I adopted the practice of mindfulness meditation several years ago when I needed a way to transform the battle of pain, stress, and turmoil into a simple awareness that comes and goes (I’m still a work in progress). The key to mindfulness meditation is “simply” allowing the experiences we encounter without judgment, which is also the hardest part. When I can, I practice formally with a group on Saturdays at a local yoga studio, and it is there that I am frequently amazed at what comes up.

At the beginning of the most recent practice, the instructor encouraged those in attendance to notice something. It is normal for our minds to wander or drift and carry us from the true practice of mindfulness into thinking patterns. The thinking could be past ruminations or future planning. In recognizing and coming back from the past or future thinking, we are immediately, once again, in a state of awareness. The instructor challenged us to notice the judgments that may occur when we realize we have wandered from the present moment.

I don’t tend toward judgment when I get caught in thinking. At least, I didn’t think I did. I noticed something important to my daily life that perhaps parallels what the instructor was alluding to.

As I softly drifted in and out of thinking, I noticed and classified (which is a type of judging, I know) my thinking into two categories: Creativity and basic thinking. Besides the classification, I didn’t chastise myself for the distraction. I didn’t chastise myself at all. In fact, what I noticed was a pattern, and that gave me some insight.

Each time I wandered back into awareness from basic, nonsense-type thinking, I felt a tug of sensations and emotions one would generally identify as negative. I wasn’t necessarily thinking negatively but rather feeling the effects of negativity. But I felt excitement or anticipation each time I wandered back from creative thoughts.

Here’s the part that translates to everyday life in an eye-opening way. During practice, I could notice the sensations, recognize them from thinking, and let them pass without creating a story. When I go about my day and experience similar sensations, I don’t recognize that the sensations likely came from thoughts I (likely) wasn’t aware of. I then allow the sensations or emotions to drive further thoughts and stories that carry me into a feedback loop of negativity. The simple pause of awareness is also a pause that gives me the ability to proceed mindfully.

I haven’t quite figured out how to get out of the feedback loop once I am in it, but I can identify much more easily that I am in one. No one wants to jump out of a speeding train, which is what it feels like. So, I guess the next step is to figure out how to slow the train down. In Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the same acronym is used to encourage nearly the same thing. I will use DBT here: STOP
S = Stop what you are doing
T = Take a step back, temporarily distance yourself
O = Observe the situation as an outsider
P = Proceed mindfully.

I probably need the S part of STOP, and I can move on from there.