Mindfulness in under 900(ish?) words

Mindfulness!

A word I am sure you have heard about as the size and scope of the “wellness economy” continues to grow. But this commonly a stripped down version, made palatable to social norms, investors and mass appeal. To put a fine point on the skepticism, one could suggest a tagline for mindfulness:

Of course, this is capitalism's nature—for better or worse, it will try to create profit from anything it is permitted to and, in the process, reduce it to the largest and easiest, most common denominator for mass appeal. I’ve heard it called McMindfulness, and it’s the Buddhist variation of “Broicism,” which is the watered-down hustle culture's preferred form of stoicism packaged and fed to you to help you persevere corporate hardship.

However, I would urge you to shelve your well-earned skepticism, look past the bite-sized marketed versions that may have been blasted to you in your targeted advertising on Instagram, and remember that this sells because there is truth and utility in both Buddhist and stoic (and many other!) philosophical schools.

I will walk through some of the core concepts here in under 900(ish?) words, and I'll do it all without asking you to pay me 49.99 for an online course.

Mindful of what or whom?

Mindfulness is about presence. It is about being here, now, and grounding yourself in the present.

It is about recognizing your thinking and patterns. It is not about not thinking (you’d have to be dead for that, or possibly enlightened, or near there.)

So go ahead and pause. Stop reading and notice your thoughts.

…

There are no wrong answers here, but maybe it’s a skeptical thought of what you’re reading right now, or you’re nodding your head in agreement and telling yourself a story about how this all sounds right.

Did you notice how the thought just kind of… disappeared once you noticed it? This was one of the big revelations when I began to learn about mindfulness: just how fleeting my own thoughts are. They last an instance, no longer than a finger snap, before the mind flits to another thought and then another one. Sometimes, the thoughts seem like they are part of one coherent narrative. However, I can promise you they rarely are.

See, without practicing mindfulness, we spend all day like this: flitting from one thought to another, creating grand, flimsy narratives about what has happened, will happen, or should happen. This robs us of our ability to be in the present, the only place you can find flourishing and peace.

Practicing mindfulness

I employ two good approaches to practicing mindfulness: meditation and journaling.

Meditate

There are many different kinds of meditation, with different practices and benefits. I’ll discuss the most common one— mindfulness and will try not to overcomplicate. It boils down to this:

• Sit somewhere comfortable

• Take a couple of slow, deep belly breaths and close your eyes (if you like)

• Notice your experience. Don’t think about it; create a narrative. Just notice it.

  • How does your body feel?

  • How does your mind feel?

• Bring your attention to your breath.

  • Feel yourself breathe in

  • Feel yourself breathe out

• Your mind will wander. That’s normal. Notice it: "Oh, thinking.” or “Oh, feeling.” And then return to your breath.

That’s it. At the very highest level, that is all there is to it. Try to do it in the morning. Five minutes is excellent; longer is better. Then, try to bring that quality of mind into your everyday life. Look for opportunities to be present throughout the day.

Meditation is not some mystical force; it is simply about noticing our thoughts and experiences for what they are: fleeting things we do not need to be slaves to.

Writing

The Second practice I would recommend if you wish to cultivate more mindfulness is journaling. Meditation brings us mindfulness by noticing the passing nature of our experiences and narratives; journaling helps us develop mindfulness by showing us the quality of the narrative and thoughts. There are many different approaches to take here.

As there are many different approaches and levels to meditation, the same goes for journaling; a great place to begin is free-form.

• Sit down, perhaps in the morning or just before bed

• Write about whatever comes to mind.

  • What’s going on in my life?

  • What obstacles am I facing?

  • What is within my control today, and what isn't?

That’s it. Just try to do it daily; it doesn’t matter how. I do it on my laptop and like doing it in the morning. Some people swear by writing by hand and prefer to do it at night. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It is an opportunity to externalize our thoughts, which helps us create some distance from them and see things more clearly.

The underlying goal of both these practices is to provide a sort of anchor and help bring more presence into our daily lives. When we meditate or Journal, it is about the intention that this helps bring to our lives as much as it is about the practice itself.

And that’s really it.

So what?

Maybe you read through all of this and remain skeptical. But try it for 30 days, every day, even if it’s just for 5-15 minutes.

But if you take nothing else away, I hope you take away this: the stories we tell ourselves are only valid if we engage with them and believe them. They are only good or bad in our judgment of them. Thoughts are, in and of themselves, neutral until we make a value judgment of them. By striving to create a mindfulness of our thoughts and experiences, we create opportunities to pause and choose how we respond to an impression rather than react on instinct.

Just because you have a thought does not mean you have to engage with it. If you feel slighted by someone, how can you truly know if they meant to slight you? Is it helpful to feel slighted or respond aggressively?

Improving our quality of mind and relationship to our thinking is possible.

None of this will always be easy; that’s why it’s called a practice. But I can tell you from my own personal experience that there is a notable difference in the quality of my life and thoughts between when I consistently do the practice and when I don’t. Both meditation and journaling can help us develop a better relationship with ourselves and bring more flourishing into our lives—the one thing we should all strive for.

Resources for the curious

Below are some resources for those interested in going deeper. If they are paid, I have used them and found them helpful, but remember that you don’t have to pay anyone anything to meditate or journal.

• Waking Up app, 30 day pass: It can be helpful to have a teacher, and if you are interested in going deep, here is a 30 day pass to one of the few paid apps I would recommend.

• 10% Happier: If you like to read or listen to podcasts and want to learn more about the benefits of meditating, I think Dan Harris and his friends/colleagues Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren have great work around this. I have learned a lot from them.

• For the stoic curious: This was the first book on stoicism I read outside of a classroom setting. It is a very approachable and practical introduction, focusing on the question: “How can stoicism help us flourish today?”

• For the Buddhist curious: This is the first and only book on Buddhism I have ever read, and I highly recommend it. Robert Wright makes a compelling (and also approachable!) case for the Buddhist perspective on life, meditation, and moral clarity.

Thanks for sticking with me through 900(ish?) words! If this resonated with you or you think it might help a friend navigate the mindfulness maze, I'd be stoked if you shared it. No pressure, though – I'm not here to hustle you like a wellness influencer.