"Now, close your eyes. With your mind, imagine a place of beauty."
I closed my eyes and tried to still my anxious thoughts, my thumping head, and my racing heart.
"Well, it is not as easy as it sounds," I quipped, "when one's whole being is in turmoil."
"Never the less, friend, try," he said calmly.
Again I closed my eyes, and tried to conger up an image of beauty. Flashes of light and colour whizzed by, indescribable shapes, but no particular place per se showed up.
"You don't have to hold your breath, just breathe evenly and slowly."
I had not noticed that I was holding my breath, but as soon as he said it, I realised that when I was trying to visualise a place of beauty, I was indeed holding my breath.
"Right, sorry, wasn't even aware of that I was holding my breath," I responded.
I closed my eyes again, but this time I was too busy making sure I wasn't holding my breath that I saw nothing, except for the inside of my eyelids.
"Who would have thought it could be this hard to breathe slowly and evenly while at the same time visualising something," I thought.
Being still and just present in the moment had always been hard for me, my mind was a very busy mind and didn't seem to have an "off" switch.
"Listen" he said, "can you hear wind?"
"Yes, I can hear the wind," I answered.
"Focus your attention on only listening to the wind, and breathing slowly."
With the greatest of efforts I focused my attention on the wind and as I did, I noticed that my breathing somehow automatically slowed down. Amazingly, as the minutes passed, my anxious thoughts and racing heart became less prevalent. Suddenly, and as if out of nowhere, an image emerged in my minds eye. I saw trees dressed for autumn, a still lake, a mountain range, and a sky draped in a multitude of colours.
All else was gone; the anxiety, the thumping head, the racing heart; I had finally managed to remove my mind from my worries, to a place of beauty. I clung to it. How many minutes passed while I was "visiting" my place of beauty, I have no idea, but I slowly became aware again of where I was in actuality.
"Did you succeed in finding a place of beauty?" he asked.
"Indeed, I did, and the experience was amazing and very relaxing," I answered.
"What you experienced, is something called "mindfulness", and it can be a very effective tool to centre oneself and find a moment of inner stillness, he said.
"Can I do this again, and at any time and anywhere,? I asked.
"Yes, you can," he responded.
Though the above is a fictitious story, mindfulness is not.
There are many definitions of mindfulness: a form of self-awareness, a form of meditation, "a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, often used as a therapeutic technique" (Wikipedia), being present in one's experience, etc..
I struggled with coming to grips with what it is exactly, until one day I had an experience that helped me understand it.
Sitting on the couch, trying to relax my mind, a grasshopper of some sort suddenly started up outside the window. It was loud, and almost impossible to ignore, so I decided to focus all my attention on just hearing the grasshopper, everything else I put on "ignore". For how long the grasshopper sang his song, I have no idea, but when he suddenly stopped, I realised that I felt very refreshed and relaxed.
How odd, I thought. I decided to try this with other sounds: birds, far-away traffic sounds, cooling fans, humming air cons, the waves of the ocean, etc. etc.., and they all worked.
Somehow, paying attention to something in particular, but without attaching any judgments, or opinions to it, i:e just staying in the experience, relaxes the mind.
The same mind that may conger up all sorts of disasters, dilemmas, stresses, anxieties, etc. is the same mind that can help us to overcome them.
“Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).” (James Baraz)
No comments:
Post a Comment