The Headspace Guide to: Mindfulness & Meditation

by Andy Puddicombe

‘So, the first thing to get straight is that meditation does not make you think! All it does is shine a big bright light on your mind so that you can see it more clearly. This bright light is awareness. You may not like what you see when you switch the light on, but it’s a clear and accurate reflection of how your mind behaves on a daily basis.’

‘Happiness is just happiness,’ he went on, ‘no big deal. It comes and it goes. Sadness is just sadness, no big deal. It comes and it goes. If you can give up your desire to always experience pleasant things, at the same time as giving up your fear of experiencing unpleasant things, then you’ll have a quiet mind.’

Mindfulness is the willingness to rest in that natural state of awareness, resisting the temptation to judge whatever emotion comes up, and therefore neither opposing or getting carried away with a feeling. Meditation is simply the exercise that is going to give you the best conditions to practise being mindful of these emotions. And headspace is the result of applying this approach. Headspace does not mean being free from emotions, but rather existing in a place where you are at ease with whatever emotion is present.

So it came as quite a surprise to James when I asked him to meditate less on the anxiety itself, which when left alone has a tendency to just come and go in its own time anyway, and instead focus on his resistance to the anxiety. After a little while he started to notice how his obsession with trying to control the anxiety was actually driving the anxiety itself. As he became increasingly aware of this tendency, so the situation started to unravel a little.