Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams, Danny Penman Page B
Authors: Mark Williams, Danny Penman
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whole body in awareness.
See if it is possible to allow the whole body and its sensations to be just as they are. There’s no need to try to control anything. As best you can, allow sensations to be just as you find them.
At a certain point, bring your awareness to the center of the body—to the sensations in the abdomen as the breath moves in and out of the body. Become fully aware of the changing patterns of physical sensations in this region of the body. If you like, you can place your hand here for a few breaths and feel the abdomen rising and falling. There may be mild sensations of stretching as the abdomen gently rises with each in-breath, and there may be different sensations as the abdomen falls with each out-breath. For the full duration of each in-breath and the full duration of each out-breath, be fully alive to the sensations of breathing.
There is no need to try to control the breath in any way at all—simply let the breath breathe itself. Focus on the physical sensations, breath by breath and moment by moment.
Sooner or later, you’ll probably find that the mind wanders away from the breath to thinking, planning, remembering or daydreaming. When this happens, and you notice that your attention is no longer on the breath, there is no need to judge yourself or criticize yourself in any way, and no need to “rush back” to the breath. Instead, taking your time, allow yourself to register where the mind had wandered to. Then, when you’re ready, very gently but firmly bring your attention back to the breath.
Such mind-wandering will happen over and over again. Each time, remember that the aim is simply to notice where the mind has been, then to gently escort your attention back to the breath, seeing the mind-wandering as a chance to cultivate patience and compassion as you bring the attention back. Remind yourself that noticing that the mind has gone and bringing it back again and again and again
is
the meditation—this
is
the practice.
And now continue to practice this by yourself, coming back to the breath whenever the mind wanders; allowing the breath to be like an anchor, grounding you in the present moment.
Remember that the breath is always available to you to help bring you back into the present moment, when you find your mind scattered and dispersed by the rush and busyness of your life. It’s always here as an anchor deep within you, a place of stillness and of peace.
We suggest that you do this practice at least twice a day for the first week of the mindfulness program.
----
Despite everything that she’d read, Hannah still assumed that the goal of mindfulness meditation was to clear the mind of thoughts. So when this did not happen, she became distressed, not only about what was going on in her mind—all the tasks she’d still not completed—but also about the fact that she could not shut these out. Secretly, she still believed that with the right trick, “mind clearing” could be accomplished and her stress would disappear.
For some reason, Hannah persisted with the practice twice a day. She found that there were some times when it felt as if a storm was raging. At other times, she found her mind wasn’t so busy. Then, on the third day of her practice, something new happened. She began to think of her mind, its thoughts and its feelings, as a weather pattern, with her task simply being to observe the weather, even if it was stormy. At other times, she found it helpful to think of her mind as a lake, sometimes whipped up by winds, at other times quite still, so that it could reflect all the landscape around it.
Hannah was not trying to gain control over the “weather.” Rather, she was becoming more interested in it, observing storms and the ensuing periods of tranquility with curiosity, but without self-criticism. She was slowly becoming aware of her thoughts
as thoughts
and the inner workings of her mind as passing mental
See if it is possible to allow the whole body and its sensations to be just as they are. There’s no need to try to control anything. As best you can, allow sensations to be just as you find them.
At a certain point, bring your awareness to the center of the body—to the sensations in the abdomen as the breath moves in and out of the body. Become fully aware of the changing patterns of physical sensations in this region of the body. If you like, you can place your hand here for a few breaths and feel the abdomen rising and falling. There may be mild sensations of stretching as the abdomen gently rises with each in-breath, and there may be different sensations as the abdomen falls with each out-breath. For the full duration of each in-breath and the full duration of each out-breath, be fully alive to the sensations of breathing.
There is no need to try to control the breath in any way at all—simply let the breath breathe itself. Focus on the physical sensations, breath by breath and moment by moment.
Sooner or later, you’ll probably find that the mind wanders away from the breath to thinking, planning, remembering or daydreaming. When this happens, and you notice that your attention is no longer on the breath, there is no need to judge yourself or criticize yourself in any way, and no need to “rush back” to the breath. Instead, taking your time, allow yourself to register where the mind had wandered to. Then, when you’re ready, very gently but firmly bring your attention back to the breath.
Such mind-wandering will happen over and over again. Each time, remember that the aim is simply to notice where the mind has been, then to gently escort your attention back to the breath, seeing the mind-wandering as a chance to cultivate patience and compassion as you bring the attention back. Remind yourself that noticing that the mind has gone and bringing it back again and again and again
is
the meditation—this
is
the practice.
And now continue to practice this by yourself, coming back to the breath whenever the mind wanders; allowing the breath to be like an anchor, grounding you in the present moment.
Remember that the breath is always available to you to help bring you back into the present moment, when you find your mind scattered and dispersed by the rush and busyness of your life. It’s always here as an anchor deep within you, a place of stillness and of peace.
We suggest that you do this practice at least twice a day for the first week of the mindfulness program.
----
Despite everything that she’d read, Hannah still assumed that the goal of mindfulness meditation was to clear the mind of thoughts. So when this did not happen, she became distressed, not only about what was going on in her mind—all the tasks she’d still not completed—but also about the fact that she could not shut these out. Secretly, she still believed that with the right trick, “mind clearing” could be accomplished and her stress would disappear.
For some reason, Hannah persisted with the practice twice a day. She found that there were some times when it felt as if a storm was raging. At other times, she found her mind wasn’t so busy. Then, on the third day of her practice, something new happened. She began to think of her mind, its thoughts and its feelings, as a weather pattern, with her task simply being to observe the weather, even if it was stormy. At other times, she found it helpful to think of her mind as a lake, sometimes whipped up by winds, at other times quite still, so that it could reflect all the landscape around it.
Hannah was not trying to gain control over the “weather.” Rather, she was becoming more interested in it, observing storms and the ensuing periods of tranquility with curiosity, but without self-criticism. She was slowly becoming aware of her thoughts
as thoughts
and the inner workings of her mind as passing mental
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