25 July, 2022
Some clients who follow my online programme write me how they relapse into stressing out while doing the exercises to develop a mindful attitude. They always ask if there is something wrong with their way of practising, and suggest that they still have a long way to go before they will enter that wonderfully rosy land of mindfulness where there is no more stress, discontentment and hurt.
Painful
Unfortunately my answer is quite sobering: there is no such thing as being mindful all the time, and reaching a state of everlasting happiness. My personal definition of mindfulness is: ‘We are mindful the moment we realise we were mindless’. Mindfulness is like waking from a moment of mindlessness; it’s waking up to reality and understanding that we had been drawn into worrying and replaying old, painful scenarios. The main characteristic of mindfulness is that it revolves about moments: not about one static state. When practising mindfulness we experience life as a string of individual moments. One moment we’re clear minded and fully awake to what is going on around and within us. The next moment ego takes over and tempts us to chew on a missed opportunity, a lost love, an embarrassing mistake, or guilt about a deep fear.
Dynamic
People who start practising mindfulness think that they should not have those negative thoughts anymore, and that they are failing their practice when they notice they still suffer from jealousy, angst or despair. But life is not stagnant. Life is incredibly dynamic, always moving, always challenging, then soothing. It’s lovely, then tragic, then interesting, then awful, then joyful, then disappointing. It’s a continuous ebb-and-flow movement. And mindfulness teaches us is to be flexible and move along while waking up to each and every moment. With mindfulness you accept that joyful moments follow painful moments. Seeing this is incredibly empowering. Ego loves to lock us up in negativity, making us believe that every task is tough and every relationship is hard work. But the reality is that life is both bad and good, and that it moves from one challenging moment to another loving moment. That’s why one of the mindfulness principles is ‘start over again’. Every single moment brings the opportunity to start all over again and do things differently.
This too will pass
When we realise that everything passes and that everything is temporary, we can trust that we can cope with the bad experiences since these are part of the natural ebb-and-flow movement of life. Bad moments, no matter how intensely painful, will pass too. And we will survive because we know there is always light at the end of the tunnel. If you don’t believe me, just look around you: people who went through a painful divorce find a new love. People who have lost their company start a new venture and find success again. People who get a serious disease fight through their illness and heal. Or they accept their death and make peace with their life coming to an end. Mindfulness
won’t give us that much-desired ‘spiritual’ state where evil can no longer reach us and we are forever protected against pain. But it will give us the insight that we should move along with the ups and downs of life. As soon as we learn to do that, and embrace every moment as a thread in the colourful tapestry of our life, we will find resilience and inner peace.
n Marisa Garau is a mindfulness expert who has lived in Mangawhai since 2007. Find more practical tips on how to de-stress your life at her website or flick her an email if you’d like to have a personal chat: marisa@growingmindfulness.com
