The Path of Mindfulness

With the stress and demands of daily life, staying on a path of mindfulness takes some effort. Many of us feel pressure to be on 24/7. Mindfulness is considered the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment. When we are mindful we notice details---an expression, a flower or leaf. How do we quiet the mind to create this kind of centering peace?

We can cultivate and develop our own ability to be mindful through practice. I enjoy helping my clients develop their own, unique strategy for keeping balanced and mindful. There are many ways to get there. We each need to develop practices we can use daily, as mindfulness needs to be gotten fresh daily, like showering.

When we are mindful, we have more energy, higher levels of compassion for ourselves and others, we are calmer and more relaxed, and are less vulnerable to anxiety and depression. Mindfulness increases self-acceptance.

Here are some ideas for creating mindfulness in your daily routine:

1. Create quiet time for yourself. Silence is powerful, and helps heal and give you clarity.

2. Exercise, to burn off stress and nervous energy.

3. Get outside. Try to spend a little time outside, on a walk or in your garden every day if you can.

4. Create sacred rituals--- a cup of herbal tea and some inspired reading first thing in the morning, a Saturday bike ride, play time with your dog after work, a fireside chat with your partner each evening.

5. Journal daily. Writing allows you to process emotions and events and give you perspective.

6. Take time for quiet prayer or conversations with God.

7. Meditation. Sit quietly and usher out any thoughts that come up. Don't worry about 'doing it right'. Consider this time your daily meeting with yourself.

8. Reconnect with life: do something creative with your hands, observe animals and nature, focus on your breath.

9. Make note of 3 different things you are grateful for daily. Consider your friendships, your body, your home, happy memories, things about yourself.

10. Lie down and do nothing. Be aware of your breath. Scan your body for any tension and let it go.

11. Let yourself feel--anger, sadness, or loss.

12. Challenge yourself to accept what is.

13. Eat with mindfulness--slowly, and with reverence.

14. Taking time for a cup of tea.

15. Express appreciation.

If you are needing some help with getting started, you might check out the simple exercises in The Little Book of Mindfulness: Ten Minutes a Day to Less Stress, More Peace by Dr. Patricia Collard (Gala, 2014). 

I also love the free downloads of guided mindfulness practice you can find through UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center at marc.ucla.edu. Their 9 minute meditation on loving kindness is one of my personal favorites, and would make anyone have a better day filled with more compassion and less edges.

Set your mind to cultivating mindfulness in your everyday life. It's all in the details of consciously creating rituals that slow you down and open up your heart.

10% Happier

Dan Harris is a reporter for ABC News, and co-hosts the weekend edition of Good Morning America and Nightline. He also just wrote his first book called, "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story"(HarperCollins, 2014).

Harris is a colorful guy. He is brutally honest about his past drug use, his on-air panic attack, the internal dialogue in his head which keeps making him afraid his career will fall apart and he'll have to move to a flop house in Duluth. He openly admits to having been a jerk at work, throwing papers around, and letting his ego run away with him. He seems competitive in a highly competitive business. He copes with reporting from war zones, not completely understanding the impact it's having on him. In one war zone, shots ring out near him, and his first thought is that he hopes the film crew kept the camera running, because it will be great footage for the news.

He seems like a regular guy, and has a nice self-depreciating sense of humor. He's open about his experiences in therapy. He gets assigned the job of being a spirituality reporter, even though he's an agnostic. He ends up interviewing Christian evangelicals, as well as new-age experts like Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. On his journey, he also gets to meet and interview his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Next, he meets experts in mindfulness and meditation, including Mark Epstein, M.D., who becomes a mentor and friend.

So what does a skeptical, stressed-out, agnostic reporter do with all this information? He tries out meditation, including a 10 day silent meditation retreat. In a hilarious, self-effacing way, he chronicles his struggles to learn to be mindful, and do meditation and compassion meditation. Amazingly, it helped. Harris learned to calm his 'monkey mind' and be more present. He feels he is 'less of a jerk now', overreacting less. In the process, Harris demystifies the practice of meditation.

I liked that Harris is relatable as an average man, and that he gives us an inside view that makes trying meditation much more simple and inviting. He actually breaks down the basic steps of meditation, into something any of us could do for five minutes a day, sitting quietly and focusing on our breath. He encourages the reader to be more self-accepting and less self-critical. If your mind wanders off, just guide it gently back to the breathing.

"10% Happier" is an easy and fun read. His language can be a little colorful, but his inside view of the television news business, and his skeptic's view of the useful practice of daily meditation to quiet our minds and build compassion is well worth reading. His explanation of the usefulness of learning to detach from outcomes, and ask ourselves "does this really matter?" when we are worked up and upset is something most of us can put right to good use. It might just help us be 10% happier, or even more.

How Rituals Increase Satisfaction

Would birthday cake taste as good without the lit candles and the song? Probably not.

We use rituals every day: morning rituals, evening rituals, holiday and birthday rituals, anniversary rituals, as well as religious rituals. They increase meaning, significance, and evoke a sense of tradition and family. New research also suggests ritual behaviors increase the satisfaction in behaviors like eating.

A recent story on NPR (June 20, 2013) by their social science correspondent, Shankar Vedantam, covered a soon to be published article by Harvard University Behavioral Scientist Francesca Gino and colleagues, Kathleen Vohs, Yajin Wang and Michael Norton, giving evidence to the idea that creating rituals before eating increases the satisfaction of the experience.

Gino's study had volunteers divided into two groups, with each person being given a chocolate bar to eat. Half were instructed to follow a procedure where they carefully unwrapped half the bar, savored it, and ate the second half later. The second group just went ahead and ate their bar all at once. 

Guess which group enjoyed their chocolate bar more? It was the first group who ate their chocolate more mindfully. This process was retested with carrots, and the same effect occurred. Those who ate more mindfully experienced better taste and indicated they would pay more for the experience.

What did the researchers conclude? Performing rituals before eating increases the satisfaction and enjoyment of eating. The ritual must be done each time in the same way, like communion at a church service. 

So, singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles after making wishes before eating the birthday cake will likely increase the enjoyment of the cake. A shared toast or prayer before dinner will add to the meaning and satisfaction of dinner.

The researchers determined that it is not enough to observe a ritual, it is essentially different to participate in it. It's the active participation that seems key.

There are rituals which have existed for thousands of years, traditions we either inherit from our families or create for ourselves, and habits which we develop. Ritualistic behavior can get out of hand and become a problem if it makes us obsessive, but the right amount of ritual in your life can make your life more satisfying, enjoyable, and meaningful. (Not to mention tastier!)

You might reflect on how traditions and rituals in your day and your week make your life better. Perhaps you enjoy a first cup of coffee or tea each morning, bond with your dog through play, water your flowers after work, tuck in your children in bed with stories and cuddling, enjoy a walk in your neighborhood and notice little changes as the seasons pass. Mindfulness in living does create more meaning in the small things of everyday life, including the chocolate.

Happiness Is An Inside Job

It seems to me that there are some misguided ideas floating around about happiness. It’s time to clear up some myths about creating a happy life, and clarify what is in our power to do to build more joy and contentment. I'd like to see most people enjoy their lives more, and part of getting there is an inside job—making a choice to be mature and wise about your expectations.

Here are some of the myths about happiness:

1. My partner is supposed to make me happy. Sorry, but happiness is actually an inside job and when you build some you can share it with your partner. You don't extract it from your partner. People that don't get this concept need to keep replacing their partner and getting a new one on a frequent basis, because they don't understand that your life partner doesn't supply your happiness stream. You do.

2. Happiness is about having the most stuff, or the most money. While it's good to be comfortable and have what you need, the relentless pursuit of stuff doesn't generally make people happy. When it comes to the accumulation of stuff, being organized and traveling light often makes people feel less stressed.

3. I'm supposed to be blissfully happy all the time. No, actually it's the challenges and dark moments in your life that help highlight and underscore what real happiness is. I don't think I've ever met an open, reflective person who doesn't experiences some mood variation day to day. That's called NORMAL.

4. I don't need to be grateful to be happy. It's actually quite the opposite. The people who are happiest and most content often have a profound sense of gratefulness for the people in their life and the opportunities they've been given.

5. Happiness has nothing to do with work. Not true. Even Freud knew that we need two things in life to be happy: we need love and we need work. People need a purpose larger than themselves. It gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Life isn't supposed to be like a perpetual vacation. You need to contribute something back to our planet to truly be happy. It could be your profession, your art, or your selfless service to others. Realizing that you are not the center of the universe helps put things in perspective, and makes you feel purposeful and significant. Even my patients that are retiring—I want them to retire TO something.

6. Alcohol makes you happy. Alcohol is actually a depressant. When it wears off, you will feel worse. Authentic happiness isn't achieved through the use of alcohol or chemical substances. It's more real.

7. Happiness is the goal. In reality, happiness and joy often find you when you are giving your gift to the universe, in the creative flow, and engaged with people and causes you care about. Happiness is often a by-product, not the only target.

8. Happiness will be delivered by UPS and I can sit here and wait for it. That’s probably not the best plan. You need to be actively involved in life, relationships, projects, and plans to really get the happiness flow going.

9. Getting married will make me happy. Maybe, maybe not. Your own happiness set-point may have more to do with your happiness level. All couples have 4 or 5 perpetual, unsolvable issues they have to learn to dialogue respectfully about. Your partner will be a unique individual with their own wants, needs, and back story. You will need to learn to love, honor, and negotiate. A strong marriage will help you grow to become a better person, but it won't all be cake.

10. Having children will make me happy. There are lots of joys in parenthood, but be aware that sweet little ones who want to please you often grow into teenagers who have their own ideas and need to push back and reject you. The outcome takes longer than you ever think it will. Parenting is a rich life experience, but buyer beware that it's not always fun and full of laughs.

11. Moving will make me happy. It might, but be mindful, as Jon Kabat-Zinn titled his useful book, Wherever You Go, There You Are. A new house or a new area may be fun, but you are required to take you with you! A grumpy, moody person in a beautiful new home or locale is still a grump.

12. I will be happy later (when I am retired, when the children are older, when we have more money, etc). It's a better idea to count your blessings and joys all along the way, and not defer the joy until later. There is nothing certain about later.

Now that's we've debunked a few of those myths, it's time to choose to be happy today. Taking the first few minutes of your morning to meditate and reflect on the people and experiences in your life that you are grateful for is a terrific way to frame the day. Affirm that you choose to feel good, love life, and keep your emotional energy level high by being open to people and experiences that are positive and life-affirming. You can choose to be happy, even in challenging situations. Developing your sense of humor can help. Attitude may not be everything, but leaning in fully to your life and living in an enthusiastic way is sure to increase your happiness quotient.

Happiness is one of those paradoxical things. You have a biological set-point for it, but what you do with your thoughts and your life contributes also. If your thinking is stuck in a negative gear, the irony is that you won't be able to savor and enjoy any blessings or goodness in your life. Happiness is often hidden in appreciating petite joys in everyday life. Sometimes happiness comes in wanting and appreciating who and what you already have in your life. As Kent Keith wrote beautifully in his book Do It Anyway, the things that bring people the deepest happiness and personal meaning are deciding to love people, do good, succeed, be honest and frank, think big, fight for the underdog, help people, and give the world our best. And if people let you down, life disappoints you, others don't deserve it or are self-centered? Do good anyway, because the way to a fulfilled, satisfying, happy, and meaningful life that has integrity is yours, regardless of what anyone else does.