DEALING WITH BARRIERS TO MINDFULNESS PRACTICE

1. Thinking, “Am I doing it right?”

  • You may feel pain, fall asleep, lose concentration, keep thinking of other things, or feel like you have no sensations. These are natural events in practice and do not mean you are doing it wrong.
  • You don’t have to enjoy it; just do it!

2. Physical Painis Distracting

  • Uncomfortable body sensations often lead to stressful inner monologues (e.g., “Why am I so tense?” “Why can’t I do anything right?”).
  • Simply note the sensations that arise, and then bring your attention back to the area of focus.

3. Thinking, “The conditions weren’t right.”

  • It is normal to get angry or frustrated when others’ noises distract mindfulness practice. This will occur if you have the expectation that the conditions should be a certain way, and they are not.
  • We can’t prevent unpleasant things from happening. See if you can set as a goal to try to let go of the expectations that practice conditions should be other than they are.

4. Mind Wandering

  • We tend to think of our mind wandering as a mistake, but it is normal and we cannot stop it from happening.
  • Find a different way to relate to your wandering thoughts. See them simply as streams of thinking. Acknowledge that the mind wandered, note where it went, then return your attention to your breath or the body. (You can always begin fresh in the next moment!)

5. Thinking, “I couldn’t find time to do the homework.”

  • Not doing homework limits the usefulness of mindfulness.
  • In the next week, bring an inquiring mind to the difficulty of finding time for homework. Note the thoughts and feelings that might be blocking your ability to do the homework.

6. Thinking, “I got utterly bored,” or “I was totally irritated with the recording.”

  • Accept these negative thoughts and feelings as a valid part of your experience of mindfulness practice. Return your awareness back to your breath or your body.
  • Cultivate an inquiring stance toward your feelings. Ask questions such as: “At what point did they arise?” “Were they constant of fluctuating?” “How long did they last?”

7. Thinking, “It was great; I fell asleep I was so relaxed,” or “It didn’t do anything for me, I just fell asleep.”

  • If you feel that mindfulness practice or the body scan helped you to feel less tense, calmer, or relaxed, you may think that it “worked” (or, vice versa). If you fall asleep, try the practice at a different time of day when you can be more awake to what is happening in your body.
  • Remember that the goals of mindfulness are to aid the cultivation of awareness, to bring attention to whatever is going on, and to reestablish a healthy connection with body sensations (pleasant and unpleasant). Our explicit goal is NOT to be relaxed or calm, although that may happen with practice (or it may not).

8. Thinking, “I am trying my best and I still don’t think I get it. I need to work harder at it.”

  • You may think that mindfulness practice is not helping you to achieve your objective goals, and that you have to do something different to reach some special state that will make it work.
  • Mindfulness emphasizes just being, dropping into the experience of the moment, allowing things to be held in nonjudgmental awareness--exactly as they are in this moment, and settling into each moment. Practice requires letting go of the impulse to fix, change, or escape. Practice on a regular basis, but with out specific outcome goals.

9. Reconnecting with Avoided Emotion. Thinking, “I just got too upset.”

  • You may have learned, after having unpleasant experiences or depression, that it is safer to think about emotion than to experience emotion. This may have helped you to avoid feeling unpleasant emotions or body sensations that you are now rediscovering during mindfulness practice.
  • Rather than avoiding emotion all together, or being overwhelmed by emotional flooding, return attention to your breath or the body scan to “steady” yourself while still remaining connected to your body.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

Which of these barriers have been affecting your mindfulness practice?

Choose three barriers that are relevant to you. For each barrier, describe how you could approach that issue differently.

From Segal, Williams, & Teasdale (2002)

CONNECTING MINDFULNESS WITH THE COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL MODEL

Through mindfulness practice, you can become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. The link between thoughts and feelings is the basic premise of the cognitive behavioral model of emotional disorders.

Close your eyes and imagine the following scenario:

You are walking down the street, and on the other side of the street you see somebody you know. You smile and wave. The person just doesn’t seem to notice and walks by.

What thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations did you experience? Identify each event as a thought, feeling, or sensation.

Note that the same situation may elicit many different thoughts and interpretations, and hence, many different feelings. Our emotions are consequences of a situation plus an interpretation.

ABC Model of Emotional Distress:

A C

(antecedent situation) (consequent feeling, sensation, or behavior)

B

(belief or thought)

Often, we are not aware of our interpretations or thoughts in the moment.

But they are very important because they actually determine which emotion we feel and how strongly we feel it.

Mindfulness helps us to bring awareness to our automatic thoughts and to clearly see them for what they are. We then have the ability to not be carried away by the cascade of our emotions if we choose to return to our breath.

Remember the imagined scenario above? What thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations might someone other than you experience with this same scenario? (Ask them!)

Did that person experience something at all different from what you experienced?

The mere fact that interpretations of the same situation can vary (due to the passage of time, mood, or from person to person) implies that thoughts are not facts. We can acknowledge that our interpretations of events and the feelings they evoke reflect what we bring to them. The situations or events themselves are neutral.

Now imagine what a depressed person would experience when asked to imagine the scenario above…an anxious person…a person on their graduation day. Do their experiences vary also?

Negative thinking is often a warning sign of oncoming depression or anxiety. By comparing depressed/anxious thinking to nondepressed/nonanxious thinking, we can see how distorting these disorders can be. Acknowledging this the next time unpleasant reactions pop up enables us to “check in” with ourselves to see what extent our thoughts and interpretations might have been distorted by a depressed or anxious mood.

Mindfulness of the Breath

Focusing on the breath:

  • Brings you back to this very moment – the here and now.
  • Is always available as an anchor and haven, no matter where you are.
  • Can actually change your experience by connecting you with a wider space and broader perspective from which to view things.

The Basics:

  • It helps to adopt an erect and dignified posture, with your head, neck, and back aligned vertically – the physical counterpart of the inner attitudes of self-reliance, self-acceptance, patience, and alert attention that we are cultivating.
  • Practice on a chair or on the floor. If you use a chair, choose one that has a straight back and allows your feet to be flat on the floor. If at all possible, sit away from the back of the chair so that your spine is self supporting.
  • If you choose to sit on the floor, do so on a firm thick cushion (or a pillow folded over once or twice), which raises your buttocks of the floor 3 to 6 inches.

Mindfulness of the Breath

1. Settle into a comfortable sitting position. Make sure you feel comfortably and firmly supported. Gently close your eyes.

2. Bring your awareness to the level of physical sensations by focusing your attention on the sensations of touch and pressure in your body where it makes contact with the floor and whatever you are sitting on. Spend a minute or two exploring these sensations.

3. Bring your awareness to the changing patterns of physical sensations in the lower abdomen as the breath moves in and out of your body.

4. Focus your awareness on the sensations of slight stretching as the abdominal wall rises with each inbreath, and of gentle deflation as it falls with each outbreath. As best you can, follow with your awareness the changing physical sensations in the lower abdomen all the way through as the breath enters your body on the inbreath and all the way through as the breath leaves your body on the outbreath, perhaps noticing the slight pauses between one inbreath and the following outbreath, and between one outbreath and the following inbreath.

5. There is no need to try to control the breathing in any way – simply let the breath breathe itself. As best you can, also bring this attitude of allowing to the rest of your experience. There is nothing to be fixed, no particular state to be achieved. As best you can, simply allow your experience to be your experience, without needing it to be other than it is.

6. Sooner or later, your mind will wander away from the focus on the breath in the lower abdomen to thoughts, planning, daydreams, drifting along – whatever. This is perfectly okay, it’s simply what minds do. It is not a mistake or a failure. When you notice that your awareness is no longer on the breath, gently congratulate yourself – you have come back and are once more aware of your experience! You may want to acknowledge briefly where the mind has been (“there’s a thought,” “there’s a feeling,” “there’s a tight muscle”). Then, gently escort the awareness back to a focus on the changing pattern of physical sensations in the lower abdomen, renewing the intention to pay attention to the ongoing inbreath or outbreath, whichever you find.

7. However often you notice that the mind has wandered (and this will likely happen over and over and over again), as best you can, congratulate yourself each time on reconnecting with your experience in the moment, gently escorting the attention back to the breath, and simply resume following in awareness the changing pattern of physical sensations that come with each inbreath and outbreath.

8. As best you can, bring a quality of kindliness to your awareness, perhaps seeing the repeated wanderings of the mind as opportunities to bring patience and gentle curiosity to your experience.

9. Continue with the practice for 15 minutes, or longer if you wish, perhaps reminding yourself from time to time that the intention is simply to be aware of your experience in each moment, as best you can, using the breath as an anchor to gently reconnect with the here and now each time you notice that your mind has wandered and is no longer in the abdomen, following the breath.

HOMEWORK

1. Do the Body Scanand/or two 15-minutesessions of Mindful Breathingevery day. Don’t expect to feel anything in particular from doing it. In fact, give up all expectations about it. Just let your experience be your experience. Don’t judge it. Just keep doing it. Talk to your therapist about your experience with it at the next session.

Completed Body Scan:  Sun  Mon  Tues  Wed  Thurs  Fri  Sat

CompletedMindful Breathing:  Sun  Mon  Tues  Wed  Thurs  Fri  Sat

 Sun  Mon  Tues  Wed  Thurs  Fri  Sat

2. Choose a new routine activity and make a deliberate effort to bring Moment-to-Moment Awareness to that activity each time you do it. Possibilities include waking up in the morning, brushing your teeth, showering, drying your body, getting dressed, eating, driving, taking out the trash, shopping, and so on. Simply zero in on knowing what you are doing as you are actually doing it.

Completed:  Sun  Mon  Tues  Wed  Thurs  Fri  Sat

3. Record on the homework form each time you do the Body Scan, Mindful Breathing, and Moment-to-Moment Awareness. Also, make a note of anything that comes up in the homework, so that you can discuss it with your therapist.

4. Complete the Pleasant Events Calendar (one entry per day). Use this as an opportunity to become really aware of the thoughts, feelings, and body sensations around one pleasant event each day. Notice and record, as soon as you can, in detail (use the actual words or images in which the thoughts came) the precise nature and location of bodily sensations.

Completed:  Sun  Mon  Tues  Wed  Thurs  Fri  Sat

5. Were there any obstacles to completing this homework? List them:

What can you do to ensure that these obstacles do not prevent you from doing your homework next week?

6. How was doing this homework helpful to you?

Has anything changed as a result of doing the homework? Describe the changes.

Did the homework help you to have any new ideas or understandings about yourself? Explain.

MINDFULNESS HOMEWORK RECORD FORM

Date / Body Scan or
Two 15-min Sessions of Mindful Breathing / Moment-to-Moment Awareness during Routine Activity
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:
Completed? Yes No
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations: / Activity: ______
Thoughts:
Feelings:
Sensations:

From Segal, Williams, & Teasdale (2002)

PLEASANT EVENTS CALENDAR

Be aware of a pleasant event at the time it is happening. Use the following questions to focus your awareness on the details of the experience as it is happening. Write it down later.

Date.
What was the experience? / Were you aware of the pleasant feelings while the event was happening? / How did your body feel, in detail, during the experience? / What moods, feelings, and thoughts accompanied this event? / What thoughts are in your mind now as you write this down?
Example:
Tues 11/25/08
Heading home at the end of my shift – stopping to hear a bird sing. / Yes. / Lightness across the face, aware of shoulders dropping, uplift of corners of mouth. / Relief, pleasure. “That’s good.” “How lovely.” “It’s so nice to be outside.” / It was such a small thing but I’m glad I noticed it.
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Date.
What was the experience? / Were you aware of the pleasant feelings while the event was happening? / How did your body feel, in detail, during the experience? / What moods, feelings, and thoughts accompanied this event? / What thoughts are in your mind now as you write this down?
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

From Segal, Williams, & Teasdale (2002)