Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

by J. Mark G. Williams

You come to realize that thoughts come and go of their own accord; that you are not your thoughts. You can watch as they appear in your mind, seemingly from thin air, and watch again as they disappear, like a soap bubble bursting. You come to the profound understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient. They come and they go, and ultimately, you have a choice about whether to act on them or not.

A few years ago, psychologists discovered that if deep-sea divers memorized a list of words on a beach, they tended to forget them when they were under water, but were able to remember them again when they were back on dry land. It worked the other way round too. Words memorized under water were more easily forgotten on the beach. The sea and the beach were powerful contexts for memory.11

Returning to that context encouraged your mind to recall a host of related memories. But it’s not just places that trigger memories. The world is full of such triggers. Has a song ever sparked a cascade of emotionally charged memories? Or the smell of flowers or freshly baked bread? Similarly, our mood can act as an internal context that is every bit as powerful as a visit to an old vacation destination or the sound of a favorite tune. A flicker of sadness, frustration or anxiety can bring back unsettling memories, whether you want them or not. Soon you can be lost in gloomy thoughts and negative emotions.

Most of us know only the analytical side of the mind; the process of thinking, judging, planning and trawling through past memories while searching for solutions. But the mind is also aware. We do not just think about things, we are also aware that we are thinking. And we don’t need language to stand as an intermediary between us and the world; we can also experience it directly through our senses. We are capable of directly sensing things like the sounds of birds, the scent of beautiful flowers and the sight of a loved one’s smile. And we know with the heart as well as the head. Thinking is not all there is to conscious experience. The mind is bigger and

Depression may be exacting a staggering toll, but its cousin—chronic anxiety—is becoming disturbingly common too, with average levels of anxiety in children and young people now at a point that would have been judged to be “clinical” in the 1950s.4 It’s not a great stretch of the imagination to assume that in a few decades unhappiness, depression and anxiety will have become the normal human condition, rather than happiness and contentment.

This is what emotions are; they’re like a background color that’s created when your mind fuses together all of your thoughts, feelings, impulses and bodily sensations to conjure up an overall guiding theme or state of mind (see diagram, “What makes an emotion?” p. 20). All of these different elements that make up an emotion play off each other and can end up enhancing (or tempering) overall mood. It’s a phenomenally intricate dance full of subtle interactions that we’re only now beginning to understand.

Your moods can drive your thoughts. In practice, this means that even a few fleeting moments of sadness can end up feeding off themselves to create more unhappy thoughts by coloring how you see and interpret the world. Just as gloomy skies can make you feel, well, gloomy, momentary sadness can dredge up unsettling thoughts and memories, further deepening the mood. The same goes for other moods and emotions too. If you feel stressed, then this stress can feed off itself to create more stress. Likewise with anxiety, fear, anger and such “positive” emotions as love, happiness, compassion and empathy.

What makes an emotion? Emotions are “bundles” of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and impulses to act. Next time you experience pleasant or unpleasant emotions, you might check in with what’s going on, and notice the interplay of the different aspects of the bundle. To get a flavor of how powerful this feedback can be, the psychologists Fritz Strack, Leonard Martin and Sabine Stepper6 asked a group of people to watch cartoons and then rate how funny they were. Some were asked to hold a pencil between their lips so that they were forced to purse them and mimic a scowl. Others watched the cartoons with the pencil between their teeth, simulating a smile. The results were striking: those who were forced to smile found the cartoons significantly funnier than those compelled to frown. It’s obvious that smiling shows you are happy but it is, admittedly, a bit strange to realize that the act of smiling can itself make you happy. It’s a perfect illustration of just how close the links are between the mind and body. Smiling is infectious too. When you see someone grin, you almost invariably smile back. You can’t help it. Think about that for a moment: just the act of smiling can

This so-called “fight-or-flight” response isn’t conscious—it’s controlled by one of the most “primeval” parts of the brain, which means it’s often a bit simplistic in the way it interprets danger. In fact, it makes no distinction between an external threat, such as a tiger, and an internal one, such as a troubling memory or a future worry. It treats both as threats that either need to be fought off or run away from. When a threat is sensed—whether real or imagined—the body tenses and braces for action. This may manifest as a frown, the churning of the stomach, tension in the shoulders or the draining of blood from the skin. The mind then senses the tension in the body and interprets it as a threat (remember how a frown can make you feel sad?), which then makes the body tense up even further … A vicious circle has begun.

Gradually, the repeated triggering of negative thoughts and moods can begin wearing grooves in the mind; over time, these become deeper and deeper, making it easier to set off negative, self-critical thoughts and low or panicky moods—and more difficult to shake them off. After a while, prolonged periods of fragility can be triggered by the most innocuous of things, such as a momentary dip in mood or the slightest flux in energy levels. These triggers can be so small that you might not even be aware of them. To make matters worse, negative thoughts often come in the guise of harsh questions that beg answers. They nag. Grind away at your soul. Demand an immediate response:

When there is something to be scared or stressed about—whether real or imagined—our ancient “fight-or-flight” reactions kick in as they should. But then something else happens: the mind begins to trawl through memories to try and find something that will explain why we are feeling like this. So if we feel stressed or in danger, our minds dig up memories of when we felt threatened in the past, and then create scenarios of what might happen in the future if we cannot explain what is going on now. The result is that the brain’s alarm signals start to be triggered not only by the current scare, but by past threats and future worries. This happens in an instant, before we’re even aware of it. New evidence from brain scans confirms this: people who spend their days rushing around mindlessly, who find it difficult to stay present and get so focused on goals that they lose touch with the outside world, have an amygdala (the primeval part

of the brain involved in fight-or-flight) that is on “high alert” all the time.7 So when we humans bring to mind other threats and losses, as well as the current scenario, our bodies’ fight-or-flight systems do not switch off when the danger is past. Unlike the gazelles, we don’t stop running.

Imagine walking through a beautiful park on a spring day. You’re happy, but then for some unknown reason a flicker of sadness ripples across your mind. It may be the result of hunger because you skipped lunch or perhaps you unwittingly triggered a troubling memory. After a few minutes you might start to feel a little down. As soon as you notice your lowered spirits you begin to probe yourself: It’s a lovely day. It’s a beautiful park. I wish I were feeling happier than I am now. Think about that for a moment: I wish I were feeling happier. How do you feel now? You probably feel worse. This is because you focused on the gap between how

you feel and how you want to feel. And focusing on the gap highlighted it. The mind sees the gap as a problem to be solved. This approach is disastrous when it comes to your emotions because of the intricate interconnection between your thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. They all feed into each other and, left unchecked, can drive your thinking in very distressing directions. Very quickly, you can become trapped inside your own thoughts. You begin to overthink; you begin to brood. You start to ask yourself endlessly the same pointed questions that demand immediate answers: What’s up with me today? I should be happy—why can’t I just get a grip?

People genuinely believe that if they worry enough over their unhappiness they will eventually find a solution. They just need to make one last heave—think a little more about the problem … But research shows the opposite: in fact, brooding reduces our ability to solve problems; and it’s absolutely hopeless for dealing with emotional difficulties. The evidence is clear: brooding is the problem, not the solution.

Mindfulness is a truly different way of knowing the world. It is not just thinking along a different track. To be mindful means to be back in touch with your senses, so you can see, hear, touch, smell and taste things as if for the first time. You become deeply curious about

the world again. This direct sensory contact with the world may seem trivial at first. And yet, when you begin sensing the moments of ordinary life, you discover something extra-ordinary; you find that you gradually cultivate a direct, intuitive sense of what is going on in your inner and outer worlds, with profound effects on your ability to attend to people and the world in a new way, without taking anything for granted.

The Doing mode involves judging and comparing the “real” world with the world as we’d like it to be in our thoughts and dreams. It narrows attention down to the gap between the two, so that you can end up with a toxic variety of tunnel vision in which only perfection will do. Being mode, on the other hand, invites you temporarily to suspend judgment. It means briefly standing aside and watching the world as it unfolds,

Mindful acceptance does not mean resignation to your fate. It’s an acknowledgement that an experience is here, in this moment—but, instead of letting it seize control of your life, mindfulness allows you, simply and compassionately, to observe it rather than judge it, attack it, argue with it or try to disprove its validity. This radical acceptance allows you to stop a negative spiral from beginning; or if it already has begun, to reduce its momentum. It grants you the freedom to choose—to step outside your looming problems—and, in the process, it progressively liberates you from unhappiness, fear, anxiety and exhaustion.

This gives you far greater control over your life. But most important of all, it allows you to deal with problems in the most effective way possible and at the most appropriate moment.

Mindfulness teaches us that thoughts are just thoughts; they are events in the mind. They are often valuable but they are not “you” or “reality.” They are your internal running commentary on yourself and the world.

When you are under stress, you tend to remember only the bad things that have happened to you and find it difficult to recall the good. A similar thing happens when you think about the future: stress makes you think that disaster is just around the corner, and when you feel unhappy or a creeping sense of hopelessness, you find it almost impossible to look to the future with optimism. By the time these feelings have bubbled through to your conscious mind, you’re no longer aware that they are merely memories of the past or plans for the future, but have instead become lost in mental time travel. We re-live past events and re-feel their pain, and we pre-live future disasters and so pre-feel their impact.

you also tend to get caught up in important career and life goals, and such demanding projects as homemaking, childcare and looking after elderly relatives. These goals are often worthwhile in themselves, but because they can be so demanding it’s tempting to focus on them to the exclusion of everything else, including your own health and well-being. At first, you might tell yourself that such busyness is temporary and that you are, therefore, quite willing to forego the hobbies and pastimes that nourish your soul. But giving these things up can gradually deplete your inner resources and, eventually, leave you feeling drained, listless and exhausted.

You will soon come to realize that while a certain degree of comparing and judging is necessary for daily life, our civilization has raised them up to be gods. But many choices are false choices—you simply do not need to make them. They are driven by your thought stream. Nothing more. You don’t need to compare yourself endlessly to others. There is no need to compare your life (or standard of living) with either a fictitious life in the future or some rose-tinted view of

We must stress again that mindful acceptance is not resignation. It is not the acceptance of the unacceptable. Nor is mindful acceptance an excuse to be lazy or to do nothing with your life, your time and your innate talents and gifts. (Meaningful work, whether paid or unpaid, is a surefire way of boosting happiness.) Mindfulness is a “coming to your senses” that moves closer and closer to the fore, quite spontaneously, when you regularly set aside the time to practice. It allows you to experience the world—calmly and nonjudgmentally—directly through your senses. It gives you a tremendous sense of perspective. You can sense what is important and what is not.

Another eminent psychologist, Dr. Aaron Antonovsky, an Israeli medical sociologist, has also attempted to pin down the key psychological traits that allowed some to withstand extreme stress while others did not. He focused on Holocaust survivors and narrowed the search down to three traits that together add to having a sense of coherence:

comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. So “hardy” people have a belief that their situation has inherent meaning that they can commit themselves to, that they can manage their life and that their situation is understandable—that it is basically comprehensible, even if it seems chaotic and out of control. To a large degree, all of the traits identified by both Kobasa and Antonovsky govern how resilient we are. Generally speaking, the higher you score on their scales the more able you are to cope with life’s trials and tribulations.

Practices for Week One The Raisin meditation. Mindful awareness of a routine daily activity (e.g. brushing teeth—see the “Routine activities we normally miss” box). Mindfulness of the Body and Breath meditation twice a day (track 1 at http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness). Habit releaser.

This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much most of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. DOUGLAS ADAMS1

planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the

The spirit in which you do something is often as important as the act itself.

If you do something in a negative or critical way, if you overthink or worry or carry out a task through gritted teeth, then you will activate your mind’s aversion system. This will narrow the focus of your life. You will become like a mouse with an owl complex: more anxious, less flexible, less creative. If, however, you do exactly the same thing in an open-hearted, welcoming manner, you thereby activate the mind’s “approach” system: your life has a chance to become richer, warmer, more flexible and more creative.

Mindfulness is about reorienting your life, so you can enjoy it to the full. This does not mean that tiredness and suffering disappear. You will feel periods of sadness too. But there is a greater chance that when it comes, it arises as an empathic sadness, not as a corrosive emotion tinged with bitterness and anger that so many associate with unhappiness.