THE TWO BIGGEST MYTHS ABOUT MINDFULNESS
Many people falsely believe that to be mindful means either to be focused on one thing (and just that one thing) or to be aware of everything all the time. In this article I will explain why neither of those is actually possible nor helpful. I will also show you what mindfulness actually looks like in a super short video.
What Mindfulness Is and Isn’t and Why It Matters
My definition of mindfulness is that it is the quality of being present in the moment, with awareness, acceptance, kindness, compassion, curiosity, and nonjudgment. It may sound like a lot, but most of these skills don’t require much effort from you and are more about a shift in your attitude. In addition, they are skills. This means that even though you may not be very mindful in any given moment or as a person in general, you can teach yourself to be more mindful (which is the essence of all my work with clients in therapy).
When you practice being mindful, what you are actually doing is managing your attention and where you direct it. For example, you can pay attention to a bottle of water mindfully. You may notice its shape, color, and weight by noticing your 5 senses in relation to the bottle. If someone saw you from the outside, it might look to them like you are very focused on the water bottle.
If you’re truly being mindful, you will attend to the bottle with curiosity and nonjudgment. This might look like allowing yourself to notice what the bottle is like now in the present moment rather than making assumptions about it or evaluating it as good or bad.
Judgment and assumption making → The bottle is too small to keep a person from being thirsty all day, it has an ugly color scheme, made of wasteful material, and whoever owns it should buy a new one.
Mindful curiosity and nonjudgment → The bottle is about 12 inches high, full of a clear liquid, has a white and green label on it, made of glass and plastic.
Do you see how the way you approach attending to the bottle may influence how you end up feeling about it? In the first example, you are making assumptions and expressing opinions that may leave you with uncomfortable emotions and sensations and may not actually be true or hold any value. In the second, you’re just describing the present moment and facts about the bottle. It may also be hurtful to someone else (the owner of the bottle, whoever created it, made the design for the label, produced the materials, sold it, etc.).
If compassion and treating people with kindness is important to you, approaching any object, person, or situation mindfully will create many benefits for you and others and is much less likely to have a negative impact on how you feel. In fact, research shows that approaching tasks or objects you might typically find unpleasant mindfully instead leads to more enjoyment of them (for example, doing the dishes, folding the laundry, or eating something you don’t usually like). This is because rather than judging the process or object based on past experiences and anticipating feelings of discomfort, stress, or disgust, you can choose to be curious, nonjudgmental, and matter of fact about the process and the qualities of the object in this moment.
Judgment and assumption making → I hate doing the laundry. It takes too long, makes my back hurt, and prevents me from doing more fun things.
Mindful curiosity and nonjudgment → Let me see how long folding my clothes takes. I’m noticing they smell like lavender, feel soft to the touch, and the stains I had are gone.
This isn’t just turning negatives into positives. It’s approaching life from a standpoint of wanting to learn more and noticing and maybe even appreciating what is there rather than projecting your own values and opinions on it or what other people think it “should” be like.
The more you practice approaching things mindfully, the more you teach yourself to bring those same qualities into different situations. You can become an individual who is more aware, accepting, nonjudgmental, kind, curious, and compassionate. It all starts with practicing these qualities intentionally and then applying them in your life. If you can learn to notice objects nonjudgmentally, over time you can learn to interact with people that way too. If you can pay attention to how you pay attention to things, you can feel more in control of your feelings. You don’t control the emotions that arise naturally, but you control what things you pay attention to that impact your mood.
Daily grind approach (judgements and assumptions) → Everything is the same. I wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, take BS from my boss, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep. Nothing ever changes. I wish my life was more interesting. I wish I had a different boss. I thought my life was going to be more exciting.
Mindful approach (curious and nonjudgmental) → Every day I get to see things how they actually are. I wonder what my breakfast will taste like today. Maybe my boss will have something new to share with me. Maybe I can take a different route home from work and pass by a neighborhood I don’t usually see. I wonder what’s going to be different tomorrow.
The Right Way To Meditate
People are often too hard on themselves when they first start meditating. They think they’re doing it wrong because they get distracted, unfocused, or pay attention to other thoughts. This makes them give up on the process because instead of noticing what is actually happening in the present moment, they are busy judging themselves for “doing it wrong” or not understanding what they’re “supposed to be doing/feeling.”
Part of why I love mindfulness meditation so much is because you can’t really do it wrong. If you get distracted then you can notice what distractions are coming up for you. Is it different thoughts? Your to-do list? Noises from outside? People talking? Tension in your body? When you become aware of these distractions, you can choose how to approach them. If you’re practicing mindfulness, this will be with compassion, kindness, nonjudgment, acceptance, and curiosity.
First you become aware of the distraction
→ My chest feels tight.
Then you choose to be curious and nonjudgmental about it
→ What sensations am I feeling in my chest? Racing heart, shallow breathing, mostly on the left side.
Then you can accept that this is how your body feels right now, which is why your mind was distracted
→ It can’t be any other way right now, because this is how I feel. Everything else that happened in my day led up to this moment of me noticing my chest sensations. My mind got distracted by those feelings because I’m finally giving myself time and space to see what’s here instead of avoiding my feelings or being too focused on something else.
Lastly and all along, you can practice cultivating kindness and compassion towards yourself in this moment
→ I didn’t realize my chest felt so tight. Maybe I can take a couple of deep breaths and see if some of the tension releases. I must’ve had a really rough day not to notice I was feeling like this. Maybe I can take more time throughout the day to check in with myself or notice what causes these sensations.
Again, this isn’t about changing negatives into positives. It is simply allowing yourself to be with how things are rather than casting judgements or assumptions on them and trying to make them mean something else.
Snap judgment → My chest is tight so I might be having a heart attack or a panic attack. Now I’m going to have to see a doctor and they’re going to prescribe medication that I’ll need to take for the rest of my life. If this gets worse I’ll need to be hospitalized and maybe I’ll die before the doctors can save me.
Mindful approach → My chest is tight. Let me notice what sensations are here and see if they escalate or if I need to do anything about them. I wonder how long they’ll last. Can I make space for them to be here? How do other body parts feel? I’ll check in with my body throughout the day and if the sensations are painful or more concerning I’ll consult with my doctor.
People are also hard on themselves because they think that if they’re meditating that means they can’t notice anything else. They think their mind can’t wander, their foot can’t itch, they can’t suddenly remember something from yesterday, and they think all of this is an indication that they're not meditating correctly. They assume they must pay attention to just one thing throughout the meditation or everything in life at all times.
The truth is, what we’re actually practicing in mindfulness is noticing when our attention wanders, and gently directing it back to what we want to be attending to. Then we notice we got distracted again, and nonjudgmentally we bring ourselves back to what’s important. Over and over again.
The muscle we’re developing is not the “focusing” muscle. It’s the “coming back” muscle. Noticing and coming back. Getting distracted, noticing that we got distracted, and choosing to come back. Coming back really means “being here in this moment,” however that moment is right now.
This is what the two examples look like:
What people think mindfulness is vs. what it actually is
Next time you choose to approach something mindfully, whether it’s in your day-to-day life or in meditation, remember these two things:
Mindfulness is so much more than just awareness or focus. It is also acceptance, kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, and curiosity.
Mindfulness isn’t about focusing on one thing and just that thing for the whole time without being distracted. It’s also not about being aware of everything all the time. It’s about noticing the process of distraction and gently, choosing to shift your attention back. Again and again, in each present moment.
You don’t want or need to be mindful 24/7. It would take extreme amounts of concentration and energy to notice every moment in the ways described above. Furthermore, it wouldn’t necessarily bring any value to you and may actually be harmful in the process. Your mind needs to rest. You need periods of flow, distraction, sleep, and even “zoning out.” Can you imagine being on a 10-hour flight in which you’re mindful the entire time? What about during a school exam? How about all hours of work? Or the 3 hours your toddler is crying?
This is why we practice mindfulness meditation. You can practice cultivating kindness, compassion, curiosity, acceptance, awareness, and nonjudgment and bring those qualities into your day-to-day life as you find helpful. This can amplify moments of joy for you, increase the frequency with which you notice pleasant events or engage in pleasant activities, and decrease your perceptions of negative events, sensations, or people because you won’t constantly be judging them or yourself, but instead you’ll be seeing things how they really are in this moment. And the next, if you choose.
For one on one personalized guidance on practicing and applying mindfulness in your life, schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me. For self-paced guidance on mindfulness, learn more about the 5-Senses Mindfulness Mini-Course I created.