Freedom to face what is real in our lives

A Year of Living Mindfully: 8: To be mindful is always to be mindful of something: the sounds that I hear beyond these walls; the flicker of light from the fading Christmas candle on my windowsill; the sensation of contact where my body touches the floor beneath me; the way circles appear and rapidly disappearwhen rain falls on the puddle outside my window.

Any object or any sensation or any person offers me a way to return to the present moment, to wake up, to remember that I am alive – provided I take time to be present, to see or hear and feel whatever draws my attention.

Knowing that however familiar this experience may seem, it is actually something new, something fresh. And that it will never happen again. At least not in the precise way that it is happening now.

Without some focus for my attention, my mind will move and shift and dance a thousand jigs, over and over again. At times I wonder if it’s just me. But everything I read reassures me that this is the human condition.

Like most people who take time to be mindful, I find focusing on my breath to be a great help in steadying my mind and sharpening my attention.

It offers my attention an anchor when it tends to be swept along by the currents and undercurrents of my mind.

Breathing doesn’t cost me anything. It’s extremely portable and it is always close by. It’s the most fundamental thing that I do in my life. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that when I breathe, life breathes in and through me. My breath doesn’t ask for my permission. It doesn’t check with me whether I feel like breathing today. Evolution, thankfully, didn’t leave breathing up to me.

Stay focused

So I settle myself on this cushion and I bring my attention to my breath. Without doing anything to control it, I allow my awareness to find where it is easiest for me to follow my breath as it enters and leaves my body.

Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out. To help me stay focused, I say quietly within my mind “in” when I am breathing in, and “out” as I am breathing out. I don’t have to make any effort. I just notice the way this happens naturally and I am thankful for that.

Without trying in any way to control my breathing I notice that it naturally slows and deepens, after a short time. Allowing this to happen, I say the word “deep” with each inbreath and “slow” with each outbreath.

My breath brings my mind back in touch with my body and I relax. With each inbreath I say “calm” and with each outbreath I say “ease”. I am not struggling anymore. I am simply here.

Today my practice takes me to a place where I feel rested and calm. But it isn’t always this way and it would be wrong to see mindfulness as merely a relaxation technique.

Painful experience

For example, I sat here yesterday in the aftermath of a very painful experience the day before, and what I encountered in myself was anything but relaxation.

In the heat of that moment, my breathing really helped me to ride the waves of distress without becoming overwhelmed.

Bringing my breath deep into my belly and holding my awareness there steadied my mind and gave me the courage to be with pain rather than give in to my usual “fight or flight” reactions. My breath nailed me to the spot and stopped me from running away or from creating some drama in my head that would only make a bad situation worse.

The aim of mindfulness is not immunity from pain. Neither is it about always experiencing relaxation, or any other desirable mental state. Mindfulness is about finding the freedom to step up to whatever is real in our lives, to give our attention to that and hold it in compassionate awareness, rather than keep running away.

tbates@irishtimes.com

Tony Bates is founder director of Headstrong. headstrong.ie