Describing mindfully

Eyo ^-^

Mindfulness contains tools to take control of your mind. Describing allows you to become separate from your thoughts and feelings. Describing also allows one to deal with the feelings of others as well as external pressure. You can't control what happens externally, but you can take control of what will follow internally.

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Mindfulness is a set of tools to claim the control of your mind. These tools are 1) Wise mind skills, the 2) how and the 3) what skills. Wise mind is your guide and connection to your values, while how-skills deal with how to practice mindfulness and what-skills are what to actually practice. Sometimes it can be easier to understand the whole instead of trying to understand each of these two (how/what) aspects separately. What-skills, observing, describing and participating, build onto each other, like steps on stairs. To climb to the next one, you need to stand on the previous one. 

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The base of the stairs, observing, was described in the previous post, and I will focus now on the next step describing, and doing it non-judgmentally, one-mindfully and effectively. Describing is a way to look at situation as well as your thoughts and emotions from further away. The aim is never at abolishing any of your observations, thoughts or emotions, but on allowing and accepting them, without being controlled by them.  Describing is to label what you observe. Labeling a feeling as a feeling, a thought as a thought. This way you become separate from your thoughts and feelings. This way you can create distance to your thoughts and feelings. 

Describing allows you to also separate what can be observed from what can not.  For example, the thoughts and intentions of other people are unobservable. This will allow detaching interpretations and opinions from facts.

Describing is a bridge to reframing. Describing things allows you to think of possible reframing that would fit the same observed facts. An example from a bit further, my mother asking me to pour coffee for all the guests that had arrived for some family event. I was quite annoyed at being treated differently from my brother who was never asked to perform such tasks. However, I didn't want to cause a scene and asked my mother, in hopes her seeing the mistreatment I was experiencing, that why was it always me who had to do this. Her reply was: "because those are the customs and tasks women should perform". This allowed me to understand that I was seen as a lesser child, but that my mother simply was a person of customs.

One can also find and tear down invisible walls of "can't" by describing. Can you describe the thing that is preventing you from doing something or becoming something? Or was it only in your head?

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Describing non-judgmentally, is to focus on the facts that can be observed. This is why learning to observe is the first step on the stairs.

Describing one-mindfully, is to fully focus on describing the just what you can observe. And when straying just gently guiding yourself back.

Describing effectively is to not judge, but label what is effective, what is ineffective, what is helpful, what is harmful, what is safe, what is dangerous. Describing effectively is to focus on the consequences. Similar to observing, describe also the urges to not be effective. Acknowledge that you have an urge, and describe it. t

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How to practice describing mindfully?

Level 1:  Describing the 5 senses

Focus on one of your senses and on describing what it is that you see, feel, hear, taste or smell. A nice way to practice is to look out of the window or go to a near by park. If it wasn't for the state of the world right now, a café or a bar would be great too. Describe the people, the animals, the nature and what they are doing.  In a social situation, describe, to yourself or back to a person, what they just said to you. Describe a persons face, how does it look when that person is angry, happy, or sad. This will help you create distance from reacting to the events around you and to the emotions of others. 

Level 2: Describing bodily feelings

Describe what kind of feeling you are having in your body. You can also connect this to emotions by describing how an emotion feels in your body. Or how hunger feels. Or how pain feels.

Similar to observing, there are several practices focused on describing breathing. You can go on breathing while simultaneously thinking "I am breathing in, one', I am breathing out, one'. I am breathing in, two, I am breathing out, two' and so forth. Or instead of counting one can go on thinking  'I am inhaling normally, I am exhaling normally', on every breath, until doing several long breaths with the though of 'I am inhaling looong, I am exhaling looong''. 

Level 3: Describing emotions

Describe emotions rising in you. What is the feeling that you are feeling, where does it feel, how does it feel.

Describe the connection of your emotions to your thoughts. For example: "I am feeling Y and it is making me think X" and vice versa, "When I am  thinking X, an emotion Y will rise" . This will give you awareness of how your thoughts and emotions are interconnected

Describe you feelings when they are caused by an external event or person. Similar to previous "When X happens, I feel Y", "When I observe X doing Y, I feel Z". This will give you awareness of how your emotions are triggered by the outside. 

 Level 4: Describing thoughts

Describe your thoughts when they are caused by an external event or person. As in describing emotions "When X happens, I think Y", "When I observe X doing Y, the thought of Z arises". This will give you awareness of how your thoughts are triggered by the outside. Another practice for describing thoughts is to simply label them as judgmental or non-judgmental.

The idea of practicing observing and describing emotions and thoughts, is to be able to make them tangible by separating them from yourself. You can't control what happens externally, but you can take control of what will follow internally.

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I am actually having some trouble with separating describing from observing. It feels as if I would be jumping straight from observing to describing. Today there was a bit of a breakthrough as I started imagining thoughts as apples running down the stream. The appearance of the apple passing in the stream would resemble the thought or feeling. Shiny crystal ones for good ideas, sticky rotten ones for thoughts that were bothering and didn't pass as quickly. All the apples eventually passed tho, it was an interesting mental exercise :D