Obstacles to mindfulness despite my need to learn

Living Room
#1

Hi,

I’m a consumer of mental health services who has been offered mindfulness in several contexts, including ACT therapy. I can see in theory how it might help me, if it loosens my attachment to the miserable “reality” I identify with through my habitual thoughts.

However I have consistently failed to get to grips with mindfulness, in large part I suppose because I am so attached to the supposed certainties of judgement and categorization of my experience.

In previous years I tried a formal sit down meditation routine, observing the flow of my thoughts and sensations. However I was hobbled by the recurrent thought that I was doing it wrong. For example, I was told I should be observing my breathing without changing it, but anytime I paid attention to my breathing I kept changing it to follow particular breathing cycles and guided visualisations I had picked up studying yoga.

I was tortured by the thought that I wasn’t progressing - a judgement which is itself surely out of place in the wished for non-judgemental mindset. Thats sort of contradiction seems typical.

I have been offered supposedly less-demanding beginner approaches, such as my current psychologist suggesting that I respond to my distressing thoughts by imagining myself as watching them the way an elderly person might observe a child playing in the park - not engaging with them, nor judging, just curious and watchful. I have a vague idea of what that might be like, given my curious observation of things like the varying patterns of birds plumage.

However that child-scenario tool still is a non-starter for me, due I think to two “problems”:

  1. I am always self conscious that in only deploying this thinking mode whenever I identify a “neg” ( as I called distressing thoughts), I am already buying into a judgement and an intention to reduce those thoughts, which itself seems to contradict the detatchment which I am supposed to be applying.

  2. I have no idea how I can manufacture curiosity and interest for thoughts that, as I imagine them, are essentially sentences. They are analagous to the small objects, e.g. a key, I was asked to handle mindfully in an ACT workshop. I quickly ran out of things to observe about them and felt silly waiting for some surprise to emerge from nowhere. A manufactured item like a key appears to me as a solid with texture and shape, and nothing more that is not part of it’s designed form and function. Similarly, a thought has the function to encode propositional content and can be judged to be true or false. All I can do with it is toggle some assumption of which of those it is, or swap out words thesaurus-style. I imagine there is some other skeptical or experimental reflection you could apply to them, but that is probably no different to the tortured wrestling with my thoughts that distresses me.

So, is there some other way to get into observer mode, to detatch from the illusory reality of thoughts without simply dismissing them as mistakes?

Of even more interest to me than answers to these particular questions is, how can I find more ongoing help to answer questions like this? There are mindfulness courses where I am in Brisbane, but they seem to all cost big bucks. Is there such as thing as a free online mindfulness guru or mentor? Or does the essentially private nature of this practice mean I have to somehow change myself before anyone else can help me?

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#2

Hi. Thanks for sharing your experiences. These are wonderful insights. It sounds as if your exposure to mindfulness has been by way of therapy/therapist. This is just one of the ways to come to mindfulness, very common and beneficial.
But as you mentioned, perhaps a primary mindfulness based intervention (MBSR, MBCT) would provide different, though complementary, insights. I am not sure if there are so called good ones that are free, but there are some reasonably priced courses on line with well trained and well intentioned teachers.
In addition, you might attend a 5-10 day silent, teacher-led, mindfulness retreat, making sure you discuss this idea with your professionals first. There are many different offerings, different costs, etc. In particular the 10 day vipassana retreats (Goenka), are free and found around the world. These are ardous, so it would be important to discuss with your therapist. Hope this helps, Gus

#3

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your inquiry, and for your candor about the difficulties you are facing in practicing mindfulness. The challenges you described are familiar to me, both from my own inner experience of mindfulness practice, and from teaching these methods to others. It sounds like the degree of suffering they are causing you is pretty powerful.

By some minor synchronicity, in my inbox this morning, the email message right next to the one from CFMHome containing your post happened to include this quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the CFM:

No matter who you are, you can’t sit still all the time. And some people just find it virtually impossible to stay seated and mindful with the levels of pain and agitation and anger they feel. But they can walk with it. —Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Walking: Meditation on the Move”

Perhaps you will find the linked-to article, which contains walking meditation instructions from a number of teachers, of some help. Walking meditation is every bit as effective a mindfulness practice as sitting meditation, and more suitable for some practitioners. Of course, I can’t say for sure if walking meditation will be a more user-friendly approach for you, but given both your level of interest in the practice and the nature of challenges you described with it, it is worth a try.

One more suggestion, which is along the lines of walking practice. Sometimes, movement modalities like Chi Gong, Yoga, or Ti Chi are more helpful in situations like the one you described. So, if walking doesn’t fit the bill, you haven’t exhausted your options yet. You could look for a gentle mindful movement class or recording, which might support you in soothing the mental challenges while being more present. Such modes of practice have been extremely helpful to many, including myself - as you may know, MBSR includes just such a mindful yoga practice.

As for your other question, about finding online support, Gus has answered it as well as I could. In my view, MBSR or MBCT would be a wiser place to start than a retreat, since, as Gus said, those are ardous, and, I would add, intensive.

Hoping this information will be helpful, and wishing you well.

Kind regards,
Eowyn

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#4

Hi Steve,
I took the fall MBCT course in Mass.USA last year. it was very helpful .I have bought the online MBSR course to do with my partner.I had a very hard year going off Rx psych meds.and the MBCT course definately helped. the online course is similar but it would be helpful to connect with a group to meditate with.
Its is also helping me to do therapy with a focussing therapist.I remind myself daily to be kind and patient with myself.the anxiety and depression are there from long time practice,Change comes in slow steps.Mindfulness practice is that -PRACTICE-Life is a process not an event.“Hasten Slowly,and you will soon arrive!” Milarepa.
That said I am inching along! Peace Eleanor N.

#5

Hi Steve,

I am so appreciative of your candor and willingness to reach out. Please note: I do not have a clinical background, although I am a fellow mindfulness practitioner and have a thought or two to share.

You said you respond to distressing thoughts by imagining yourself as watching them the way an elderly person might observe a child playing in the park. I love that and I, too, try to practice observing my thoughts as if I’m watching. I think what I heard is that you identified “problems” with non judging because when you identify a thought as a “neg” you feel you are already judging it. I wonder if, rather identifying thoughts as positive or negative, you could skip the judgement part and try observe ALL thoughts as if they were that child. That way you are not judging anything, you are simply watching and observing all your thoughts. They are not good thoughts or bad thoughts, they are just thoughts.

Also, regarding running out of things to observe and having to manufacture curiosity about thoughts. Would it be helpful, after you’ve observed a thought with curiosity and feel you’ve run out of things, to move your attention to another area of focus? It could be turning back to your breathing, or moving on to noticing sounds, body sensations or other things that are observable at that moment? Or, could it be that you observe whatever it is you feel when you run out curiosity about a particular thought? It could be boredom, annoyance, anxiety.

I hope I understood what you were trying to articulate about your challenges. And thank you for your openness and honesty.

#6

Oops, looks like my last sentence was cut off. I simply wanted to add a thank you for your openness and honesty.