Mindfulness Meditation: Finding Calm In Chaotic Times
It’s a time when pretty much everything about our lives has been turned upside down with the coronavirus pandemic. Most of our usual reference points that we took for granted are disrupted, from our jobs to our favorite restaurants, going to the theater to watch a movie, to time missed with the people we’re closest to and miss dearly.
Many places around the world have been more susceptible to major disruptions from natural or political upheavals. But, for most of us in Western societies, this is very unfamiliar territory and can trigger all kinds of emotions.
So, I wanted to share a mindfulness tool you can use in times like this. Because, while the coronavirus is unique and extreme, difficult external situations we can’t change will happen to all of us sooner or later. It could be something very personal, like the loss of a job or a loved one, or an environmental crisis we feel helpless to change.
This mindfulness and meditation exercise offers a practice you can use when something unpleasant happens that you can’t control. Instead of looking outside to feel better or safer, you can try something different and turn within. You can look for a place inside you that is safe, a place of quietness and strength that isn’t dependent on any external factors.
To Begin This Meditation, Please Bring Kind Awareness To:
➤ how your belly, chest, and head each feel when you reflect on this topic
➤ the emotions that you can associate with these visceral feelings
➤ the positive or negative impact of any stories you believe in regarding this topic
➤ the fact that many others are feeling similarly about this topic as you
➤ how you might feel with increased awareness around this topic
➤ when you can apply increased mindfulness to this topic in your day-to-day life
INSTRUCTIONS
Notice and name whatever you’re experiencing for ten minutes.
This is based on a traditional mindfulness practice. The purpose is to make your usual unconscious stream of thoughts, emotions, and sensations conscious. The way we feel and act is often hijacked by thoughts and feelings that happen so quickly we’re not even aware of them. Suddenly, we’re upset or anxious or angry in a situation that needs our attention and care.
▌FIRST STEP | NOTICING, AND NAMING
Make yourself comfortable, either sitting or lying down, and close your eyes.
Let your attention gently scan your body for physical sensations, like cold or heat, or tightness or relaxation.
Then, start to notice any thoughts or emotions that may be passing through.
Whenever you notice a thought or an emotion, you’ve already started the practice. You noticed. And once you notice, name what you noticed with one word, “Thinking” or “Feeling” or “Sensations.”
It’s important to notice any judgment or criticism of your efforts. Just add one of the labels, congratulate yourself for noticing, and then watch for whatever comes next.
This seemingly simple naming and noticing step creates just a bit of space between you and your experiences. You notice that thoughts and emotions begin and, if you let them be, they end. And you create a place where you can choose to follow them or not.
▌SECOND STEP | ALL THOUGHTS ARE JUST THOUGHTS
The next part step is to do your best to notice and name all thoughts as just thoughts and all emotions as just emotions. A thought about forgetting to pick up dinner on the way home and a thought about your income loss during the pandemic is just noticed and named. They’re both just thoughts that come from somewhere and then disappear again.
Or if you remember the irritation at your partner not letting you know, they’d be home late is treated just the same as feeling lonely because you can’t see your family. They’re both only emotions that come for somewhere and then disappear again.
So, what good does this practice do? It will help you notice the acts of thinking and feeling themselves, instead of the content of individual thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings, of all sizes and shapes, from mild to overwhelming, come and go.
Try it. You may find it a relief to see that the hundreds of thoughts you have each day are just one thing: thinking. And your thinking isn’t you.
▌THE LAST STEP | NOTICING THE ONE WHO NOTICES
This step is hidden in the first two. When you notice and name and do your best to treat all your thoughts and emotions the same, you begin to sense a part of you that is not in the thought. It is aware of your experiences, able to witness them, but not caught in them. There is a place of clear, compassionate witnessing of everything that’s happening.
If you’re someone who is sometimes overcome by troubling thoughts and emotions, this is a relief. With a bit of practice, this witnessing awareness becomes more familiar and has a kind of draw to it. There’s a calm and peace to this place that is aware of your thoughts and feelings but isn’t part of them.
Conclusion
So the two wings of this practice can help you in challenging times. The first wing will show you how to have a lighter touch on your thoughts and feelings, to let them move rather than holding on too tight. And the second wing brings you into connection with a quiet, always present space of calm inside you that can be your oasis in hard times. And the more you practice, the more accessible that space will become.
Reflection questions
Did you notice a particular thought or feeling that was hard to label and move on from?
Were you able to sense the witnessing space in you that noticed and named what was happening?