Mind and Emotions (8 page)

At the end of this second cycle, take a few moments to reflect on the experience. Where are you most comfortable or most at peace: with attention to inner or outer experiences? Where is your mind quietest? In which state are you more likely to have distracting thoughts? We encourage you to do this exercise daily for a while. It’s an easy, nonintimidating way to enter mindful awareness, and it teaches you to pay attention to your senses rather than your thoughts.

Five Senses Exercise

Another relatively easy portal to mindfulness is to catalog what each of your senses is telling you. Spend about thirty seconds focusing on what you see, then another half minute or so on anything you can smell. Move on to what you hear, then any sensations of taste, and finally any tactile sensations originating both inside and outside your body, spending about thirty seconds with each. The entire exercise can be completed in two to three minutes. But here’s the most important part: Every time a thought pops into your mind, notice it and then bring your attention back to whatever sense you’re observing. The point of the exercise isn’t to stop your thoughts; your mind will keep chattering, no matter what. The point is to let thoughts go, rather than getting caught up in long chains of judgments and what-if thoughts.

The Five Senses Exercise is a great way to take a break from worries. As soon as you’ve been pulled into a worry rut, just shift to what you’re seeing right now, and then what you’re smelling, hearing, and so on. By the time you get through checking in with your five senses, you may not feel much need to go back to that old painful thinking.

Breathing Mindfully

Mindful breathing quiets emotions because it focuses your attention away from the locus of emotional upset. Instead of being caught up in your thoughts, you’re noticing your breath. Breathing meditations are an ancient tradition that goes back thousands of years, and it’s no accident that these techniques have been around so long. The focus on breathing induces feelings of peace and acceptance, and acceptance is very important in emotion regulation. That’s because resisting emotions only intensifies them in the long run. Acceptance of whatever is happening in the moment, including feelings you might rather not have, is the key to a healthy emotional life. As we mentioned in chapter 2, The Nature of Emotions, whatever you resist persists. The converse is also true: Whatever you accept is allowed to change, morph, and evolve into something else.

Mindful breathing is composed of three simple elements: attending to your breath, labeling the breath, and noticing and letting go of thoughts. You can attend to your breath in several ways. You can focus on the area just below your ribs, where your diaphragm (the sheet of muscle that fills and empties your lungs) does its work. This spot is also considered the energetic center of the body, and attention here facilitates feelings of balance and peace. Another way to watch your breath is noticing various parts of your body that the breath touches. You might observe the air coming through your nose or mouth, the rush of coolness down the back of your throat, the feeling as your ribs expand and contract, and the sense of release in your abdomen as you start to exhale. You can let your attention roam to any of these locations while you breathe, noticing how the breath impacts your body in different ways at different places.

The second component of mindful breathing is to label the breath. This can be done in several ways. Some mindfulness teachers recommend saying “in” to yourself as you inhale and “out” as you exhale. Others suggest counting the breath. Typically this is done on each exhalation, so as you breathe out, you would count “one,” then on the next exhalation you would count “two,” and so on. Usually you count up to four and then start over at one again. Some people count ten breaths before starting over. Experiment with different ways of labeling the breath, and then do whatever feels comfortable for you.

The third component of mindful breathing is to notice and then let go of each thought. Just as you did in the Five Senses Exercise, when you recognize a thought (perhaps even saying to yourself, “thought”), simply return your attention to breathing and labeling the breath. Never feel discouraged when thoughts show up. This is normal and inevitable. Even the most advanced meditators have intrusive thoughts. The object of mindfulness is changing your relationship to your thoughts, not getting rid of them. Instead of letting thoughts launch you into long chains of worry and judgment, just acknowledge them and then return to your breath. The discipline of returning to the breath teaches you to let go of your thoughts and get into your present-moment experience. When you take refuge in your breath and see thoughts as just thoughts, they’ll simply come and go without pulling you back into the old mental and emotional nightmares.

We suggest that you practice mindful breathing daily. Start by practicing three times a day for two minutes each time. To help you remember to practice, tie the exercise to something you do a number of times throughout the day, such as eating or moving from one place to another. Alternatively, you might set a timer on your watch or another device for times when you plan to practice. After you become comfortable with mindful breathing for two minutes, increase it to three minutes, and then five minutes. Beyond five minutes, you might want to consolidate your sessions to one stretch of fifteen or twenty minutes. These longer periods of mindfulness offer benefits that can last for many hours, far longer than the time you invest in them.

Mindfulness of Emotions

When emotions occur, you can use mindfulness to observe them without getting swept off your feet. Just watch the feeling and label it. Name the emotion, and if it has any shadings or nuances or is a mixture of emotions, give yourself room to describe what you’re feeling and everything you notice as fully as possible.

Don’t block or resist the feeling. Let it be whatever it is and as strong as it is. Every emotion is like a wave; it will intensify for a while and then gradually subside. Don’t amplify the feeling, hold on to it, or analyze the experience, and don’t judge the emotion or yourself for having it.

As you observe any given feeling, you’ll notice action urges—an impetus to do something. For example, anxiety typically makes you want to withdraw, and anger typically makes you want to attack. Just let yourself watch the emotion and notice the action urges without acting on them.

Here are the specific steps for this practice of mindfully watching an emotion:

1. Acknowledge and label the feeling. Observe it briefly to see how strong it is and whether there are other emotions mixed in.
   
2. Observe your breath. Bring your attention to your diaphragm while you breathe in and out.
   
3. When thoughts come up, label them and let them go. Return to an awareness of your breath and your inner emotional state.
   
4. Allow your awareness to become more expansive, more conscious of the space around you. Let it include your emotions, your breath, and sensations in your body, as well as awareness of whatever is outside your body. Then move further out, extending your awareness to the planet and the many stars and worlds that lie beyond our planet.
   
5. Let yourself know and hold your emotion in the context of your breath, your body, and an expansive sense of what surrounds you.
   
6. Stay with this practice until the original emotion begins to subside, as waves do, or morphs into something else, or until you feel you’ve done enough.
   

The point of mindfully watching your emotions is to let them be what they are—feelings that come and go—and to live in the full context of all of your experiences. You’ve experienced countless emotions in your life. You’re like the sky, and they’re like the weather. The weather keeps changing, but the sky remains constant. And although the weather of emotions sometimes seems powerful and overwhelming, if you observe your emotions you’ll see that they inevitably change and evolve into your next emotional experience.

It’s particularly helpful to use this exercise when you notice that you’re trying to avoid your feelings. Remember, this is precisely what makes them stronger and more enduring. Instead of running away, turn around and use mindfulness to observe that particular wave of emotion. Each time you face a difficult emotional experience, particularly when feeling it in the context of your breath and body and the world outside yourself, you’re taking a step toward acceptance. You’re also giving yourself the gift of the present moment.

Mindfulness in Daily Activities

The more you can stay in the present moment, the better you’ll feel. To begin integrating mindfulness into your daily life, choose to apply it to something you do briefly every day. It could be taking a shower, doing the dishes, walking to the bus stop, eating breakfast, or helping your children get dressed. The activity should be physical, not mental, so you can focus on each detail of the experience. For example, if you’ve chosen doing the dishes as an opportunity for daily mindfulness, you’d try to focus on the feeling of hot water on your hands. You’d notice sensations of holding the sponge and feeling the slippery soap. Then you’d pay attention to the texture of the dish in your hands and the sensation of water as you rinse it.

It doesn’t matter what activity you choose. The point is to listen to what all of your senses tell you. What you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste are the cornerstones of mindfulness. When thoughts intrude, take the same approach as in mindful breathing: Notice and label them, then return your attention to the sensory details of the activity you’ve chosen.

Practice doing your activity mindfully for a week. Sometimes it helps to put up signs or reminders to cue you to do the exercise. For example, a plan to do the dishes mindfully is more likely to happen if you put a sign over the sink. A plan to eat breakfast mindfully would be supported by a sign on the refrigerator or on a carton of milk or something else you typically consume at breakfast. If you plan to take a mindful walk to the bus stop, tie a piece of string on your briefcase or backpack as a reminder.

After the first week, add a second mindful activity and use a similar reminder system to help you follow through. Continue to add new mindful activities to your routine every week until you have a number of them peppered throughout your day.

One Thing at a Time

While all mindfulness exercises will help you feel more calm, there will still be moments when you feel vulnerable, even overwhelmed by emotions. Whenever that happens, slow down, make sure you’re doing just one thing, and then pay attention to the physical activity you’re engaged in. Try to notice only that activity and nothing else. Let yourself get immersed in what you’re doing by paying attention to what your eyes, ears, and other senses tell you.

Doing one thing at a time helps slow you down and quiet your thoughts. While it won’t change the fact that something upsetting has happened, it will help you shift from thoughts about the future and past to what’s happening right now. As soon as you do that, you can feel everything begin to ease up, including the emotion that had been so intense.

Applications

Mindfulness is helpful for dealing with rumination—those times when you’re caught up in judging or what-if thoughts. Start by using the Five Senses Exercise to enhance your awareness of the present moment. If you continue to ruminate, practice Breathing Mindfully to focus your awareness on a core physical experience. Each time you notice a negative thinking pattern, bring your attention to sensory awareness or your breath.

Mindfulness also helps reduce stress. Mindful breathing is a powerful relaxation technique that has an immediate impact on physical tension. Mindful activities reduce stress by shifting attention away from worry and catastrophic thinking. Instead of stewing in what-ifs, your mind is focused on the experience of walking, eating, getting dressed, driving your car, or whatever. Engaging in any activity mindfully will help your mind steer away from anxious thoughts and your body let go of unnecessary tension.

A third application of mindfulness is dealing with any strong emotion, whether fear, depression, anger, or shame. Start with the practice Breathing Mindfully, to bring your focus to this essential, ongoing body function. As you begin to relax, use the practice Mindfulness of Emotions to observe what you’re feeling and watch the wave gradually subside. If you continue to feel distress, use the practice One Thing at a Time to pull your attention into what’s happening in that moment. Notice what each of your senses is telling you about the experience, and stay with it until your emotional reaction begins to subside.

Duration

Mindfulness is a way of life. Once you acquire the habit and skill of mindfulness, you should use it both as a daily discipline to induce calm and for the specific applications we’ve suggested. Mindfulness will help you with emotion regulation for the rest of your life, as long as you’re committed to using it whenever negative thoughts and feelings occur. Mindfulness should be your first response to distress, pulling you into full awareness of what your body and senses are telling you in the moment.

Chapter 6

Defusion

What Is It?

Defusion involves noticing your negative thoughts and detaching from them so they’ll be less likely to create or intensify negative feelings. The term “defusion” was coined by Steve Hayes, cofounder of acceptance and commitment therapy. It grew out of his study of relational frame theory, and is somewhat similar to Aaron Beck’s distancing technique (Beck and Emery 1985). Steve Hayes noticed that emotionally troubled people tend to be “fused” tightly to their thoughts,
being
their thoughts rather than
having
their thoughts. He developed techniques to “de-fuse,” or detach, people from their negative thoughts, distancing them from the emotional pain those thoughts cause (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 1999; Hayes 2005).