Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
“Meditation Doesn’t Work for Me.”
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 22nd, 2015.
Learning to disentangle ourselves from distressing thoughts and observe our internal reactions before responding are skills worth cultivating. They can help us cope better with a wide variety of emotions—anxiety, depression, and anger, to name a few—without resorting to avoidance, withdrawal, distraction, or lashing out to deal with them.
Mindfulness, defined by Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) founder Jon Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment,” is a way to change the way we respond to our thoughts. A growing body of evidence from brain-imaging studies suggests that regular meditation practice—one important means of cultivating mindfulness—actually alters the brain structures involved in attention, concentration, and willpower, as well as the areas central to emotional reactions.
These findings have been compelling enough to convince me to develop a personal meditation practice (I’ve described my own experience with MBSR in previous posts) and also to add meditation to my cognitive-behavioral therapy repertoire.
It’s been a hard sell, and I understand why. I was a mindfulness skeptic myself. I’m not a fan of approaches smacking of New Age pop psychology, and the currently voguish “mindful revolution“, which has spawned to date 462 iPhone apps along with the titular Time cover story, carries with it that woo-woo whiff. But, as I said, the science backing it has sold me.
Not so for many of the people I think might benefit from practicing meditation. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard, “Meditation doesn’t work for me.” I’m always curious to understand what that means. If meditation were “working,” what would be happening?
The most common answers I get to my question are: “I can’t empty my mind,” or, “I’m always thinking,” or “I just can’t relax.”
I suspect the impossible goal of mind-emptying comes from all the yoga teachers who end their classes with Shavasana, inviting practitioners to let go of their thoughts and relax. While relaxation is indeed a major benefit of yoga, it’s not the goal of mindfulness meditation (although it sometimes can be a pleasant by-product). Perhaps, fittingly, Shavasana is also known as “corpse pose,” reminding us that as long as we’re living, breathing, sentient beings, our minds will always be busy thinking.
So if achieving a relaxed feeling and a blank mind aren’t the point of mindfulness meditation, why do it?
The major benefit of practicing mindfulness for emotional health is to learn to let experiences unfold without filtering them through the layers of thoughts, comparisons, judgments, interpretations, and memories often taking us away from the present and into a morass of negative mental activity. It’s not about stopping thoughts but about redirecting them, taking a more objective perspective, and focusing on what’s important in any given moment.
In short, meditation is weight-training for the brain. It strengthens the mental muscles for attention and concentration. And, as with lifting weights, results don’t happen overnight. You can’t expect to become a power lifter after one or two sessions in the gym. Yet many would-be meditators get discouraged and give up when they don’t see immediate changes.
And what if your mind keeps going a mile-a-minute and it wanders and you get lost in thought and your attention can’t stay on your breath (the most common focal point used in mindfulness meditation) for more than a second at a time before you start thinking again about that conversation you had with your boss or what you’re going to make for dinner tonight or how you’ll find the time to finish the project that’s due tomorrow or where you’re going to get the money for your daughter’s orthodontia or whether that weird mole on your arm is cancer or what a loser you are because you can’t even concentrate on your breath and meditate right?
Then I’d say you’ll get lots of practice refocusing, again and again and again, which will help build those mental muscles.
And I’d also say,”Congratulations!” Because you’re alive.
Tags: Jon Kabat-Zinn, meditation, mindfulness
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
MBSR, Week 7: For This Meditator, Less is More
By Lynne Gots, posted on May 23rd, 2014.
When I signed up for an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course, I thought it would help me “deepen” my commitment to mindfulness meditation. Now, going into the final stretch of the program, I’m wondering what, exactly, I was thinking.
I’ve had plenty of time on the cushion to contemplate the purpose of my intensive foray into the world of mindfulness—or, in the parlance of the meditation community, my “intention.” I think I was hoping to develop some serious meditation chops, to transform myself from a meditation amateur into a meditation professional.
Now I’m realizing the daily practice I’d fashioned for myself was deep enough just the way it was. Which, I guess, is the very essence of mindfulness: recognizing things for what they are, accepting them, and not trying to make them different.
For this achievement oriented striver, the concept of “good enough” has required a major mental attitude adjustment. You mean I don’t have to be an expert? And what would that even look like for a meditator? Going on a weeklong retreat? Becoming a Buddhist monk? No, I just have to keep plugging away to reap the subtle benefits—improved focus, better tolerance for frustration, more patience—I get from practicing meditation on a regular basis.
This observation came to me after the all-day retreat last week. (With hours devoted just to sitting and observing thoughts as they floated by like clouds in the sky, I’d have been disappointed if I hadn’t come away with at least one insight.)
I’d anticipated the day with a great deal of trepidation, as did many of the participants. Would I be able to stand being silent for 7 hours? Sit for long stretches without needing to get up and move? Endure just “being” without doing anything? Heck, I even wondered what to pack for lunch and how I’d slip away discretely if I needed a bathroom break.
But, as with many unfamiliar situations, the experience turned out to be far less taxing than I’d feared. We moved smoothly from one meditation to another—sitting, yoga, walking—so there was plenty of variety to break up the time. We could leave whenever we wanted and even had permission to take our lunches outside (which turned out to be an unexpected delight given the beautiful weather and fortuitous park bench I happened upon). The only rule was “No talking.”
Three hours passed surprisingly quickly. I enjoyed having nowhere to go and no chores to do. But when we returned from our lunch break, the afternoon started to drag. I felt drowsy. The last instruction of the day was to do any meditation of our choosing for a half hour. I welcomed the opportunity to stretch out on a yoga mat and close my eyes. And then I promptly fell asleep.
Even though improved sleep may be one positive outcome of meditation, sleeping isn’t meditating. But given the intensity of the day’s activities—yes, just being can be exhausting—and the focus on self-acceptance, I cut myself slack for missing out on the last part of the session.
So what did I learn? I realized more isn’t necessarily better when it comes to meditation, or many other pursuits, for that matter. Sometimes you reach a point of diminishing returns.
I plan to continue meditating. But I probably won’t be putting in 45 minutes a day, and I certainly won’t be going on a 7-day silent retreat any time soon.
I’ve discovered the importance of evaluating—mindfully, of course—what you need in any given moment. It might be meditation. Or it might, in fact, be a nap.
Tags: MBSR, meditation, mindfulness
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work
By Lynne Gots, posted on January 6th, 2014.
Not even a week into 2014 and already I’ve broken my resolutions. I should have known better.
Most of the promises made on the eve of January 1st are doomed to fail. Yet we continue to make them year after year, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Isn’t that the definition of insanity?
My first resolution didn’t even last through New Year’s Day. Feeling pleased with the meditation practice I’d cultivated over the last year by setting myself the modest goal of sitting and focusing on my breath for at least five minutes daily, I’d decided to raise the bar. I would meditate for thirty minutes every day!
As it turned out, on the first of January I got involved in preparing a complicated meal, puttering around the house, and sharing the fruits of my labor with my family. When I finally remembered I hadn’t yet meditated, it was 11:00 pm, and I was sleepy. Normally I’d put in my five minutes and call it a night. But instead, I set my timer for 20 minutes and struggled to stay awake while I concentrated on my inhalations and exhalations until the bell chimed.
You’d think, having just quadrupled the length of a typical late-night meditation session while managing not to fall asleep during it, I’d congratulate myself. But no. I felt disappointed.
I kept my second resolution until January 3. I’d decided I would accrue 10,000 steps a day on my activity-monitoring wristband. Despite my sedentary job, I often do get in at least 10,000 steps by taking the stairs instead of the elevator to my seventh floor office, walking the dogs for nearly an hour, and catching up with my favorite TV shows on the elliptical trainer instead of the couch.
Usually, in spite of my aversion to the cold, I manage with a Teutonic-like resolve to drag the dogs (both wimps when it comes to weather extremes) and myself out the door every day for a walk. But with the wind chills hovering in the single digits on January 3 and the sidewalks iced over, none of us could endure more than fifteen minutes around the block, giving me a paltry 5700 steps for the day.
Maybe you’re sticking to your resolutions a little longer than I did. But unless you’re endowed with an ironclad will—and, if so, probably not in need of making vows to improve yourself—you’ll abandon them sooner or later.
Why don’t New Year’s resolutions work? In my experience, both personal and professional, most people fail to stick to their resolutions because they set their sights on inflexible goals. Both my resolutions were too rigid and unrealistic, failing to take into account variability in daily responsibilities and interference from outside forces (like the weather).
Before making my resolutions for 2014, I’d already been meditating regularly and getting more active by aiming for consistency over quantity. This tactic motivated me because even one minute of meditation “counted.” And when I increased the length of a practice, I did it out of choice rather than obligation. But as soon as I changed the rules, demanding of myself 100% adherence to an arbitrary numerical standard, I set myself up to fail.
Fortunately, I recognized my distorted thinking right away and have gone back to striving for consistency. I’ll still try to practice longer when I can carve out the time but I accept that it’s not always possible.
Many people get frustrated and give up altogether when they fall short of their goals. If you’re an “all-or-nothing” thinker, you may believe you blew it if you slipped up even just a little. Then, bye bye, resolutions.
One reason making New Year’s resolutions is so appealing, according to social scientists, is “the fresh start effect.” Researchers found an increased interest in dieting, inferred from the frequency of Google searches for the term “diet,” around the beginnings of new weeks, months, years, semesters, birthdays, and holidays.
Viewing change from the perspective of a fresh start mentality can backfire, as anyone who’s fallen off the diet wagon on a Wednesday knows all too well. Your waistline won’t shrink if you tell yourself, “Oh, well. I guess I can eat whatever I want and start the diet again on Monday.”
But if you must give yourself a mental clean slate to recommit to change, there’s a better way. You can take a page from Zen Buddhism and the concept of Shoshin, or “Beginner’s Mind,” where every moment can be a fresh start. Even the same action repeated over and over is different every time.
So forget about the New Year’s resolutions and just begin again—not tomorrow or next week, but right now.
Tags: beginner's mind, meditation, mindfulness, New Year's resolutions
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness, Behavior Change, Motivation, Techniques |
