When the day does not go your way, take heart

If the only thing you did today was breathe, you're off to a good start. Forget the deadlines you missed, the phone calls you didn't make, the chapter of your novel you didn't write, or the walk that was forgotten. Just breathe, and if you practice enough, the rest will begin to take care of itself.

I've been using mindfulness meditation as a way of managing my depression and anxiety over the last couple of years. Since Max died, it's become an even more important tool to help me get through each day when each day feels like a battle I have no hope of winning. I've mentioned mindfulness a few times lately, and I thought I should take some time to explain what this is, and how it really helps you to learn to manage unhelpful thoughts and horrible feelings.

If you've read any self-help books, or your work has made you go on stress-relief retreats to learn how to calm the fuck down, you've probably heard that one of the key ways to do so is to alter your breathing - to breathe deeply and rhythmically, whilst possibly muttering some inane positive affirmations to yourself at the same time.

Mindfulness meditation is not this.

Thank god. Otherwise, I would definitely not have been able to stick with it for as long as I have.

Mindfulness is meditation for the chronically lazy. You don't have to actively work to change your breathing; to calm yourself down. In fact you do quite the opposite. You do nothing except notice your breath. The idea is for your breath to become the object of your most careful attention and to draw your mind away from the anxious restless, fearful or discomforting thoughts it might be having. Whenever your mind wanders, your aim is always to return your focus to your breath; to observe the variety of sensations it causes in your body, and to learn to sit with them, whether they are painful, uncomfortable, scary, or reassuring.

This sounds, on initial hearing, either pretty damn easy, or pretty damn bullshit, depending on how open minded or experienced you are in meditative practices. When my psychologist first started using these techniques with me years ago I used to spend 75% of the session when I was supposed to be listening to her guide the meditation thinking this is an absolute load of garbage.

"I can't believe every hour of this is costing me over 100 bucks..." - I so clearly remember being bitter that my time and money were being wasted on what seemed to be a useless practice. In the beginning, I was so unaware of my breathing that my psychologist had to take some remedial measures. I was not a switched on student. So, I was made to lie on the floor with a tissue box on my abdomen for session after session. The tissue box would rise and fall with each breath and help me to notice my breath. About all I noticed for a long time was how much of an idiot I felt.

Though I believed that my psychologist believed it would work, I thought I had every piece of evidence to the contrary that it would work for me. I'd always found it impossible to quieten my mind, which is why I'd never enjoyed or succeeded at yoga. Meditation was never something I pictured myself doing willingly.

But then, slowly, and over a period of months, it did begin to work. In fact, I eventually got so good at it that my psychologist sacked me because I didn't need her to guide me through it anymore - I could do it All. By. My. Self. No one was more surprised than I was...

It worked when I finally realised that the practice did not require of me the emptying of my mind, and that instead, the distractions I would often feel are in fact an inevitable part of the practice, and not signs of my meditative failure! When those intrusive thoughts, feelings, or sensations pop up, it is your job only to acknowledge and accept them, refrain from judging them as 'good' or 'bad', and to give them the space to come and go without molestation (i.e. you adding lots of baggage to them). The key to this whole thing is not to get involved with those thoughts and feelings. You don't follow them or build on them or listen to them. You just watch them, and in doing so you learn to exist more fully in the present moment.

The present moment is your best friend. Haven't you noticed that most of your bad feelings and upsetting emotions are tied to things that happened in the past, or that you fear will happen/will not happen in the future? If you can train your mind to stay in the present moment, I can tell you with great assuredness that most certainly experience more calm and less distress. But it's not easy. The more you practice mindfulness, the more aware you initially become of just how many messages your brain is sending to you every minute of every day. You start to realise it's no wonder you feel tense or down or constantly tired. Thoughts constantly intrude on us, and the truth is that only a handful of them are ever actually relevant or helpful at any given moment. Mindfulness is about screening out the din and creating for you some peace and quiet.

Do I sound like an evangelist? You betcha I do. I'm a terrible skeptic, usually, but this shit just works! It takes time and an annoying amount of practice, but it works! I know that people have also said that very same thing about chiropractors and homeopathy, but even actual doctors, and psychologists, and psychiatrists (i.e. people who require scientific evidence to prove things before they believe in them) believe in mindfulness therapy, and often use it in conjunction with CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) or ACT (acceptance & commitment therapy). My psychiatrist currently has me ramping up my current practice, and whilst I'm always initially reluctant to engage with it (because it's hard and often boring), I once again soon find myself feeling better as a result, and I have to sign and hang my head in resignation and let her say 'I told you so'.

I've probably explained this all topsy turvy-like, as it is a difficult concept to explain to the uninitiated, but just remember one thing: mindfulness works, mmkay? Sometimes all you can do is breathe when the world gets too noisy and affronting, but that's OK. In fact, it's the very most important thing.

You could read this book if you're interested in finding out how to live more meaningfully in the present. It's a good start.