Mindfulness, observing eyes wide open

Heyy ^-^

I wanted to continue some on the mindfulness by describing the other two aspects of it.

Mindfulness can be seen to consist of three sets of skills. 1) Wise mind, described in the previous post, and the 2) how and 3) what skills. How-skills are about how to practice mindfulness and what-skills are what to actually practice. The how and what skills are quite intertwined. For me it was easier to understand the whole instead of trying to understand each of these two aspects separately.

What-skills are observing, describing and participating. The what skills build onto each other, like steps on stairs. To climb to the next one, you need to stand on the previous one. To be able to describe, you need to be able to observe, and to be able to participate, you need to be able to describe. 

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I will start with with the base of the stairs: observing, and doing it along the how, which is non-judgmentally, one-mindfully and effectively. 

Observing non-judgmentally, is to allow observations come and go without tagging them as good or bad. There are several things one can practice to observe, the 5 senses, bodily feelings, emotions and thoughts. To practice non-judgmentalness is to catch when your mind tries to label a thing, a person, or yourself as bad or good and kindly remove these labels. For me this helped greatly in my reactiveness. I noticed that as I didn't label myself as bad or that I had  done something bad, I didn't try to jump into a defensive fight mode.

One-mindfully, is to fully focus on the thing your are observing. And when straying just gently guiding yourself back. In the concept of mindfulness, or awareness, it allows you to not get distracted. I have to admit, it is kind of fun to see when you are getting distracted by events, your emotions, your thoughts, and by other people. If someone watching my streams is reading this... yea, I am definitely not a master of this one.

Effectively is to do what is effective. For example, you want to observe the sky but you feel the urge to be productive. Acknowledge that you have an urge, but remember that your focus is to observe. Continue looking at the sky and follow how the urge disappears. Don't blame yourself for the urge, that would be ineffective as then you would be distracting yourself with emotions. Don't be sad a bout the urges, they good practice partners for learning to control your mind.

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How to practice observing mindfully?

I have to say I didn't know what to expect from the observing practices. I draw actively, so I was expecting observing to not give anything new. Might have been wrong.

Level 1:  Observing the 5 senses

One of the first things I tried was observing sounds around. Just keeping my ears open and paying attention to every sound available. I did this while running to work through Stockholm. Just listening car sounds as they faded. The cars sounded way more intense than before. I found this surprisingly soothing and somehow the world felt more real, or maybe I felt more alive. I have never found car sounds soothing before.

The second thing I tried was observing colors around. Again, while running through Stockholm. I looked at the green of the grass, and at the yellow and red of signs, and at the green and orange of the electric scooters. When focusing on seeing the color the colors also became more intense, similar to sounds before. 

I found DBT originally when searching for how to not be depressed. One of the practices described in Finnish mental health pages was to focus on observing the world. Back then I didn't try it, and therefore didn't understand it. But now I'm convinced that if you are not feeling the world, then focusing on observing it could offer refuge by intensifying your experiences.

Level 2: Observing bodily feelings

Observing breathing is pretty widely known and associated with mindfulness. I found it calming, but didn't really experience anything new. I think I might be doing something wrong.

I did an interesting experiment with this today. I focused on observing how my body felt while I was running. I focused on how my breath and steps were in the same rhythm, how my butt started to hurt, how my quads started to hurt, how my calves started to hurt. How the hurt from my calves disappeared. How my right big toe started to hurt and how the hurt disappeared. How my belly was making angry sounds and motions from not being fed since morning. It was really hard to keep the focus on my body, I just wanted to let my thoughts race like they usually do. But I decided that this must be an urge and I refocused on my body. The interesting observation was that when I was able to keep focus on my body the running itself became lighter and from my perspective I was running in better form.

Level 3: Observing emotions

The first practice on observing emotions that I did knowingly, was observing emotions rising in me as response to other people. I was running, again, and observed how other people made me feel. One of the things I really dislike about running in here are the other people. I focused on what feelings if any each person I faced triggered in me. Nearly every person made me a tiny bit feel anxious. Anxious about if they were going to say something hurtful or behave in an unpredictable manner. I learned that I was a huge ball of anxiety. The good thing however, was that I also noticed how the feeling of anxiety disappeared after passing that person.

 Level 4: Observing thoughts

Observing thoughts was the hardest one for me. I think this is because I feel inseparable from them. I am my thoughts. Or so I thought. The instructions for observing thoughts were to observe thoughts arise and fade and not to hang onto them. This was really difficult, I just wanted to follow my run of thoughts. The trick that finally solved it was to convince myself that this was practice for learning to control my mind. A practice for not getting distracted by my urges to follow the thoughts. What I learned was that the thoughts I have sometimes arise from an external trigger, sometimes from internal. For example, just from seeing something or remembering a memory. The thoughts tend to start a journey of their own if I follow them. Much to my surprise tho, I don't have thoughts all the time. Sometimes there is silence. 

The difference in difficulty of observing emotions and thoughts was interesting to me. My hypothesis is that some people will have more problems observing thoughts, some emotions. Furthermore, I think this could be related to the Myers-Briggs type (MBTI) of that person. With types strong on thinking (**T*) having problems with observing thoughts and types strong on feeling (**F*) having problems with observing or separating themselves from the feelings. I'd be really curious to know.