29: mindfulness class

I am a little apprehensive about staring one of my classes this summer semester. As an elective, I decided to take mindfulness meditation. This is a pretty new field in psychology. It’s heavily based off the teachings of Buddhism, where learning the universal truths of the universe and freeing the mind from earthly desires is the way to attain enlightenment. In psychology, it’s more about using meditation to reduce stress and explore thoughts and feelings more deeply within the self. Because after all, Religion and Science just don’t get along (even with a sect as chill as Buddhism).

I’m quite ambivalent about the topic myself. In theory, it’s quite impressive. Meditate for a small amount of time every day and you’ll have less stress and become more aware of your own mind. I think casual relaxation techniques, learning how to accept thoughts and feelings, and deepening awareness all are wonderful skills that quite frankly everyone should know. Just like how I mentioned in an earlier post that talking to yourself is good exercise, being able to honestly and non-judgmentally identify your feelings is a great skill to have.

But in practice… I fall asleep. There’s no two ways about it. I close my eyes and breathe deeply for about two minutes and then my mind starts to drift. I try to fight it, but the downfall seems inevitable. At around the five minute mark my head is hitting the desk. That’s why I’m worried about this class. I already fall in sleep in class sometimes without any help! Trying to do meditation in class is going to be a disaster. I’ll be so good at the deep breathing exercises that when we go back to the regular lecture I’ll “meditate” through the rest of the class!

Even setting the sleeping aspect aside, I find I don’t really have much patience for meditation. Breathing winds up feeling artificial and causes me to yawn. The slow pace of spoken exercises like head to toe muscle relaxation bores me to tears. I have found that repeating a phrase in my head or looking at a mandala is a much better practice for me, but those aren’t popular exercises. I guess I just don’t have a lot of patience for trying to practice this stuff no matter how much I like the theory.

But one of the things that struck me while I was reading my mindfulness textbook today was that I had heard this theory before. The humanistic, or person centered, approach of Carl Rogers states seemed eerily similar to mindfulness to me. This theory states all that is needed for change in a client is for the therapist to provide three things: Congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. This means that the therapist is being real and present with the client, that they clearly understand the person’s emotions as they relive them through the therapy, and that the therapist passes no judgment and places no conditions of worth on the client. By being in a warm and caring place, clients get the space, time, and support to be able to think through their own emotional problems.

My little ‘aha’ moment today was that perhaps mindfulness meditation is simply the humanistic theory without the therapist. Inside of your mind, you create your own place where you can be present with yourself, caring towards your own feelings, and giving yourself the love and warmth needed for change. The language is different, and of course there are some key theoretical differences. Therapy has a goal: to no longer need therapy. Meditation is more like a journey (and here’s where the new age sounding, hippy like BS comes into play). There is no ultimate goal really, unless you count reaching nirvana. It’s just getting to know yourself better. I’m sure nobody can ever know themselves well enough to understand every facet of their mind and emotions. So really, the journey of self-discovery never ends. (Hey everyone, let’s get this drum circle started!)