My Journey Towards Mindfulness (in a nutshell)
Photo taken at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a place I like to refer to as "my little sanctuary".
I discovered Mindfulness meditation in 2016, as I stumbled across a book by Christophe André* at a small-town French library during a one-year break in my home country. This initiation to Mindfulness followed what I would describe as a “burnout”, experienced after spending four years in the Banking Industry in Singapore, in a highly competitive environment.
Fast forward, it’s only beginning of 2019, once I had completed an 8-week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course, that Mindfulness really transformed my life. Back in the Lion City—translated from the Malay Singa Pura—since two years, in an even more challenging role (Business consultant), I was trying to manage my overwhelming workload while recovering from a distressing client experience when I enrolled in the MBSR program.
Stress was a familiar companion then, which I was desperately trying to get rid of. Little did I know that the secret to managing stress was not in trying to push it away—what we resist persists, as the saying goes—but rather in learning to meet what I could not control with greater acceptance (not to be confused with passive resignation), and to refine my perception about the stressors in my life.
The MBSR program elevated my Mindfulness practice to a different level, helping me to integrate it into my daily life—therefore creating healthier habits that could sustain me in the longer term. After its completion, I felt better equipped to face life’s challenges while feeling more appreciative of my own existence, which resulted in a higher sense of happiness simply by paying better attention to myself and my surroundings. Subsequently, I chose to train as a MBSR teacher to be able to share those precious learnings with others. But let me further elaborate how Mindfulness supported my self-transformation.
* Christophe André is a French psychiatrist & psychotherapist renowned for bringing Mindfulness meditation practice as clinical intervention to help people suffering from anxiety and depression
You are not your Thoughts, but your Thoughts influence your Experience
Unsurprisingly, there is a direct link between our thoughts and our emotions. The thoughts we entertain about ourselves and our surrounding, the way we appraise events and situations, all influence the way we feel.
One of the first things that struck me as I developed my self-awareness through Mindfulness meditation was the realization that we speak to ourselves all the time. And the way we speak to ourselves matters. Do you think you will be better supported to reach your goals with an encouraging voice in your head, or an overly critical one that picks at every single perceived mistake you make along the way? I’m sure you get the idea.
Before the MBSR program I was not particularly aware that my own self-talk was overly negative. I had never really thought about asking anyone “How do you speak to yourself?” to make the comparison. There was this one interesting conversation with a close friend though, years ago. I was sharing with her how my mind was automatically analyzing every single event after it had occurred, second guessing myself and scanning for mistakes, and was dumbstruck to hear that this had never happened to her. Wow! So clearly I was much more anxious than I thought I was.
I was already aware that my mind’s busyness was at the upper-end though. And it is through the practice of meditation that I found a sense of peace with my own mind—the chatter finally subsiding a little. Hence, the belief “my mind is too busy to meditate” that I often hear as resistance towards meditation practice, is actually a myth. The busier your mind, the more you will benefit from gaining mental space through the practice of mindfulness meditation—which will gradually emerge with a regular practice, and is unfortunately not an overnight process (no magic pills here, but it makes the process even more rewarding).
I discovered during the MBSR program that it was possible to interrupt the inner chatter by purposely redirecting my attention to another object, such as the breath for example. This conscious action of anchoring the attention in the present moment, repeated over and over again in mindfulness practices, enables us to rewire our brain networks as research has evidenced. This helped me stop the exhausting constant noise in my head, which provided much respite and eventually led me to a greater sense of well-being and centeredness.
However, Mindfulness is not about emptying the mind—another common misconception, try pushing your thoughts away and they will push back—but rather about becoming the observer of our own thoughts, as opposed to identifying with and getting carried away by them.
With Mindfulness, I realized that I did not have to believe everything that my mind was telling me. As I became the observer of my own thoughts, I could see with better clarity which ones were helpful, and which ones were not. Consequently, I could choose which thoughts to engage with—which ideas to let in—and which ones to let pass through. But without the awareness of my own thoughts to begin with, I could not have shifted my thought patterns.
Attention Span in the Era of Information Overload
Today we live in a highly connected world that constantly feeds us with stimuli and information, through our phones, computers, 24/7 news channels and social media. Part of this information is consumed intentionally, when we reach out for it; but also unconsciously, through the multiple inputs that our mind continues to absorb while we are on “autopilot” mode. As a result, the brain becomes very easily cluttered, and the attention span has drastically reduced for many of us.
Our beloved brain has limited information processing power however, and needs rest to recharge. You may probably have noticed that your head feels much clearer following a good night’s sleep. This is because your brain is decluttering at night, reorganizing the information received during the day and making space for new information to come in — in truth the whole process is much more complex, and if you are interested in the details I invite you to read “Why we sleep” by the neuroscience professor Matthew Walkerbut, but you get the essence.
And if, like me, you are on the higly sensitive spectrum, your ‘attention bucket’ gets filled even faster because you take in more information from your environment — like other traits, sensitivity is a continuum and recent research suggests that highly sensitive individuals make up approximately 30% of the population (close to one third, this is significant!).
So where we choose to place our attention matters, for our wellbeing but also for our productivity, and research has demonstrated that meditation plays a significant role in increasing concentration span and supporting learning abilities.
Interestingly, research has also shown that meditation may provide a long-term reduction in sleep needs roughly equal to the time spent in meditation. Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying that meditation can entirely replace our need for sleep — even long-term meditators in monastery setting need to sleep, although significantly less than non-meditators — but sleep and meditation share some common benefits, and basically we can consider that the time spent in meditation counts as “rest”.
So you may be thinking now: “Why meditate if I can just sleep?” (sounds like less efforts, right?). While you meditate you are aware of the unfolding process, and you are training your attention muscle — it’s like doing a repetition at the gym, every time you gather your attention back you are strengthening the neural pathway leading to greater focus — which is not the case when you sleep. Not to mention that our sleeping time is not always that restful, especially when our mind is very active at night. By supporting the decluttering process and helping us to cultivate mental space, mindfulness meditation can improve sleep quality.
From Mind-Body Connection to Emotional Regulation
We hear a lot about the Mind-Body connection and understanding it conceptually is useful, but the real “aha!” moment happens when we start experiencing it and it is no longer a concept.
Mindfulness practice teaches us to become more aware of ourselves as a whole. By practicing the body scan for example, we start becoming more aware of our own bodily sensations, even if that may feel uncomfortable at times. As we train our brain by practicing repeatedly — literally rewiring it from a neuroscience perspective — our awareness becomes sharper and we start noticing sensations that we haven’t noticed before, feeling parts of the body with more precision.
When we start incorporating the awareness of our thoughts and emotions into our mindfulness practice, we soon realize that not only thoughts and emotions are interconnected, but every emotion also translates into a bodily sensation. In other terms, our physical sensations can inform us on our emotional state, even before we may be conscious of how we feel.
We often tend to ignore or push away our emotions, especially when there are unpleasant, but whether or not we might be aware of them they are still in the background, influencing our thoughts patterns, behaviours, and affecting our body.
Becoming aware of our emotions, allowing them to be acknowledged and taking a pause, gives us the ability to choose how we wish to respond in a given situation, as opposed to reacting out of an emotionally charged moment.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor E. Frankl
Through our Mindfulness practice we also learn to identify our natural tendencies, and to recognize when our ways of dealing with daily stressors might be unhealthy. With this awareness, we can then choose to adopt healthier coping strategies that will support us in the long-term.
Pain Management and the Shift in Perception
I could not complete this article without touching on the topic of pain management. I consider myself lucky to have an overall functioning body today, but I am no stranger to pain and health struggles.
In particular, I have battled a lot with upper back pain due to herniated cervical disks, gone through repeated knee surgeries limiting my mobility, and also had to learn to live with a chronic condition causing fatigue and recurring pain. But one of the main issue was the notion of “battle” and fighting against. Entering into war with my experience of pain and body limitations did not alleviate them in any case. On the contrary, frustration and resistance met pain, causing greater fatigue and leading into greater suffering.
What I have learned through Mindfulness is to instead meet my body’s limitations and physical challenges with greater acceptance — although I must admit that it took me years of practice, a great amount of patience and self-compassion, and there are still days where this feels challenging. However, with this shift in perception and opening of the heart, a burden was lifted and, to my surprise, the intensity of my painful sensations was lessened.
In fact, pain is a multidimensional experience involving sensory, cognitive, and affective factors. Research has evidenced that Mindfulness attenuates the subjective experience of pain, which makes it a particularly useful tool for people suffering from chronic pain.
In truth, Mindfulness alone cannot make our physical ailments disappear altogether, but it can change the way we relate to them, and through this new attitude our entire experience can be transformed. Mindfulness also supports the natural healing process by turning down the stress response (also known as “Fight-or-Flight”) and activating the body’s “Rest, Digest, Relax and Heal” mode.
A Word of Caution
There may be times in our life when we are not ready to face a particular emotion or challenge, and in such times looking deep within and diving into our present moment experience — which bears our physical and mental pain — might not be the most appropriate course of action.
When we practice Mindfulness, we acknowledge our inner wisdom and self-care is of utmost importance. We are in fact our own teacher, so listening to what feels right for you at any given moment, and giving yourself permission to modify a practice in any way that you need — shifting position, redirecting your attention away from a challenging sensation, or even disconnecting from the practice altogether if feeling triggered — is perfectly okay. It is part of the practice of attending to oneself with care and mindful awareness.
Heartfelt Conclusion
In writing this article, my intention was to share my personal experience to support other people in their own journey, wherever they might be, and to instigate some interest for this profound yet accessible secular practice which has supported me for many years.
Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. This is the working definition used by Jon Kabat-Zinn (JKZ), the founder of the MBSR program. Understanding its concept is easy, and the ability to access it is innate as it is already within all of us. Yet, as JKZ puts it himself, “mindfulness is one of the hardest things in the world for us humans to tap into consistently”, which is why it requires practice.
I would probably not have dived into Mindfulness ten years ago, as I had no knowledge of its multifold benefits or the need that I had for it. But I know now with absolute certainty that it is the practice of Mindfulness that set me on the path to my own self-transformation.
Building a Mindfulness practice is not easy work, it requires patience, courage, a certain amount of discipline, and a willingness to be present and to accept our experience as it is. However, the reward of encountering ourselves in the process, and to live a life with a greater sense of freedom, resilience and appreciation is invaluable.