I was reading advice about creating art from artist and instructor, Lois DeWitt, in which she points out how her students can become discouraged and negative (maybe you know that feeling, too). Her advice to them is simple: "When a student feels dejected or helpless in doing a drawing exercise, I ask them to push that feeling away and continue in a neutral way -- that is, relying just on their eyes and hands and not letting thoughts interfere." She is trying to help students settle the conflict which can occur between the right and left sides of the brain. In her free online class, Learn Basic Drawing, DeWitt goes on to say "the left brain is verbal, logical and instructional and it will try to control the creative process. The right brain, where creativity lives, is non-verbal, relates to feeling, visualizing and imagining. As long as we let the words and instruction come in from the left hemisphere, we are handicapping our creative potentials and abilities." This is profoundly wise, and it applies to any adventure calling us - personal, professional, recreational. Imagine a life in which we are not brow beaten by the protestations going on inside our own heads.. 

I was reminded of another bit of wise advice that I found in a guided imagery audio by psychotherapist and author, Belleruth Naparstek, in which she invites the listener to simply observe their own feelings, energy, and mood. "No praise. No blame. Just noticing," she says, "in a friendly, detached way." The first time I heard it the idea of 'no blame' made sense, but 'no praise' was unexpected. Who doesn't like a little bit of praise now and then? Still, I kept listening to the audio and practiced this whole 'no praise no blame' concept. Over time it began to make sense. 

It helps if I think of myself as a camera. Have you ever looked at photos you'd taken and found one of something that would normally be frightening or anxiety provoking? Were you surprised that you stood still to take that shot? This sort of thing happens all the time. Here's an example. For my entire life I have had a heart-slamming fear of bees of all sizes, colors, and varieties. No matter how many times anyone said "they won't bother you if you don't bother them," I was deeply bothered! My skin sprouted goosebumps and my heart would pound at the sound of the faintest buzz. My arms would flail around my head just in case one of them had a mind to land there, and I'd run away, sometimes spinning, while screaming "GO AWAY BEE!" A shift occurred when I accidentally photographed a bee that had flown in and landed on a flower beside a flower I was shooting. I never even saw the bee until I uploaded the images. This discovery thrilled me and I wanted more! Before long I was actually seeking out bees in our purple Hosta bells, lying right down on the wet morning grass for a close up shot of big fat bumble bees having their morning nectar. There was no flailing of arms and running like a rubber band unwinding and snapping along the ground. The bee in my viewfinder consumed my interest and surprisingly it was me trying not to scare the bee, buzzing from one flower to the next, casting furry shadows on delicate blooms. No Praise. No blame. Just noticing. Hanging out with bees, of all things. That experience has changed my relationship with bees. Now I am only moderately afraid of them, and bumble bees don't even make me flinch (much). 

No praise. No blame. I return to these words when I find myself being yanked out of presence by my demanding and critical inner shrew. I call mine Nasty Girl, introduced in a recent post, Creativity and the Evolution of a Song. Nasty girl, who takes advantage of every chance to sharpen her tongue, must reside on the left side of my brain. I house another internal influence, also on the left side, which we can call The Analyst. Her favorite thing to do is pull experiences apart, molecule by molecule, formulating theories about what made thus and such happen instead of this or that. Don't get me wrong, I really like The Analyst, but there's something to be said for having free space to just be. I need to live an unfolding life, watching the colors roll out, hearing the music pulse, feeling the energy flow, and letting my creative side play. As my husband says, an over-examined life is no better than the opposite.

While it's true that negative self-talk can derail our efforts and sabotage our goals, this doesn't mean that praise is the answer. While an atta-girl from ourselves to that face in the mirror can feel great and provide a needed boost of courage, breaking free from the right/brain left/brain conflict doesn’t require that we shower ourselves with praise. Sometimes that can backfire, creating very vivid stories of overnight success, wildly exciting fame, and riches beyond measure. I don't know about you, but this sort of putting the cart before the horse leaves the door wide open for Nasty Girl to show up and blow it all to smithereens! It's fun and important to dream. A daydream is an important message from the heart, telling us what we want and helping us visualize ourselves getting it. Still, when left to their own devices Daydream Diva and Nasty Girl can really feed each other's fury and that can be very distracting.

Praise and blame are both forms of judgement, after all. Sometimes what we really need is to create a no-judgement-zone where we can live our unfolding life from a centered place of mindful presence.

There is a lot of freedom in that. 

When you take on the role of observer, like a camera lens, you make peace between the left and right sides of the brain, even if it's only temporary (and, unless you are of another world, it is always temporary), the observer can barely even hear inner insults and adulation. She notices them, but doesn't respond to them and eventually they fade into the background.

When you are in that zone creating, be it a song, a painting, a dance, a new surgical procedure, an eco-friendly disposable diaper, etc., the observer is flowing through the process in much the same was as a leaf is flowing through the river - it moves with it, hitching a ride to somewhere else. The leaf doesn't call the river Stupid for depositing it on a boulder. If a leaf could speak, it might describe its observations like this: "Now I am being carried by the water. Now I am moving up and down. Now I am on a rock. Now there is a bug tickling my edges. Now I feel the hot sun. Now I feel lighter as the water leaves my skin. Now my body is rippling and moving. Now I am being carried by the breeze. Now I am moving up and down," and on and on it goes. 

If you can let yourself be a leaf, even for just a few intentional minutes every day, you are practicing mindfulness. You are unencumbered. 

Unencumbered, your creative impulses have freedom to show themselves to you... just you, for starters. It's not about showing the whole world. When I let myself think too much about showing the world, Nasty Girl has an absolute field day and can usually persuade me to crawl back under a rock. When I move with the flow and notice every aspect of the process, that's when I feel the most free. Nasty Girl is shut down. Daydream Diva takes a nap. 

 

The words Mindfulness Meditation might sound overwhelming and mysterious. Don't be scared. It's really a very simple concept and anyone can begin whenever they want to try.

The act of being mindful simply means being aware of the moment you are in, unencumbered by past and future thought, and free from judgement. When we choose to be mindful we are simply choosing to be, without praise or blame. Just be. It might be a little tricky settling your mind, but keep at it. It's well worth the effort. Most of us have very busy minds directed by inner critics who are very adept at criticizing, mocking, and undermining this sort of effort - any effort, actually, that represents something new. Don't worry about it. That's just your ego telling you it's afraid you won't need it anymore. Poor ego. Be kind to it, but you can tell that voice that you are working on something very important right now and you'll check in with it later. That's what I do, anyway. It seems the more kindness I show my ego, the less vulnerable I am to its tantrums. 

Meditation is pretty clearly defined as "to spend time in quiet thought for religious purposes or relaxation." You can check The Merriam Webster Dictionary to see that and the many other variations on the word meditation, but it pretty much boils down to this: spending time in quiet thought. [1]

Put them together and you get Mindfulness Meditation: Spending time in quiet thought with a focus on the present moment. Not the kind of thought that has you evaluating the quality of your breath, wondering how you look while meditating, hoping no one walks in on you, mentally preparing a shopping list, or telling yourself to call your son and remind him to feed the dog. Quiet thoughts, such as noticing with gratitude the surface that is holding you up, recognizing your own breath as it enters your nostrils, feeling cool air hit the back of your throat, noticing your belly rise and fall, and feeling the breath leave your body. 

Research conducted at The University of Arizona reported 5 very specific health benefits that can come as a result of Mindfulness Training. It can strengthen the immune system, improve relationships (familial as well as with strangers), reduce anxiety and stress while increasing happiness, increase openness to new experiences while decreasing neurotic feelings, and it can lead to a clearer, more flexible and practical view of reality. Read more here: Mindfulness Training Has Positive Health Benefits. [2]

Where to begin? 

We are often told to begin with the breath in Mindfulness Training. This simply means that we focus our attention on the movements and sensations associated with breathing. This focused attention on the breath might be hard to do at first, especially if your mind is very busy. That's okay. Almost everyone has trouble learning how to quiet the chatter in their minds and simply be with the breath.

To get you started I'm sharing a few very simple exercises (you know how I love to share great resources that cross my path). Here are four strategies you can practice, shared from The Guided Meditation Website. I'll list the exercises here and you can go to the article, Mindfulness Exercises, for more details and instructions.[3] Notice your reaction as you read each one:

1. One Minute of Mindfulness (come on... everyone has ONE minute, right?)
2. Conscious Observation (anywhere, anytime)
3. The ten second chant (if you can count to ten, you can do this one)
4. Mindfulness Cues (choose your cues)

Did any of the exercises feel particularly appealing or inviting? I would suggest starting there because I always think of this as a wee nod from my intuition. If not, start anywhere. The most important thing you can do in developing a mindfulness routine, or practice, is to begin.

Some people find it easier to relax their very busy minds when they have something to listen to. Here's a YouTube clip of mindfulness bells, also from The Guided Mediation Website, which may help you develop your own mindfulness practice.[4] If you like this you might want to acquire a full audio collection, for sale on the page. Spend some time on the page, too. There are lots of great resources there. 

Take a few deep breaths from way down in your belly, click the play button, and take five for you.

Share your favorite Mindfulness Meditation in the comment box!

When someone suggested that I write about mindfulness it appealed to me, but was I up to the task? Mindfulness? Really? I’m not Pema Chodron, after all. Plus, I’m what you might call (and many have) a Spaz. Yes, I am a little high strung, hardly a glowing example of peace and tranquility.

Around the same time, a story appeared on a friend’s Facebook page that talked about the power of Mindfulness to change your brain. Mindfulness. There it was again, and within a few days a book came across my path called “Mindfulness as Medicine” by Sister Dang Nghiem, a Buddhist nun with Lyme Disease. Three nudges in rapid succession had me wondering if that which guides my heart is a lot more like Sheldon Cooper than I ever realized. Mindfulness. Maybe I should do this, I thought.

That’s about the time the question of writing about mindfulness resurfaced, with the same person, in a Facebook conversation. “I think it has excellent possibility," she said, wink and smile implied.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I’ll do it,” I thought (to myself.) 

To her I replied “I’m planning on mindfulness as a regular thing, but not from the perspective of having mastered it” literally Laughing Out Loud as I typed, “but from the perspective that being mindful can bring me back.” It was no secret to me that living mindfully can slow down the spin of my thoughts, help me relax, and remind me that this is the one real moment- the only real moment, and that every moment is a fresh beginning. It is also no secret to me that I tend to slack off in the self-help department once I feel better about things, which is not something I'm particularly proud of. That is, in fact, where I am right now – slacking; tense, worried, fearful, and filled with regrets. It was becoming more obvious by the second – I needed this. Maybe others do, too.

Years ago, when mindfulness began to rise in popularity, it sounded to me like a trendy celebritized buzz word. Being one who avoids trendy celebritized buzz words like my dog avoids the bathtub, I bristled and ran the other way.

Luckily, there are a few people in my life willing to guide me and patient enough to wait it out while I hem and haw and eventually get around to trying the things they’ve mentioned. One person even made an audio CD for me with her own voice guiding me through a short breathing exercise. She said “it might help you relax.” It did, too. It became part of my daily routine for a long time and, without even realizing it, I had learned how to use my own breath during stressful times which always brought me back to a calmer place, showing me that I was okay. Always. Imagine that. My breath. It had been there all along. It was like having a pair of ruby slippers just waiting to be called into action. As it turns out, this was a mindfulness meditation, but at the time I knew it as my relaxation CD.

Gradually, very gradually, I learned more. I sought out audio and video recordings from modern day spiritual teachers like Pema Chodron and Eckhardt Tolle, and meditation became very important. A daily mindfulness practice led me to a point where everything in my life began to feel safer. Nothing really changed, but everything changed. I changed.

Mindful is a heady word (no pun intended, but not bad). Don’t let it scare you. Anyone who has ever been a child already knows more than they realize. Most of us have just forgotten. It might help provide a sense of what living mindfully means if we try seeing a slice of life from a child's perspective. Let's imagine mashed potatoes.

When a two year old runs her chubby index finger across the smooth high chair tray through a heap of soft gushy stuff she notices with delight a deep impression left behind in the mound of squishy warmth. She feels the thickness of something they call mashed potatoes as her fingertip travels through the blob, disappears momentarily, and comes out on the other side of the mound covered in the stuff. The blob smells good as she brings it to her mouth, open and ready to receive it. Her lips close around the finger as she draws it out slowly, leaving the wonderful soft, fragrant mash behind. In that moment everything is about the mashed potatoes,. She is experiencing the moment without worrying about the potatoes that made a soft plopping sound as they splatted to the floor, She is definitely not worried about the just mopped tile, and thoughts about which pajamas she will wear after her bath have not entered her mind. She is simply being the one who is feeling, smelling, hearing, seeing, and tasting this thing called mashed potatoes.

Two year olds have it down. They came that way.

I myself cannot taste any food in a meal I’ve prepared without evaluating it for potential tweaks and improvements and announcing how I will change the recipe next time. A glance around the table tells me if everything is there. I hope everyone finds something to like in the meal as thoughts about what has to come out of the freezer for tomorrow’s dinner fill my head. A mental inventory of my pantry is taken and I decide if a trip to the grocery store will be necessary. Whomever happens to be at the table will converse about the events of the day and maybe what’s new in their lives. More often than not I find myself shocked to discover my food is gone as I stare at an empty plate. I finished dinner but missed the meal. 

Lately, I find nearly all of my moments are filled with so much mental activity that simple enjoyment is nearly impossible. Something has to change it seems and it has to start with me. Which leads me back to my reason for writing this.

Why mindfulness? Because fifty-five year olds, and other humans over two, sometimes have to work at it a little (or a lot). It cannot be possible that I’m the only person over the age of two years old who needs a little companionship and encouragement on the journey. 

Come back on the first Wednesday of every month for tips, tools, and treasures. We’ll explore practices, research, and inspiration for mindful living. Let’s talk about Mindfulness and see what comes up.


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