LIVE IN THE MOMENT
Sometimes in the crazy swirl of
life, it feels like there’s no time to stop. But that’s just what Sharon
Salzberg teaches people to do. Salzberg is a New York Times best selling
author, a teacher of meditation and mindfulness and one of the co-founders of
the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts. She explains how best
to practice mindfulness here:
Q: OK, mindfulness seems to be all
the rage right now, but why do it? Why meditate? Why be mindful? What does that
do for us?
Salzberg: Mindfulness has a lot of benefits. One is simply connecting
with our lives as we live them. If you drink your coffee while reading your
paper, and checking your emails, with the TV on, that can lead to you feeling
perpetually disconnected and unfulfilled. You may think, you need to get
different coffee, or grind it differently, and that would make you feel more
satisfied, instead of realizing, ‘Maybe the first step is really actually
inhabiting our life and really connecting to it every once in awhile.’
Sometimes, just drink the cup of coffee and experience it fully.
Mindfulness is simply the perception
of what’s fully happening in the moment not distorted by bias, playing old
stories, usually that have something to do with regret, over and over and over,
or anticipating future events that most likely will never happen.
Mindfulness helps relieve anxiety
and can give us a real sense of connection and fulfillment, as well as insight
and understanding. The idea is, by developing a different relationship with our
experience, we get to see it differently. If an emotion comes up, and we start
fighting it, there’s not a lot of learning going on. If we fall into it and
become overwhelmed, there’s not a lot of learning going on. Mindfulness helps us
develop a different, kinder relationship with ourselves, to see much more
deeply into all of our experience.
Q: How does practicing mindfulness
change people?
Look at how you speak to yourself
when you make a mistake. Do you pile on endlessly, or do you have more
resilience? When you talk to a stranger, are you just lost in all the emails
you need to write, or can you actually listen more? Do you sometimes just drink
that cup of coffee and feel fulfillment in the smaller things that come your
way? Can you be less swayed by others’ impressions of somebody, and be more
determined to see things for yourself? And figure things out, and how you feel
about them, or whether you want to pursue them?
You’re just much more aware of when
you’re there and when you’re not there, and how to bring yourself back to
paying attention.
One guy came up to me and said, ‘I
was going to stop meditating because I thought I wasn’t changing or benefiting
from it. Then my kids told me, Please don’t stop. You’re not so angry, you
really listen.’ Sometimes other people see changes in us before we see it in
ourselves.
Q: Many people say they’ve tried and
failed at meditating or being mindful. Studies have found some people would
rather give themselves an electric shock than be alone with their thoughts. Why
is hard to be where we are?
Salzberg: It’s actually not hard to do for a moment. It’s hard for
more than a moment or two. That’s the work. But it’s not such an awesome skill
that it’s unimaginable. It’s right here. The whole practice is – Don’t worry
where your mind wandered. It’s coming back that’s most important.
People say they feel like failures.
But you can’t fail. When we realize our mind has wandered off like a monkey,
it’s in that moment we have a chance to be really different, instead of
reinforcing old habits. Instead of lambasting ourselves that we didn’t meditate
perfectly, we let go and start over. And if your mind wanders in the next ten
seconds, you let go and start over. And let go and start over. That’s strength
training. We’re practicing resilience.
Mindfulness is not about what’s
happening. It’s how you relate to what’s happening. If you sit and think, ‘I’m
sleepy. I’m restless. I’m angry. I’m bored. My knee hurts. Then something
itched.’ That could be an excellent meditation, depending on how you were with
each of those experiences. Or it could be a terrible meditation if you fall
into old habits, if anger rises and you think, ‘I’m going to be angry the rest
of my life.’ Or sadness arises and you think, ‘I spent $10,000 in therapy just
last year, I shouldn’t feel this way anymore.’ We pile on judgment on what’s
already a painful or uncomfortable feeling. That’s the ordinary habit of mind.
We’re just so unfair to ourselves.
Q: Why is that our ordinary habit of
mind, to always go to the negative?
Salzberg: Evolutionary psychologists tell me we have a negativity
bias. We are always looking out for the threat in the jungle, the animal about
to leap on us and eat us, even if that’s not at all realistic to our current
state. It takes training to also look on the other side of things.
Q: When people are just starting
out, what do you recommend they do?
Salzberg: The most important thing, as far as I can tell, is
consistency. It’s much better to have a smaller, realistic commitment that you
will actually fulfill, than thinking, ‘I’m going to sit and meditate for eight
hours on Saturday.’ Usually, when someone’s starting out, I’ll say, try 10
minutes a day. I saw research that found meditating for 10 minutes a day for
two months establishes new brain patterns. I have friends who suggest five
minutes a day, but I respond by saying the first five minutes are the hardest.
That’s when you think, ‘I’ve got to call this person, I forgot to call that
person, what’s that sound?’ If you sit through that, there’s a big discharge of
stress, which is a good thing. But after those five minutes, you have a chance
to go deeper. Common sense says 10 to 20 minutes a day, if you can do it. But I
think it’s the everydayness that is going to prove to be more important.
What you’re looking for, over time,
is to measure what is changing in your life, not what happens in the 10 or 20
minute session. That may not feel so glorious. But you’ll find over time that
you’re different in life, and that’s what counts. That’s why we practice – to
have a better life.
By Brigid Schulte
Sharon Salzberg is the author of
Real Happiness, and Real Happiness at Work. Learn more about her work and her
teaching schedule here: http://www.sharonsalzberg.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/03/04/be-here-now-no-really-just-be-here-why-you-shouldt-bash-yourself-while-you-meditate/?ir=Healthy%20Living&ncid=newsltushpmg0000000
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