BEING WITH WHAT IS

BEING WITH WHAT IS

“Mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness cultivated by paying attention.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness is about being with whatever arises when we practice meditation or as we live our daily lives. Mindfulness is an invitation to stay present with our experience, moment-by-moment and breath-by-breath.

As we practice mindfulness we begin to observe that our experience in daily life and in meditation changes moment by moment. Sometimes as we practice we become mindful of life situations, mind events, feelings or body sensations that we might label pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Usually, our automatic tendency is to avoid what we view as unpleasant and hold onto what we find pleasant. Instead of practicing non-judgmental awareness, our automatic tendency is to practice judgmental awareness. The practice of judgmental awareness creates suffering whether we are seeking to avoid an unpleasant feeling, thought, body sensation and life situation or we are seeking to hold onto a pleasant feeling, thought, body sensation or life situation.

Let me give you a few examples.

A woman was referred to me. I have been seeing her for a while. When I saw her again I asked her how her week was.

She said, “It was a lousy week.”

“Oh. What happened?”

“On Tuesday I awoke feeling anxious and it wrecked my week.”

I replied, “Tuesday? Today is Monday. That’s almost a week ago.”

She looked at me like I was hard of hearing.

“Yep. That’s what I said. It’s been a lousy week.”

“I’m confused. You were anxious last Tuesday. What did that have to do with the rest of your week?”

Now she looks at me like I am a bit slow.

“I don’t know. I just still feel crappy.”

“OK. Well, what did you do with the anxiety last Tuesday?”

“I did not do anything with it. I just kept busy”

I said, “Oh, I see. You decided to avoid it?”

“Yes. I did not want to deal with it.”

“Well, do you think that worked for you?”

“No. But it is the only thing I could think of,”

Now I looked at her with a slight smile on my face.

“Nancy, you’ve been talking with me for awhile now, do you really believe you could not think of another way to deal with it?”

At first she looked away.

Then she looked at me and said, “Ok. Yes, I know I could have made other choices. I just did not want to know what the anxiety was about.”

“OK. That’s a bit more honest. And, you know, I can understand you did not want to be mindful of the anxiety. Sometimes it can be a challenging choice to let ourselves be mindful of what we find unpleasant. But, I think when we avoid what is unpleasant, it can give us a lousy week.”

“No kidding.”

“Do you have a sense of what the anxiety is?”

“Nope. I don’t know.”

“Can you connect to your breath and create a safe place for yourself? When you feel safe, can you just let yourself be mindful of what is happening?

Eventually she was able to be mindful of her anxiety. By the time she left, she was no longer burdened by it. What we avoid, becomes a burden we carry.

What we try to AVOID is impermanent. It will pass. It will rise and fall. If we simply become mindful of worry, it will rise, fall and pass away. Pain, insecurity and self-criticism are not ‘how things are’ or permanent states of being. They are thoughts, feelings, body sensations that oscillate, change and pass away moment-by-moment and breath-by-breath. IT IS OUR AUTOMATIC TENDENCY TO AVOID THE PRESENT MOMENT THAT INCREASES SUFFERING. Can we be with what is happening long enough to see what is happening? CAN WE EXTEND AN ATTITUDE OF LOVING-KINDNESS TOWARDS WHAT WE FIND UNPLEASANT?