of gratitude for your brain and all the amazing abilities that are located in the head, such as your vision, your hearing and your sense of smell.
Imagine that breath is filling you with energy and life-saving oxygen.
Rest with the knowledge that you're whole, perfect and complete just as you are.
The body scan is generally a safe exercise to do. However, if you've had a stressful event in your past, you may have suppressed feelings about it. The body scan may unlock painful emotions that have been stored in your body over time. If you find this very difficult to cope with, try seeking advice from a qualified therapist or mindfulness teacher. If you can, though, open up to these feelings and sensations and see what happens. You may find that they start to dissolve in their own time.
The body scan may be an unusual concept for you, particularly if you haven't been in touch with your body for a while. The following difficulties are common and nothing to worry about, especially if you've had an unusual experience with the body scan:
Mindfulness isn't relaxation, and you may feel worse before you feel better. If you're trying to achieve a certain experience, let that idea go. If the anxiety keeps coming, explore the feeling of it within your body. Bring your attention to where you feel the sensation specifically and gently allow it to rest there. Try not to be critical with yourself.
Instead of giving up, try to become aware of the feelings of boredom or restlessness within your body. Bring a sense of curiosity to the feelings. What do they feel like? What colour or shape are they? Becoming aware of these feelings and lack of concentration is the essence of mindfulness. The boredom or restlessness should disappear in time.
The sitting meditation is simply about being mindful but in a seated position.
Practise this meditation after a couple of weeks of daily body scan practice (see the earlier ‘Introducing the Body Scan Meditation’ section).
Sitting meditation follows on from the body scan's focus on bringing your attention back to your breath and body. But it increases your attention even further, by increasing a wider range of present-moment experiences to be aware of. Your mind still strays into different thoughts, as is perfectly natural, but you begin to change your relationship towards your thoughts.
If you have anxiety and perhaps anxious thoughts that you aren't even usually aware of, the sitting meditation may be able to change your relationship with these thoughts. As a result, instead of identifying with them, you can take a step back and just observe them.
Also, mindfulness of breath, the first section of the sitting meditation, can help engage the relaxation response. This process can increase your ability to focus, thus allowing you to place your attention on something other than your anxious thoughts or feelings.
The sitting meditation comprises several stages and breaks up thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. This arrangement allows you more easily to pinpoint and manage your anxiety wherever it arises, whether in thoughts, feelings or bodily sensations.
Sitting meditation is also called the expanding awareness meditation and has been used for thousands of years. You can choose from different seated postures. Select one of the following positions that's most comfortable and right for you when you practise:
Try putting magazines or something similar under the back two legs of the chair because it tilts you slightly forward and helps your back to straighten naturally. Place your feet flat on the floor, put your hands face down on your knees or place them in each other. Allow your head to lift naturally and gently until it's ‘balanced’ on your head and shoulders and then lean forward and backward a few times until you find the right position for you.
Allow the heel of the left foot to touch gently the inside of the right thigh. Your right leg should be in front of the left leg with the heel pointing toward the lower left leg. If you find this difficult, adjust yourself as much as you can until you're comfortable. Lean forward and backward until you feel like you're in a comfortable position and your head feels balanced on your shoulders and neck.
When you find a seated position with which you feel comfortable, begin the stages of sitting meditation. If you want to begin with just one stage at a time, that's perfectly okay. But you can also do all the stages from the start if you feel comfortable enough.
Do this practice for about 30 minutes, spending 5 to 6 minutes on each section, but you can do less or more if you feel like it.
Sit in a chair or on the floor. Gently become aware of your breathing. Try to sense the breath where it feels easiest: perhaps the nose or back of the throat, the chest or the abdomen.
Don't force the breath to be a certain way; just gently notice it, with a sense of warmth and kindness. Your mind wandering off to other thoughts is perfectly natural. Just gently guide it back to the focus of the breath.
Gently expand your awareness to your whole body. Become aware of any bodily sensations. If you have aches and pains, try to bring a sense of acceptance to them as best you can. Imagine your breath going in and out of that part of the body.
Gently open your awareness to any sounds you can hear. Try to notice how your mind labels a sound and can bring judgements to it.
For example, I'm sitting in the library at this moment, and I opened my awareness to sounds. I can hear the traffic going past. My mind automatically thinks it's a bad sound, and the library windows should be shut. But I was able to bring awareness to my mind's judgements and think of the sounds as neutral and not an annoyance.
Become aware of the volume, pitch and quality of the sounds as they change from moment to moment. Notice the silence between and underneath all sounds. Let the sounds come to you instead of reaching for them. Then gently rest your attention on the sounds.
Become aware of your thoughts, but try not to become caught up in them; just be an observer of your thoughts. Remember that your thoughts aren't facts but merely thoughts (see Chapter 4 for more). Watch the thoughts arise and pass away, just like sounds do.
Just notice whatever you're most aware of – your thoughts, your bodily sensations, the sounds you can hear or your breath, whichever is strongest for you at this time. Have a choiceless awareness, which means stay open to everything that happens in your present moment experience without preference. If your mind wanders off or gets pulled along in a train of thought, just gently guide it back to the breath and begin again. Bring a sense of patience and curiosity throughout this practice if you can.
You may encounter some common difficulties with the sitting meditation, many of which overlap with those of the body scan. Check out ‘Overcoming common difficulties that arise with the body scan’ earlier in this chapter and see whether you spot similarities with the difficulties you may be facing with the sitting meditation – such as your mind wandering off or falling asleep.
Here are a couple of extra difficulties that you may find with the sitting meditation:
If it is severely uncomfortable for you to sit in a cross-legged position for a long time and causes unnecessary pain, then, of course, you don't have to practise it like that. Try another seated position, such as sitting upright on a chair. You can also lie down for this meditation if you want. Be aware of what is right for you – this meditation can be practiced either sitting or lying down.
Sometimes doing mindful imagery can help when you're practising mindfulness: it can make things clearer for you. The two mindful imagery meditations in this section help you step away from identifying yourself with your thoughts and cope better with whatever's coming your way.
When you separate your thoughts from your identification with them, negative thoughts have no room to expand and increase your anxiety. These meditations allow you to picture how you can separate yourself and also become a grounded observer, while your thoughts arrive and pass away.
Mindful imagery isn't a form of escapism. It's about being as present as possible in order to picture the setting as fully as you can. Imagine being present and connecting with your senses within your imagination as best you can.
This visualisation helps aid you in the mindfulness tool of seeing your thoughts as separate from yourself:
This meditation is easy to do at any time and is particularly useful when you're feeling very anxious. Also, try it at night before sleep, if you find that your mind tends to race.
The mountain meditation helps you deal with strong emotions and whatever arises for you. It's a way of visualising yourself as a whole complete being, while everything else rises and eventually falls away – another important tool of mindfulness.
To practise the mountain meditation, carry out these steps:
As you breathe in, imagine your breath giving you energy and vitality. As you breathe out, imagine a sense of letting go.
Gently close your eyes.
The mountain is strong and sturdy, unaffected by the rain, wind and snow that it faces. Imagine watching the mountain go through every season and encountering sunshine, storms and blizzards. Notice how the mountain is unaffected by everything going on around it.
You're ever-present, despite what your thoughts and emotions are doing. They change like the seasons, but the essence of your being is still the same whatever arises for you, just like the mountain.
If you're struggling to visualise, don't worry; some people are more visual than others. In fact, I know mindfulness teachers who aren't very visual! If you can't conjure up any images for your visualisations and are struggling, just concentrate on the other meditations in this chapter.
The mindful eating meditation is a simple one to get you from becoming lost in your thoughts back to the present moment.
Have you ever walked into a room and thought ‘What did I come in here for?’ That's called being on automatic pilot or the doing mode. Your mind isn't on the task at hand and has wandered off from the present moment. Though not necessarily bad some of the time, if you're constantly on automatic pilot, you may not be aware of any anxious or negative thoughts you're having. You're missing out on your life now because you're not living in the present, and you may be getting into bad habits without even realising.
You can carry out the mindful eating meditation with any small piece of food, such as a raisin, a cranberry, a chocolate bar or a small piece of fruit, such as an apple.
Allow yourself about ten minutes for this meditation, longer if you can. It's an easy meditation to do anywhere, out and about or at work. All you need is a small piece of food that you can hold in one hand – so best avoid soup!
Get a pen and paper and note down your experience: write down everything you experience if you want to. Making a note of it can help you to notice any differences with your experiences of food before and after this meditation.
Here's how to practise the mindful eating meditation:
What do you notice about its appearance? What colour is it? What shape is it? If appropriate, what's the skin like? Look closely and be as specific as possible.
What does the texture feel like against your skin? Close your eyes to help you get a real sense of the feeling in your hand. Is it heavy? Is it light? Does it feel hollow? Does it feel full? Gently squeeze it and see how it feels.
Can you hear any sounds within the food? If you can't hear anything, what does the silence feel like?
What does it smell like? Try to mindfully feel the sensations in your arm as you move it. If you can smell the food, does the smell bring up any memories for you?
Notice whether your mouth is watering. Touch the food to your lips and be aware of any sensations there. Take a bite. Do you notice any sound? If so, what does it sound like? Move the piece of food around your mouth feeling the weight of it. Note the taste of it as it releases its juices and you gently start to chew. Feel the sensation of your teeth as you chew.
Reflect on the experience of the food meditation. Did the food taste any different? Was it different to your normal experience of eating that piece of food?
If you didn't feel anything different, don't worry; just be aware of the lack of sensation you had when practising the mindful eating meditation. You may be used to eating when watching TV, at your desk working or on the run, so this exercise may be quite unusual for you. Try experimenting with different foods and notice your thoughts compared to foods you like or dislike.
Make your way over to Chapter 8 for more on fitting mindful eating into your everyday life. Also, don't forget to check out my mindful cooking practice in Chapter 11.