Just doing

Many of the resources I've read suggest that you should appreciate the small things, in order to “live in the moment” more often.  For example. if you’re drinking a coffee, just sit there and drink the coffee – do nothing else, think of nothing else, just do it and appreciate it for what it is.

Now this is something I've tried several times and not really found any true benefit from.  Generally I’ll do it for 10 seconds or so, and then my mind will wander and that will be it.  On the other hand, when I'm doing something that is very “in the moment” such as mountain biking, or playing guitar, it is very very easy to concentrate on that one thing, enjoying it, and thinking of nothing else.  For one thing, when playing guitar it is difficult to concentrate on something else!

But recently I have found that when I am doing some mundane task such as washing the dishes my mind may wander onto stresses at work or something else negative.  It is when I feel that trigger of a negative thought (a bit of tension in the face, or perhaps even in the brain) that I try to then just simply concentrate on the task in hand. 

I've found this technique very useful over the past few days to help dissipate a feeling that perhaps otherwise could have set me in a bad mood for the next hour or two. 

The link between using “the present moment” as a distraction from the negativity that has just been triggered is a much more powerful motivator to me than just “living in the moment” during some arbitrary time that I just happened to choose.  Otherwise, I’d probably be trying the technique at some point when I’d be bored, in the mood to be entertained, rather than settling down for some meditation.  If I use this technique during a spell when I'm feeling negative, then when my mind begins to wander, the trigger will repeatedly present itself, only to be repeatedly dissipated until there comes a point when I'm feeling fine again.

Although this probably is a type of meditation, I don't actually feel as if this is "meditating".  More as a useful tool to trigger awareness, and to take control of my stress and anxiety. 

Back to reality

I used to spend a lot of time lost in my own thoughts; imagining scenarios that were quite unrealistic, and generally very negative.  I would spend perhaps an hour at a time dreaming up and living in a stressful scenario that didn't reflect the situation that I was actually in at the present moment.  Over time I have learned to recognise when I am in this unwanted dreamland before I spend too long there.

Last night I was cooking dinner.  It didn't take a whole lot of concentration so as I was stood there, watching over the cooking food my mind began to wander.  I wasn't really paying attention to anything in particular, so I didn't even notice my mind wandering.

My thoughts had turned to work - and how one of the projects I am working on isn't going entirely to plan.  In my mind I was explaining to my boss what was wrong.  The explaining went into a defensive rant, something along the lines of "All these problems aren't MY fault - I have been doing all I can, can't you see!?".  It wasn't until I could feel myself tense up that I realised my mind wasn't in a good place.

So I stopped.  I gently brought myself back to reality - the conversation with my boss wasn't real - it's never happened and never likely to happen (and certainly not a heated rant if it did ever happen!).  I looked again at the cooking food - this was reality.  My body un-tensed and once again I was relaxed.

If you find yourself suffering from either stress or negative thinking, I would recommend you begin to tune into your body to notice any physical sensations that occur at the same time (for me it is tensing up the shoulders, the face, and sometimes a feeling of tension inside the head).  Eventually you can use these physical sensations as a trigger to gently bring yourself back to reality, and perhaps consider the cause of the negativity.

It has taken me a while to learn this behaviour, but the length of time it takes me to notice the physical sensations has become shorter and shorter over time.  My goal is to eventually realise I'm having a negative thought before I even start to feel my body tense up, to be really aware of what I'm thinking.  For now it is an achievement I can bring myself back to reality before I've spent any considerable length of time with unnecessary, unwanted negative thoughts.

Thoughts on Mindfulness

I've had a trouble understanding what Mindfulness really is, and then even more trouble actually doing it.

If I had to define Mindfulness in a single sentence it would be "Being aware of what you are currently thinking and doing, almost as an objective viewer".

The concept is very simple, but in practice I don't find it quite so easy.  I've looked at many different sources to try and "get" it only to feel just as clueless as when I started.  The majority of sources try to explain how to do it by kind of... telling you just to do it - become aware of what you're thinking and doing.  I'm sure there will be many people out there who just flick the switch, start paying attention all the time to what they are doing and thinking, and that's it - they are mindful.  But nah, not me.

My favourite resource I've found so far is a book called One Minute Mindfulness by Simon Parke.  This book is a collection of one-page thoughts, meditations, stories and ideas that gently introduce you to mindfulness.  Aside from the fact the book is split into 3 chapters, there is no real structure, and I like to dip into it at random and just read a single page in isolation, or perhaps read a page or two before sleeping.  When my life feels hectic and full, this book feels like much less of a commitment than a bigger self-help book.

Because of this feeling of inaccessibility to mindfulness that I have, I don't want to make this blog overtly about mindfulness.  But there will be an underlying theme whereby my experiences in mindfulness will be described in more day-to-day terms that people can relate to.

Here's an example.  One article I read a while back (I forget the source) described of looking out for triggers to become mindful.  These triggers would be normal, frequent occurrences such as washing your hands, looking at your watch, opening a door etc.  As you noticed a trigger, you would remember to become mindful, and stop and think about what you're doing, and what you're thinking.  Now on one had this is great, but it really didn't work for me.  The triggers were far too frequent and ordinary for them to really trigger anything.  For a week or two I made "looking at my phone" a trigger - because I was absent-mindedly checking facebook or whatever far too often.  This worked for a while before I just kind of forgot to do it anymore.

On the other hand, in the highly recommended book Overcoming Stress, I read that I should look out for a different kind of trigger - signs of stress such as tensing up, becoming breathless etc. in order to try and stop and relax in stressful situations before they become worse.  Personally, I find that when I am stressed I will tense my shoulders, maybe tense up my face, and have a feeling of tension inside my head - this is a trigger that is not too frequent or ordinary to just ignore.  This is a trigger that tells me to take action at exactly the time action is needed.  I take a mental step back and have a think about what is really causing the stress - quite often something that doesn't deserve any kind of real concern.

So, if you beginning to learn about mindfulness, be aware that there are thousands of different techniques, some of which will work for you, some won't.  What mindfulness means may differ slightly from person to person, or perhaps it means the same thing but they just describe it in a different way.  I would certainly recommend it, but be aware that you may have to do a lot of reading and trying different techniques before you find a way that works for you.

I'll end with a link to a blog post I found a couple of days ago on the London Mindfulness Project website - it's article on rushing though life and I found it related quite closely to how I've been feeling recently.  I'll have to keep checking out their blog regularly in future:

http://www.londonmindful.com/blog/taking-the-rush-out-of-life-with-mindfulness/

Welcome / Introduction

Welcome to this new blog “Mindforest” - a log of the path I've taken searching for a healthy, balanced, happy mind.  I know I'm not doing anything new here; I'm sure this path has been searched for and followed literally a billion times over.  But it is not an easy path to find, and you can easily wander off the trail and realise that you’re quite lost.  And of course the path for each person is different, because people's lives are different; what works for one person might not work for another.

Personal background

You join me around 3 years into my journey.  I am a man in my late 30’s living in the North of England – I have every reason to be happy; I'm healthy, I have a good steady job, a beautiful, intelligent girlfriend, plenty of friends and hobbies, a big family that cares for me.  Yet something is wrong.  Modern day living isn't natural and so my brain isn't in its natural state.  I frequently feel stressed for no particular reason I can see, and often feel miserable or have negative thoughts and feelings.

One very important thing to mention right now is that 9 months ago my brother committed suicide.  So obviously, no, not everything is hunky-dory; I've got good reason to be sad.  Steadily my feelings of grief have been getting better, I'm not sure what a normal timeframe for feeling better after such a close bereavement is but I feel as if I'm through the worst of it now and re-adjusting to normality.

Around 3 years ago my ex-girlfriend broke up with me because I had become so irritable and angry.  To me it was a total shock, I didn't even realise I had a problem, despite being told by her over and over again that I was always moody.  It was a big wakeup call to be dumped by someone that I thought needed me so much; the grief I was giving her outweighed any benefit of having me as a boyfriend.

I decided to do something about it – I started researching on anger and irritability.  There were several articles on the internet that were useful to begin with, although they were very brief.  I came across a recommendation of a book called “Overcoming Anger and Irritability”, I took it out the library and found it very useful.  This title was one of many books in the “Overcoming” series, which focus on overcoming personal problems using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).  This book (plus, as I found out, all the others in the series) begins with an introduction to how CBT works.  It goes on to discuss anger and irritability, the causes, why some people suffer and some don’t, and then the 2^nd half of the book has a series of exercises using CBT to help overcome the problems. 

The book worked very well, after a few weeks I was getting on top of my irritability and feeling considerably better, although I didn't quite feel “cured”.  One of the great things about CBT is that it focusses on your behaviour now, it does not need to deal with the root cause of your problems.  You don’t need to spend years with a psychoanalyst delving into your childhood problems; if you start behaving like someone that isn't irritable, then for all intents and purposes, you’re not an irritable person.  A short-cut to the end goal.  My problem wasn't just that I was irritable, that was merely a symptom of a deeper issue that I couldn't quite put my finger on. 

On the inside cover of “Overcoming Anger and Irritability” was a list of other books in the series, and I decided to check out “Overcoming Stress”.  I found that this book resonated more deeply with me – my main problem was stress for sure and this was causing the irritability and many other problems that made my mind ill at ease.  This book also pointed me in the direction of “Mindfulness” which I have tried to follow.  Another book I read in the series was “Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness” which I found immensely useful and I can honestly say I feel and act different ever since I read it.

Those 3 books gave me a great foundation to build on.  I genuinely felt that I had for the most part overcome my stress, anxiety, and irritability and could focus on working towards having a more peaceful, healthy mind.  But somewhere along the way I strayed from the path; I think it was because I was feeling generally OK and no longer needed to work at staying mentally balanced.  And then if I had just strayed off the path anyway, then the death of my brother picked me right up and threw me deep into the woods, with the path nowhere in sight.

Scope of this blog

The idea of this is to create a log of the path I'm taking so that others can learn from it.  It will include my experiences from day to day, delve back into the past (what has worked for me and what hasn't), and review different sources of information I have found useful.  I haven’t found a source of information that in isolation I've thought “Yes!  This is it!  This describes and resolves my problem completely!”  I'm not trying to create this missing source of information, but to put another guide book on the shelf that perhaps the beginner can relate to more easily.  I'm not a Buddhist monk or Shaman teacher – I'm an ordinary man living in the modern world just wanting to have a healthy, happy, balanced mind.  I'm not trying to appeal to the masses, I am trying to appeal to someone like me (or perhaps someone like me a few years back when I had no direction at all).