We live in the age of
distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that your brightest future
hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present.
One day I
was walking in the desert and in the middle of no where I found a telephone to
God. The setting was, me trekking with a group of friends. A six day workshop on self realization,
meditation, and yoga. Being a spiritual seeker I love to travel in nature and
this trail was a part of the workshop. I got separated from the group and was
on my own for almost four hours. It was a bright sunny day but as the sun was
on the head it was squeezing the water out of my body making me dehydrated and
tired.
A phone booth in the middle of
the desert with a sign that said "Talk to God" was a surreal sight for
me. People spend their whole life time doing all sorts of nonsense to reach to
god. But here for me just four hours of walking in the hot sun and I win a call
to god. That’s a great deal. The idea
was that you pick up the phone, and God—or someone claiming to be God—would
be at the other end to ease your pain.
So when God came on the line
asking how he could help, I was ready. "How can I live more in the
moment?" I asked. Too often, I felt, the beautiful moments of my life were
drowned out by a cacophony of self-consciousness and anxiety. What could I do
to hush the buzzing of my mind?
"Breathe," replied a
soothing male voice.
I flinched at the tired new-age
mantra, then reminded myself to keep an open mind. When God talks you listen.
"Whenever
you feel anxious about your future or your past, just breathe," continued
God. "Try it with me a few times right now. Breathe in... breathe
out." And to my surprise I began to relax.
You Are Not
Your Thoughts
Life unfolds in the present. But
so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved
and un-seized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry
about the future and ruminate about what's past. "We're living in a world
that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration,
distraction, de-coherence," says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. We're
always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and
calm.
When we're at work, we fantasize about being on
vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell
on intrusive memories of the past
or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don't appreciate the
living present because our "monkey minds," as Buddhists call them,
vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.
Most of us don't undertake our
thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. "Ordinary thoughts
course through our mind like a deafening waterfall," writes Jon
Kabat-Zinn. In order to
feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance
that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and, as
Kabat-Zinn puts it, to "rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just
being."
We need to live more in the
moment. Living in the moment—also called mindfulness—is a state of active, open,
intentional attention on the present. When you become mindful, you realize that
you are not your thoughts; you become an observer of your thoughts from moment
to moment without judging them. Mindfulness involves
being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them
away. Instead of letting your life go by without living it, you awaken to
experience.
Cultivating a nonjudgmental
awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress,
boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and
helps patients cope with cancer. By alleviating stress, spending a few minutes
a day actively focusing on living in the moment reduces the risk of heart
disease. Mindfulness may even slow the progression of HIV.
Mindful people are happier, more
exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more
accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now
reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and
attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling
threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more
accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more
satisfying relationships.
Living in the moment involves a
profound paradox: You can't pursue it for its benefits. That's because the
expectation of reward launches a future-oriented mindset, which subverts the
entire process. Instead, you just have to trust that the rewards will come.
There are many paths to mindfulness—and at the core of each is a paradox.
Ironically, letting go of what you want is the only way to get it. Here are a
few tricks to help you along.
1: To
improve your performance, stop thinking about it.
“I've never felt comfortable on a
dance floor. My movements feel awkward. I feel like people are judging me. I
never know what to do with my arms. I want to let go, but I can't, because I
know I look ridiculous.” Says my friend Rati who has recently joined a dance
class.
"Loosen up, no one's
watching you," people always say. "Everyone's too busy worrying about
themselves." So how come they always make fun of my dancing the next day?
Rati’s head was full of questions.
The dance world has a term for
people like Rati: "absolute beginner." Which is why her dance
teacher, started at the beginning, sitting her down on a bench and having her
tap her feet to the beat as the drummer thumped away in the background. Rati
spent the rest of the class doing "isolations"—moving just her
shoulders, ribs, or hips—to build "body awareness."
But even more important than body
awareness, Dance teacher said, was present-moment awareness. "Be right
here right now!" she'd say. "Just let go and let yourself be in the
moment."
That's the first paradox of
living in the moment: Thinking too hard about what you're doing actually makes
you do worse. If you're in a situation that makes you anxious—giving a speech,
introducing yourself to a stranger, dancing—focusing on your anxiety tends to
heighten it. "When I say, 'be here with me now,' I mean don't zone out or
get too in-your-head—instead, follow my energy, my movements," says Rati’s
Dance teacher. "Focus less on what's going on in your mind and more on
what's going on in the room, less on your mental chatter and more on yourself
as part of something." To be most of herself, Rati needed to focus on
things outside herself, like the music or the people around her.
Indeed,
mindfulness blurs the line
between self and other, explains Michael Kernis, a psychologist at the
University of Georgia. "When people are mindful, they're more likely to
experience themselves as part of humanity, as part of a greater universe."
That's why highly mindful people such as Buddhist monks talk about being
"one with everything."
By reducing self-consciousness,
mindfulness allows you to witness the passing drama of feelings, social
pressures, even of being esteemed or disparaged by others without taking their
evaluations personally. When you focus on your immediate experience without
attaching it to your self-esteem,
unpleasant events like social rejection—or your so-called friends making fun of
your dancing—seem less threatening.
Focusing on the present moment
also forces you to stop over-thinking. "Being present-minded takes away
some of that self-evaluation and getting lost in your mind—and in the mind is
where we make the evaluations that beat us up," says Stephen Schueller, a
psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead of getting stuck in
your head and worrying, you can let yourself go.
2: To avoid
worrying about the future, focus on the present.
In her memoir Eat,
Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend who, whenever
she sees a beautiful place, exclaims in a near panic, "It's so beautiful here! I
want to come back here someday!" "It takes all my persuasive
powers," writes Gilbert, "to try to convince her that she is already
here."
Often, we're so trapped in
thoughts of the future or the past that we forget to experience, let alone
enjoy, what's happening right now. We sip coffee and think, "This is not
as good as what I had last week." We eat a cookie and think, "I hope
I don't run out of cookies."
Instead, relish or luxuriate in
whatever you're doing at the present moment—what psychologists call savoring.
"This could be while you're eating a pastry, taking a shower, or basking
in the sun. You could be savoring a success or savoring music,"
When subjects in a study took a
few minutes each day to actively savor something they usually hurried
through—eating a meal, drinking a cup of tea, walking to the bus—they began
experiencing more joy, happiness, and other positive emotions, and fewer
depressive symptoms, Schueller found.
Why does living in the moment
make people happier—not just at the moment they're tasting molten chocolate
pooling on their tongue, but lastingly? Because most negative thoughts concern
the past or the future. As Mark Twain said, "I have known a great many
troubles, but most of them never happened." The hallmark of depression and
anxiety is catastrophizing—worrying about something that hasn't happened yet
and might not happen at all. Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the
future—and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying
melts away.
The flip side of worrying is
ruminating, thinking bleakly about events in the past. And again, if you press
your focus into the now, rumination ceases. Savoring forces you into the
present, so you can't worry about things that aren't there.
3: If you
want a future with your significant other, inhabit the present.
Living consciously with alert
interest has a powerful effect on interpersonal life. Mindfulness actually
inoculates people against aggressive impulses, say Whitney Heppner and Michael
Kernis of the University of Georgia. In a study they conducted, each subject
was told that other subjects were forming a group—and taking a vote on whether
she could join. Five minutes later, the experimenter announced the
results—either the subject had gotten the least number of votes and been
rejected or she'd been accepted. Beforehand, half the subjects had undergone a
mindfulness exercise in which each slowly ate a raisin, savoring its taste and
texture and focusing on each sensation.
Later, in what they thought was a
separate experiment, subjects had the opportunity to deliver a painful blast of
noise to another person. Among subjects who hadn't eaten the raisin, those who
were told they'd been rejected by the group became aggressive, inflicting long
and painful sonic blasts without provocation. Stung by social rejection, they
took it out on other people.
But among those who'd eaten the
raisin first, it didn't matter whether they'd been ostracized or embraced.
Either way, they were serene and unwilling to inflict pain on others—exactly
like those who were given word of social acceptance.
How does being in the moment make
you less aggressive? "Mindfulness decreases
ego involvement," explains Kernis. "So people are less likely to link
their self-esteem to events and
more likely to take things at face value." Mindfulness also makes people
feel more connected to other people—that empathic feeling of being "at one
with the universe."
Mindfulness boosts your awareness
of how you interpret and react to what's happening in your mind. It increases
the gap between emotional impulse and action, allowing you to do what Buddhists
call recognizing the spark before the flame. Focusing on the present reboots
your mind so you can respond thoughtfully rather than automatically. Instead of
lashing out in anger, backing
down in fear, or mindlessly
indulging a passing craving, you get the opportunity to say to yourself,
"This is the emotion I'm feeling. How should I respond?"
Mindfulness
increases self-control; since
you're not getting thrown by threats to your self-esteem, you're better able to
regulate your behavior. That's the other irony: Inhabiting your own mind more
fully has a powerful effect on your interactions with others.
Of course, during a flare-up with
your significant other it's rarely practical to duck out and savor a raisin.
But there's a simple exercise you can do anywhere, anytime to induce
mindfulness: Breathe. As it turns out, the advice I got in the desert was
spot-on. There's no better way to bring yourself into the present moment than
to focus on your breathing. Because you're placing your awareness on what's
happening right now, you propel yourself powerfully into the present moment.
For many, focusing on the breath is the preferred method of orienting
themselves to the now—not because the breath has some magical property, but
because it's always there with you.
4: To make
the most of time, lose track of it (flow).
Perhaps the most complete way of
living in the moment is the state of total absorption psychologists call flow.
Flow occurs when you're so engrossed in a task that you lose track of
everything else around you. Flow embodies an apparent paradox: How can you be
living in the moment if you're not even aware of the moment? The depth of
engagement absorbs you powerfully, keeping attention so focused that
distractions cannot penetrate. You focus so intensely on what you're doing that
you're unaware of the passage of time. Hours can pass without you noticing.
Flow is an elusive state. As with
romance or sleep, you can't just
will yourself into it—all you can do is set the stage, creating the optimal
conditions for it to occur.
The first requirement for flow is
to set a goal that's challenging but not unattainable—something you have to
marshal your resources and stretch yourself to achieve. The task should be
matched to your ability level—not so difficult that you'll feel stressed, but
not so easy that you'll get bored. In flow, you're firing on all cylinders to
rise to a challenge.
To set the stage for flow, goals need to be clearly defined
so that you always know your next step. "It could be playing the next bar
in a scroll of music, or finding the next foothold if you're a rock climber, or
turning the page if you're reading a good novel," says Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who first defined the concept of flow.
"At the same time, you're kind of anticipating."
You also need to set up the task
in such a way that you receive direct and immediate feedback; with your
successes and failures apparent, you can seamlessly adjust your behavior. A
climber on the mountain knows immediately if his foothold is secure; a pianist
knows instantly when she's played the wrong note.
As your attention focus narrows,
self-consciousness evaporates. You feel as if your awareness merges with the
action you're performing. You feel a sense of personal mastery over the
situation, and the activity is so intrinsically rewarding that although the
task is difficult, action feels effortless.
5: If
something is bothering you, move toward it rather than away from it
(acceptance).
We all have pain in our lives,
whether it's the ex we still long for,
or the sudden wave of anxiety when we get up to give a speech. If we let
them, such irritants can distract us from the enjoyment of life. Paradoxically,
the obvious response—focusing on the problem in order to combat and overcome
it—often makes it worse.
The mind's natural tendency when
faced with pain is to attempt to avoid it—by trying to resist unpleasant
thoughts, feelings, and sensations. When we lose a love, for instance, we fight
our feelings of heartbreak. As we get older, we work feverishly to recapture
our youth. When we're sitting in the dentist's chair waiting for a painful root
canal, we wish we were anywhere but there. But in many cases, negative feelings
and situations can't be avoided—and resisting them only magnifies the pain.
The problem is we have not just
primary emotions but also secondary ones—emotions about other emotions. We get
stressed out and then think, "I wish I weren't so stressed out." The
primary emotion is stress over
your workload. The secondary emotion is feeling, "I hate being
stressed."
It doesn't have to be this way.
The solution is acceptance—letting the emotion be there. That is, being open to
the way things are in each moment without trying to manipulate or change the
experience—without judging it, clinging to it, or pushing it away. The present
moment can only be as it is. Trying to change it only frustrates and exhausts
you. Acceptance relieves you of this needless extra suffering.
Suppose you've just broken up
with your girlfriend or boyfriend; you're heartbroken, overwhelmed by feelings
of sadness and longing. You could try to fight these feelings, essentially
saying, "I hate feeling this way; I need to make this feeling go
away." But by focusing on the pain—being sad about being sad—you only
prolong the sadness. You do yourself a favor by accepting your feelings, saying
instead, "I've just had a breakup. Feelings of loss are normal and
natural. It's OK for me to feel this way."
Acceptance of an unpleasant state
doesn't mean you don't have goals for
the future. It just means you accept that certain things are beyond your
control. The sadness, stress,
pain, or anger is there
whether you like it or not. Better to embrace the feeling as it is.
Nor does
acceptance mean you have to like what's happening. "Acceptance of the
present moment has nothing to do with resignation," writes Kabat-Zinn.
"Acceptance doesn't tell you what to do. What happens next, what you
choose to do; that has to come out of your understanding
of this moment."
If you feel anxiety, for
instance, you can accept the feeling, label it as anxiety—then direct your
attention to something else instead. You watch your thoughts, perceptions, and
emotions flit through your mind without getting involved. Thoughts are just
thoughts. You don't have to believe them and you don't have to do what they say.
6: Know that
you don't know (engagement).
You've probably had the
experience of driving along a highway only to suddenly realize you have no memory or awareness of the
previous 15 minutes. Maybe you even missed your exit. You just zoned out; you
were somewhere else, and it's as if you've suddenly woken up at the wheel. Or
maybe it happens when you're reading a book: "I know I just read that
page, but I have no idea what it said."
These autopilot moments are what
Harvard's Ellen Langer calls mindlessness—times when you're so lost in your
thoughts that you aren't aware of your present experience. As a result, life
passes you by without registering on you. The best way to avoid such blackouts,
Langer says, is to develop the habit of always noticing new things in whatever
situation you're in. That process creates engagement with the present moment
and releases a cascade of other benefits. Noticing new things puts you
emphatically in the here and now.
We become mindless, Langer
explains, because once we think we know something, we stop paying attention to
it. We go about our morning commute in a haze because we've trod the same route
a hundred times before. But if we see the world with fresh eyes, we realize
almost everything is different each time—the pattern of light on the buildings,
the faces of the people, even the sensations and feelings we experience along
the way. Noticing imbues each moment with a new, fresh quality. Some people
have termed this "beginner's mind."
By acquiring the habit of
noticing new things, says Langer, we recognize that the world is actually
changing constantly. We really don't know how the espresso is going to taste or
how the commute will be—or at least, we're not sure.
Orchestra musicians who are
instructed to make their performance new in subtle ways not only enjoy
themselves more but audiences actually prefer those performances. "When
we're there at the moment, making it new, it leaves an imprint in the music we
play, the things we write, the art we create, in everything we do," says
Langer. "Once you recognize that you don't know the things you've always
taken for granted, you set out of the house quite differently. It becomes an
adventure in noticing—and the more you notice, the more you see." And the
more excitement you feel.
Don't Just
Do Something, Sit There
Living a consistently mindful
life takes effort. But mindfulness itself
is easy. "People set the goal of being mindful for the next 20 minutes or
the next two weeks, then they think mindfulness is difficult because they have
the wrong yardstick," says Jay Winner, a California-based family physician
and author of Take the Stress out of Your Life.
"The correct yardstick is just for this moment."
Mindfulness is the only
intentional, systematic activity that is not about trying to improve yourself
or get anywhere else, explains Kabat-Zinn. It is simply a matter of realizing
where you already are. A cartoon from a
magazine I just read sums it up: Two monks are sitting side by
side, meditating. The younger one is giving the older one a quizzical look, to
which the older one responds, "Nothing happens next. This is it."
You can become mindful at any
moment just by paying attention to your immediate experience. You can do it
right now. What's happening in this instant? Think of yourself as an eternal
witness, and just observe the moment. What do you see, hear, smell? It doesn't matter how it
feels—pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad—you roll with it because it's what's
present; you're not judging it. And if you notice your mind wandering, bring
yourself back. Just say to yourself, "Now. Now. Now."
