Mindfulness is one of the current buzzwords floating around in many arenas. It has been applied to diet, to relationships and to business, for example. Essentially, it involves living in a state of full and conscious awareness of the context of one’s experience – self, others, relationships, and how these function in terms of living and working.
Recently an Organizational Behavior professor called mindfulness “awareness on steroids”! The term mindfulness comes from the Buddhist literature where it is often used to describe a type of meditation, which involves practitioners developing the ability to stay present. It is considered to be a key skill necessary for the path to enlightenment.
Psychologically, mindfulness can be thought of as a metacognitive ability. That is, the ability to be totally present in the current experience, but to have the experience, somewhat like standing on a balcony and looking down at the stage, of being aware of your emotions so that you are monitoring your experience of the moment, thus gauging your engagement in the moment.
Mindfulness is something that has to be cultivated. The question is how do we develop it and nurture it? How do we find methods to practice mindfulness so that we are aware of our whole self, those around us and the context within which we live and work? What is clear to me, and those that practice meditation and other reflective practices daily, is that the effects are beneficial and that to maintain a regular practice, there has to be a regular, scheduled time for your mindfulness practice. For me, the mother of three young kids, who teaches, coaches, runs our lives, if I don’t start the day with meditation, the rest of my life will get in the way.
The biggest lesson that I have learned from my regular meditation practice is how to put the brakes on before I react, specifically with anger – I don’t inhibit my expressions of desire, love, joy and so on – but I do slow down and consider my reactions that come from anger. I have also come to understand more clearly my intentions, what thoughts I find myself having again and again. Essentially I have begun to make friends with myself, as my teacher David Nichtern describes this process.
When Freud first conceptualized psychoanalysis and the notion of what we know and understand about ourselves, and what is buried in the unconscious, he used the metaphor of the iceberg. The visible part of the iceberg is one’s behavior. The ice just below the surface is the pre-conscious – information that can be voluntarily brought to the surface. The ice that is deep below the surface is the unconscious and requires the process of analysis, using free association to reveal its true components.
To be whole, to be truly mindful and present in all areas of our lives, we need to appreciate our whole iceberg, not just the visible part.