By Jim Freeman
February 1, 2024
To find our way, we will need to pay more attention to this moment. It is the only time we have in which to live, grow, feel, and change. We will need to become more aware of and take precautions against the incredible pull of Scylla and Charybdis of past and future, and the dreamworld they offer us in place of our lives. - Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are
Scylla and Charybdis by Alessandro Allori
The many benefits and methods of a formal meditation practice have been discussed here in the last three essays. However, when I suggest such a practice to those hoping to improve performance or calm the mind I'm often met with blank stares and a general lack of enthusiasm. I remember the first time I recommended meditation to a player. She stared at me as if I had six heads. When reading Dr. Richard Keefe's book On the Sweet Spot, I came across a passage where he described similar reactions from athletes that he worked with in his sport psychology practice. Many of them just didn't want to do it. Dr. Keefe noted that the advice to meditate struck a number of the athletes as weird and a bit too exotic. He actually stopped using the word "meditate" and instead told them they were working on improving their ability to focus and concentrate by sitting, breathing or locking in on everyday activities. I've tried using that approach as well while looking for other ways to help improve mindfulness apart from proposing a formal meditation practice. I wasn't too sure that such an avenue truly existed but the fact that so many were unreceptive to the notion of adopting a formal meditation practice spurred me to keep up the search.
The way to experience nowness is to realize that this very moment, this very point in your life, is always the occasion. - Chogyam Trungpa, Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
Jake Eagle is a mental health counselor and Michael Amster is a physician and yoga and meditation instructor. In their book The Power of Awe they also discuss the difficulties they encounter in convincing a number of their clients to adopt a regular meditation practice, "However, we have observed that meditation requires an amount of time, dedication, and effort that effectively discourages far too many people from ever becoming proficient enough to fully experience its benefits. Simply put, meditation is a stumbling block for many people, especially those who can't find even 5 minutes for themselves in our busy world, let alone 30 minutes to meditate. For those who struggle with silencing their anxious minds - which ironically, can lead to cycles of negative self-talk as they 'fail' to meditate - meditation can become a stressful, rather than a calming experience."
Surprisingly, Eagle and Amster discovered that many if not all of the benefits of a more prolonged meditation practice could be achieved by "micro-dosing mindfulness" for just seconds at a time. The process involves momentarily focusing attention on something you "value, appreciate or find amazing" and inhaling while appreciating that "cherished item." The final step is to "exhale and expand" which amplifies the experience. The authors found that carrying out such a practice three times a day, which amounts to less than a minute of time invested, was literally a "shortcut to transcendence" or awe. They define awe as "an emotional experience in which we sense being in the presence of something that transcends our normal perception of the world."
One of the conditions that helps us be free to enjoy what is there is our mindfulness. If our mindfulness is not there, then nothing will be there. We will not be aware of the beautiful sunshine, the fresh air, the stars, the moon, the people, the animals, and the trees...The practice of mindfulness helps us to free ourselves to enjoy what is there. - Thich Nhat Hanh, Going Home
Eagle's and Amster's A.W.E. Method stands for Attention, Wait, Exhale and Expand and is described as a "brief, informal mindfulness practice." The authors joined with Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkely and author of the book Awe, to conduct studies on the effectiveness of their methods. Their research showed that a regular A.W.E. practice reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety, loneliness, chronic pain, and stress and produced feelings of improved well-being that matched outcomes produced by more typical meditative practices. Eagle and Amster detail the experience in their book, "The A.W.E. Method quickly transports us into awe, an incredibly powerful emotion that produces wonderment and a heightened state of consciousness along with some remarkable changes in the mind and body that can improve health and wellness." Most helpful is the fact that these results were experienced in everyday settings while paying attention to everyday items or circumstances and did not require being transported to Hawaii or the Grand Canyon to elicit them.
Keltner expands on this in Awe, "Why would I recommend you find happiness in an emotion so fleeting and evanescent? A feeling so elusive that it resists simple description? That requires the unexpected, and moves us toward mystery and the unknown rather than what is certain and easy? Because we can find awe anywhere...Our research suggests that just a couple of minutes a day will do. Because we have a basic need for awe wired into our brains and bodies, finding awe is easy if we just take a moment and wonder...Because brief moments of awe are as good for your mind and body as anything you might do."
We often think that practicing mindfulness has to involve formal activities such as meditation or prayer, but anything we do is an invitation to be present and available. As we open to what's before us, our everyday actions become spiritual practices. - Seth J. Gillihan, Mindful Cognitive Behavior Therapy
In a recent episode of his Finding Mastery podcast, Dr. Michael Gervais discussed a competition he engages in with some of his friends with regard to who can experience the most awe moments on a daily basis. He described his experience of awe thusly, "it happens in moments that are already unfolding but I'm bringing myself into that moment in a way that allows for the magnificent of that moment to be present in my body." His guest was author and endurance athlete, Rich Roll who commented that such a competition was the most "Gervais thing" ever.
An increased ability to be awed...to be moved...to experience the full impact of the present, ensures that our days will not slip past us barely noticed. If we are able to participate in an activity on a moment-by-moment basis, we will get the most out of whatever it is we're doing whether it's a musical performance or a conversation with a friend. Jason Silva speaks passionately on this subject in his Shots of Awe YouTube series, "I think a lot about the contrast between banality and wonder. Between disengagement and radiant ecstasy. Between being unaffected by the here and now and being absolutely ravished emotionally by it. And I think one of the problems for human beings is mental habits. Once we create a comfort zone, we rarely step outside of that comfort zone."
Awe is not to be found apart from heightened degrees of awareness. Indeed, an escalation of our awareness is the whole point. It lifts us out of the comfortable state of mindlessness in which we spend so much of our time. Dr. Daniel Siegel echoes the sentiment in his book Aware, "When we learn to cultivate our capacity for being aware, the quality of our life and the strength of our mind are enhanced." Rick Rubin posits a similar notion in A Creative Act: A Way of Being, "The universe is only as large as our perception of it. When we cultivate our awareness, we are expanding the universe." By expanding the universe we're open to moments of awe which reduces the relative size of our self in the process. That diminution can lend perspective and shrink the size of our perceived problems. Michael Pollan writes in How to Change Your Mind, "An experience of awe appears to be an excellent antidote for egotism."
When unawareness dominates the mind, all our decisions and actions are affected by it. Unawareness can keep us from being in touch with our own body, its signals and messages. This in turn can create many physical problems for us, problems we don't even know we are generating ourselves. And living in a chronic state of unawareness can cause us to miss much of what is beautiful and meaningful in our lives - and, as a consequence, be significantly less happy than we might be otherwise. - Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living
Dr. Ellen Langer has been a faculty member in Harvard's psychology department since 1977 and has spent decades conducting research on mindfulness as it relates to health, personal relationships, education and business. Her influential work includes the "Counterclockwise" study conducted in 1979 that saw elderly men live in a retrofitted retreat center for a week as though it was 1959. After just five days living as their younger selves, the men showed measurable improvements in hearing, eyesight, memory, grip strength and they even looked younger. Dr. Langer's work has repeatedly shown how increased awareness and attention paid to our circumstances can change our perceptions and have a radical restorative effect on health and well-being. The wrinkle in her work on mindfulness is that it does not involve any sort of meditation practice. She has joked in numerous interviews that most of her friends couldn't sit still for five minutes let alone engage in a meditative exercise for 20-30 minutes on a regular basis.
A foundational aspect of Langer's work is the belief that our minds and bodies are not separate entities. She writes in her book Counterclockwise, "I began to realize that ideas about mind/body dualism were just that, ideas, and a different, non-dualist view of the mind and the body could be more useful. If we put the mind and the body back together again, then wherever we put the mind, we also put the body. If the mind is in a truly healthy place, the body would be as well - and so we could change our physical health by changing our minds." Dr. Joan Borysenko, an author and formerly an instructor at the Harvard School of Medicine, echoes Langer's ideas concerning the mind-body connection in her book, Minding the Body, Mending the Mind, "Through a web of subtle interconnections involving nerve pathways, neurohormones secreted by the brain, and hormones like cortisol and adrenaline secreted by the adrenal glands, attitudes can affect every cell in the body. For better and for worse." These ideas speak to the importance of being more aware of our thoughts and how they profoundly affect our health, well-being, performances, and relationships.
It takes no more time to be mindful than mindless, and mindfulness is the way that you will taste freedom. Commit to doing one activity mindfully for the next month, in addition to the other daily practices. - Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles
The mind and body have been treated as one unit in a wide variety of curative approaches throughout human history. However, in Western societies over the last 300 years the two entities were generally separated when prescribing medical and psychological treatment. While many advancements in health care occurred during this time, the importance of the emotional and spiritual aspects of physical healing was de-emphasized. The last century slowly featured a return to seriously considering the value of working with patients from a mind-body unity perspective in Western medical communities. The Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital has incorporated these ideas into their work since 2006. Dr. Herbert Benson is the founder of the Institute and his valuable and influential work regarding stress, health, the mind-body connection, and the Relaxation Response has been discussed here in previous essays.
The concepts surrounding mind-body unity and its relationship to physical health merit serious consideration. Its relationship to performance and mental health issues requires similar reflection. Thomas Sterner is the founder and CEO of The Practicing Mind Institute and he notes in his book It's Just a Thought, "You cannot change any behavior, any response or reaction, if you are not aware you are doing it...If you are not aware of the thoughts your mind is producing, then your mind is operating without your permission. You can't change the programming that is running if you are totally immersed in the experience of the programs. If you do not have awareness and at least some level of control over what your mind is doing, then you have no real power in your life." Sterner's assessment describes the kind of mindlessness that Ellen Langer addresses with her suggestion that we try to be more mindful on a regular basis. She writes in On Becoming an Artist, "How is it we don't realize that we've slipped into a particular mindset, that we're mindlessly accepting and holding on to information? We don't notice precisely because we are 'not there' to notice - to notice, we would need to be mindful."
It's very rare for human beings to be in the present moment: we're either daydreaming, listening to our internal dialogue or on autopilot. - Jayne Storey, Breathe Golf
In a 2014 interview published in the Harvard Business Review, Langer defines mindfulness as "the process of actively noticing new things. When you do that, it puts you in the present. It makes you more sensitive to context and perspective. It's the essence of engagement. And it's energy-begetting, not energy-consuming. The mistake most people make is to assume it's stressful and exhausting - all this thinking. But what's stressful is all the mindless negative evaluations we make and the worry that we'll find problems and not be able to solve them." In order to become more mindful, Langer suggests trying to notice five new things about your spouse when you get home from work or five new objects on your walk around the neighborhood. She goes on to describe the importance of a mindful approach to finding success in our professional endeavors as well, "No matter what you're doing - eating a sandwich, doing an interview, working on some gizmo, writing a report - you're doing it mindfully or mindlessly. When it's the former, it leaves an imprint on what you do. At the very highest levels of any field - Fortune 50 CEOs, the most impressive artists and musicians, the top athletes, the best teachers and mechanics - you'll find mindful people, because that's the only way to get there."
Most of us think of our mental states and most of what goes on in our minds as things that happen outside of our control. But the truth is you can control your mental activities and your behaviors to a degree you never believed possible before. - Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power
Being mindful comes down to how consistently we pay attention to what we're doing and how aware we are of our thoughts and the way they impact our emotions and our actions. The more we can practice paying attention to what's going on around us, the better we get at paying attention. Greater levels of awareness regarding our thoughts gives us a chance to corral them, to make them work for us instead of against us. Seth Gillihan explains in Mindful Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, "The key to challenging our false beliefs is to notice them. Thinking more effective thoughts starts with awareness as we realize what the mind is up to." The more we're aware of our thoughts, the better we get at choosing more productive lines of thinking. It's impossible to make those choices if we're routinely unaware of what we're thinking. If we're unable to make those choices with any kind of regularity, then we have no chance of consistently performing to our capabilities or effectively dealing with mental health concerns such as anxiety and stress.
The reward for attention is always healing...More than anything else, attention is an act of connection. - Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
We've shown that being more aware of our thoughts and our surroundings can be accomplished without the adoption of a prolonged meditation practice. We just need to pay more attention to what we are doing even if it's something as commonplace as going for a walk or preparing a meal. Music producer Rick Rubin expounds on this idea in The Creative Act: A Way of Being, "The gift of awareness allows us to notice what's going on around and inside ourselves in the present moment. And to do so without attachment or involvement...Reading, in addition to listening, eating, and most physical activities, can be experienced like driving: we can participate either on autopilot or with focused attention. So often we sleepwalk through our lives. Consider how different your experience of the world might be if you engaged in every activity with the attention you might give to landing a plane."
The process of becoming more mindful allows us to direct our attention with purpose. Michael Gervais states in The First Rule of Mastery, "Our real power lies in being able to choose where to place our attention and having the mental skills to do so." The ability to regularly focus our attention is a fundamental facet of choosing productive thoughts that align with our values and lead to greater levels of achievement. In 1890, William James wrote in The Principles of Psychology, "The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgement, character, and will." Conversely, if we spend our days being mindlessly reactive, we have little chance to live the kind of life we desire, the kind of life that is reflective of our character and what we believe to be meaningful.
Having an awakened mind means using the mental processes of attention, awareness and intention to activate new states of mind that, with repeated practice, can become intentionally sculpted traits in a person's life. - Daniel Siegel, M.D., Aware
From a performance standpoint, the ability to direct our attention allows us to remove judgement from what we're doing which then accords us the opportunity to execute to the best of our abilities in that moment. In his Inner Game books, Timothy Gallwey talks extensively on the importance of purging judgement from our performances in order to give us a chance to produce optimal results, "We both learn and perform at our peak levels only when the mind is alive, alert, curious and enjoying itself."(Inner Tennis) It's impossible to be curious and enjoy ourselves while automatically and mindlessly criticizing our performance. Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross comment on the relationship between attention and curiosity in Your Brain on Art, "Attention is essential for sparking curiosity. Attention is how the brain neurologically controls and directs consciousness...When you pay attention to a thought, emotion, or perception, your brain activity increases. Your conscious life effectively becomes what you pay attention to. And curiosity is an emotional state you can strengthen with practice." Paying more attention more often grants us more openings to choose thoughts that will help us enjoy what we're doing and facilitate the level of performance we seek.
Your mind will create thoughts with or without your permission. It can be your master or your servant. Awareness offers you the opportunity to make that choice. - Thomas Sterner, Fully Engaged
None of this is meant to diminish the importance or impact of a more traditional approach to meditative practices. It is intended to offer alternative paths to mindfulness to those who have little or no desire to engage in those practices. An increased awareness of our thoughts and surroundings can begin immediately. Experiencing feelings of awe can occur in the next few seconds. It doesn't require a special room or a sacred place. It doesn't need us to section off a large block of time. The process can begin in the next moment...right now...by becoming immersed in something as simple as the holding of a child's hand or tuning in to the gurgling of a nearby creek. Rick Rubin reflects on this fact in The Creative Act, "Broadening our practice of awareness is a choice we can make at any moment. It is not a search, though it is stoked by a curiosity or hunger. A hunger to see beautiful things, hear beautiful sounds, feel deeper sensations. To learn, and to be fascinated and surprised on a continual basis." Ellen Langer elaborates on the never-ending choice we make between mindlessness and mindfulness in the 2014 interview mentioned above, "Life consists only of moments, nothing more than that. So if you make the moment matter, it all matters. You can be mindful, you can be mindless. You can win, you can lose. The worst case is to be mindless and lose. So when you're doing anything, be mindful, notice new things, make it meaningful to you, and you'll prosper."
There is always something new to notice. - Ellen J. Langer, Mindfulness
The world is constantly changing, so no matter how often we practice paying attention, there will always be something new to notice. It's up to us to find it. - Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Recommended Reading
The Power of Awe by Jake Eagle and Michael Amster
The First Rule of Mastery by Michael Gervais
Mindful Cognitive Behavioral Therapy by Seth J. Gillihan
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner
The Mindful Body by Ellen J. Langer
Counterclockwise by Ellen J. Langer
On Becoming an Artist by Ellen J. Langer
Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Recommended Podcasts
Finding Mastery with Michael Gervais
ReThinking with Adam Grant
Huberman Lab with Andrew Huberman
Way of Champions Podcast with Jerry Lynch and John O'Sullivan
High Performance Mindset with Cindra Kamphoff
The Steven Pressfield Podcast
The Gabby Reece Show
The Rich Roll Podcast
Max Out Mindset with Larry Widman
Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson
