Episode 9 - Mindfulness
Mindfulness seems like such an easy concept, but so many of us have a hard time maintaining it. In this episode I tell you all about a discussion I came across this week that blew my mind and helped me to see mindfulness in a new way!
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
What is mindfulness?
What’s the new concept I learned about mindfulness that blew my mind?
Easy ways to practice mindfulness
How does mindfulness help?
Links mentioned in this episode
Transcription
Welcome to episode 9 of Shift Your Shit With Sara. This week, I came across a discusson between Richard Chambers and Craig Hassed about their Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance course at Monash University, and it brought a new perspective and explanation of mindfulness that was a bit mindblowing, and completely easy to understand for me.
Essentially, in mindfulness, we’re standing back from our thoughts, without the need to judge or change them, just standing back and watching the thoughts come and go. I’m sure we’ve all heard the Headspace commercial about traffic, right?
Richard Chambers was talking about how in mindfulness-based CBT, they noticed that about ⅓ of the research participants didn’t relapse after treatment, so what were they doing differently than the others?
It turns out they found these people were using cognitive reframing, or thinking about the situations in a different way. The thought was, “If I can change my thoughts and have a different outcome, what does that say about the nature of my thoughts?”
This is again, essentially what mindfulness is, recognizing that thoughts aren’t facts, they’re just mental events.
And if we’re caught up in these mental events, or constantly pushing against them, then that’s where it starts to cause problems. But if we can step back from the stress, the depression, the anxiety, and just notice and observe it, we then get a little bit of freedom from it.
And this is the way that mindfulness helps us to reduce stress. Rather than changing the thoughts, mindfulness is more about changing our relationship to the thinking process.
And when we’re caught up in these thoughts, we tend to project stories that we’ve created onto them, and most of the time, we don’t even notice that we’re doing this. This distorts the whole thought process with things that aren’t facts, that may or may not happen, and that we certainly don’t need to stress about ahead of time.
I can definitely vouch for doing this one myself - being worried about something that I have absolutely no proof to back up, about how someone might react to a situation, what someone is thinking about me or a situation I’ve been in, or in making an assumption about how something is going to turn out.
I don’t know about you, but I know I’ve put a whole lot of extra stress on myself doing this for sure.
It really is crazy how much time we spend, and stress we put onto ourselves in following these stories that we make up when we’re worried about or avoiding a situation. If you think about how much time we spend ruminating on hard conversations that we have, it’s definitely more time than is spent on the actual conversation itself, and so often the outcome is nowhere as negative as we’ve predicted in our heads.
Now, here comes the part that was mind-blowing for me.
Craig Hassed was talking about how he sometimes explains these concepts to his patients as the following.
Think about a tiger. Picture it in your head. Can you see the tiger now?
Okay, so this tiger that you see, are you worried about it biting you?
Why not?
Well, because it’s imaginary.
Well, the next time we’re in an imaginary argument with somebody, reliving the past as if it’s actually currently happening, and getting angry, anxious, or scared all over again, do we realize that that too is all in our imagination?
Mind blown.
These imaginary arguments and conversations that we’re having are all in our imagination. We’re causing that stress, anxiety, feeling with our imagination.
And if we’re causing it, we can stop it, or change it.
We’re getting ourselves all worked up, activated, and stressed over an imaginary conversation or argument - those feelings that are real feelings are being experienced because of something that doesn’t currently exist.
For me, this whole concept was a game changer. Seeing that these thoughts that I’m having are just a mental projection made it so much easier to even consider stepping back from the thoughts and seeing them as something separate from myself.
And Richard Chambers added that if we’re looking at it really closely, most of the stress that we experience is either created in the mind, or made worse in the mind by the projections and assumptions that we make with our thoughts.
Now mindfulness doesn’t always come easy, that’s for sure, but it’s a practice, just like we’ve talked about for other tools as well. The more you practice it, the more naturally it will come to you in those times that you need it most, and not just when you’re concentrating on it.
So, what are some ways to practice mindfulness?
Right now, pay attention to where you are. Feel the seat underneath you. Is it hard, or is it soft? Do you hear anything around you? What do you see around you? What colours and shapes do you see? What can you feel? What can you smell? Use your senses. Take a few moments with each sense to really observe what’s going on around you.
We filter out so much of the information around us (we’d have an overwhelming amount of stimulus if we didn’t), but take a few moments to notice more of it.
When you’re eating, instead of mindlessly popping the food into your mouth, slow down and enjoy it. Consider the texture, the smell, the taste, the temperature. Want to really treat yourself? Grab some chocolate or one of your favourite foods and take a bite and slowly observe it. Not only are you practicing mindfulness, but getting an extra little treat in the process!
The next time you’re doing dishes, feel the temperature of the water, enjoy the texture of the little bubbles, feel the dishes in your hands, smell the dish soap. Just take a few moments to really experience what’s happening with all of your senses, and on purpose.
You can also practice this with mindfulness meditations, just search for one in Google or YouTube and follow along with the guidance.
As I mentioned before, the more you practice, the easier it is to do “in the moment”, every day, especially in moments where you really can benefit.
The tiny takeaway for today’s episode is to try one, or more, of the mindfulness exercises mentioned previously, or find one of your own. If one doesn’t work, try another, keep at it. It might not be easy at first, but the more you practice, the more second nature it will become.
Thank you so much for joining us today on Shift Your Shit With Sara, where I help people who are feeling stuck shift into a life they love. Everything mentioned on today’s episode will be linked in the show notes at www.shiftyourshitwithsara.com/9, that’s the number nine.
I’m currently putting together a workshop that will be coming out in November for stress reduction. If you’d like to make sure you’re on the list to find out more information once it’s released, make sure to pop over to my website,
Shiftyourshitwithsara.com, and sign up for my newsletter. This will make sure you have all the information on upcoming workshops, courses, and bonuses.
Thank you again for joining me today, if you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you would pop over to your podcast player to give the show a five star rating and even leave a comment about what you enjoy about the show.
Have a fantastic week, and I’ll see you again next time.
