The Start of My Mindfulness Journey

“Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Simply, it is the practice of being present on purpose, which empowers one with the awareness of intentional contemplation and responses to life.

The Beginning

Prior to 2022, I had no knowledge about mindfulness except the fact that many successful people have attributed their clarity of thought and improved wellbeing as benefits arising from its practice. Coincidentally, my wife started learning and practicing mindfulness in late 2021 and highly encouraged me to join her as she began to experience some positive changes. Thus, at the start of 2022, we enrolled ourselves in a 2 months long Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course at Brahm Centre Singapore. This is a decision which is in line with my personal goal of introspection as I welcomed the new year (shared in this post).

Similar to every new venture that I partake in, I lay out my learning objectives as a way to track my progress and to maintain clarity on the purpose of my earlier decisions. And here are my goals to complete the MBSR course:

1. Learn about mindfulness and integrate some of its practices in my daily life
2. Empower myself with different ways to manage stress or uncomfortable situations
3. Strengthen my bond with my wife through mindfulness practice

Expectations and Doubt

I had attended numerous self improvement courses, which are usually focused on equipping myself with practical skills for the workplace; such as change management, project management and effective communications. It would be accurate to say that these skills are outward facing, enabling one to better interact with the external environment and to achieve certain deliverables required from the individual. In stark contrast, a course on mindfulness explores and examines an individual’s inner self. The outcomes/benefits of attending such a course vary from each individual, often dependent on self realisations when one connect the dots between their personal experiences and the concepts of mindfulness. The lack of having a clear matrix to measure or gauge my competency at the end of a course made me skeptical about the outcomes/benefits I could takeaway from the MBSR course.

Much to my surprise, the course totally exceeded my expectations! Not only did I learn so much more about myself, but by doing so, I am able to better respond to my external environment both emotionally and physically. This easily ticked all the boxes for the learning objectives I had set (mentioned above) prior to starting the MBSR course! I will be sharing in detail over my next few posts on how the objectives were met, while using this opportunity to document my thoughts and experiences so that I can revisit them in future to revise and anchor my takeaways.

Among all the learning points, I felt that the most impactful is the practice of breathe work: intentional breathing. Breathing is an experience that all living beings have in common, yet it is also easily taken for granted as the muscles involved pretty much run on autopilot 24/7. It doesn’t require our conscious effort to breathe, sometimes even during very physically demanding events or when dealing with mentally stressful problems as our focus is been drawn towards reacting to the situation on hand. There are several benefits to drawing the attention to the breathe and interestingly, intentional breathing itself allows me to achieve all three learning objectives I set for the course!

Calming the Mind and Body

Take a moment and notice your breathe. Is it short and shallow?

As shallow breathes limit the movement of the diaphragm and the expansion of the lungs, the exchange of oxygenated air between the blood and air the the lungs is compromised. This puts the body in a state of mild stress. Overtime, the build up of stress can surface as either physical (increased heart rate, muscle tightness, fatigue) or mental (dizziness, mental block, headaches) disturbances.

Instead, get into the habit of taking deeper breaths! With better exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide at the lungs, the above mentioned physical and mental stresses can be reduced or simply avoided. Studies have also shown that deep breathe work can reduce the heart rate which can lead to the stabilisation or lowering of blood pressure! Although there are many different types of breathe work recommended by medical professionals, simply breathing in and out for 5-6 seconds each is a huge change from my usual shallow breathing. And I do find myself feeling physically relaxed and mentally refreshed whenever I insert deep breathing sessions throughout my day! It doesn’t have to be long, even with a short 1 minute session (its actually just 6 deep breathes!) works wonders for me. I am able relax the tensed up muscles in my body, re-oxygenate and prime my mind for clearer thinking as I take on the next task in my day.

A Powerful Tool

This leads me to the next benefit of deep breathing: the ability to pause and respond. Very often, we pack our days full of activities in our hectic modern lifestyle. Even during our precious rest time, we are easily interrupted by our messaging app with requests or calls that reengages us mentally or physically onto an ad hoc task. It isn’t difficult to find myself feeling the anxiety and stress with such a schedule each day.

As a result, there were several incidences where I could have handled the situation better without letting my emotions get the better of me. When I was interrupted with work related matters at home or outside during off work periods, I tend to drop whatever I am doing and reprioritised work instead. This is very disruptive especially when I are spending meaningful time with my family or friends. Also, the disruptions are often accompanied with irritation and anxiety as I try to settle the ad hoc work matter as quickly as possible. And we all know how likely we are to react when we are in such a negative mood!

Now, when such interruptions arise, I can start by taking deep breathes to center myself before I assess the situation. Instead of rushing to react to each stimulant, deep breathing gives me time to pause first, before I face the task as rationally as possible. I was actually surprised, because these interruptions are often not as urgent as they seem and can be addressed later or when I am back at work. Simply acknowledging the matter that was brought to my attention, making a note on my work to-do-list, I am able to easily resume whatever I was doing previously before the interruption. Even during difficult conversations, deep breaths are very useful in drawing my attention away from the strong emotions felt at the moment. Instead of snapping back with a rebuttal or rushing to voice out, acknowledging my emotions helped me focus on listening and understanding the conveyed message. This in return facilitates better responses from me, enabling more pleasant and meaningful conversations.

Letting Go and Moving On

Having discussed some of the benefits of taking deeper breathes and leveraging on them as a tool to respond better to situations, I want to share more on the lessons I derived from the intentional breathing. First, take a deep breathe and hold it within you. We know that breathing in is crucial as it introduces oxygen into our body. But as you hold on to that breathe, you will notice that it gradually gets uncomfortable till the point that the breathe has to be released. It is this releasing behaviour during one of my meditation sessions that gave me a glimpse of an important lesson in life: Letting go. For life to progress, we need to let go of the past and carry with us the courage to venture towards the unknown future. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting, but rather, to internalise past experiences so that we are better equipped to face future challenges better than before.

Similarly, I assimilate the state of breathing in and keeping that precious breathe of ours to be the same as being in your comfort zone in life. Sure, it feels good to just cruise along with what’s familiar without having the need to deal with challenging or uncomfortable situations. But overtime, the society around you is evolving and moving ahead. Little by little, what I felt was the accumulation of guilt and worry, just like the unpleasant feeling of holding my breathe for an extended period of time. Why am I wasting my precious time each day living life on repeat? Won’t the time come when my existing skills and knowledge becomes obsolete, abruptly forcing me out of my comfort zone into a state of loss and painful change? Each state is temporary and fleeting, just like our breathe, and we must accept that change is inevitable. In such a situation, wouldn’t it then be ideal if we could be in control of the change that is happening to us and how we can change to suit our external environment?

Concluding

To answer the question above, we have to bring our focus to the present moment. What can we do for ourselves now, drawing from the lessons of the past, and worries of the future. I am just at the beginning of the journey of mindfulness and there is so much more to practice and learn from its concepts. At this juncture, I am thankful to my wife for encouraging me to join her on her mindfulness journey and I can’t wait to share with you more about the my takeaways! Stay tuned!