Many of you would’ve heard me say that we walk around with a torture instrument on the top of our necks. I don’t mean this as a joke but I’ve come to this conclusion after much thinking about why so many people are struggling. Most of us have all the basics covered: we have places to live (some even with a pool), satisfying jobs, cars, beautiful clothes, families, good incomes, friends, healthcare, the ability to treat ourselves (e.g., a movie, a holiday, a spa, a massage etc.).
Yet we struggle.
For example, you’re sitting in your favourite chair with a glass of good red wine, Bach on the stereo, the sun is filtering through the trees outside and the cat is curled up purring in your lap.
Perfect right?
It would be except that a lot of the time the mind sabotages the moment by thinking about bad things from the past or scary things from the future.
Mark Twain summed it up nicely “Most of my life has been filled with terrible misfortune – most of which never happened.”
I believe that that the human mind has been honed throughout evolution to worry and ruminate. For example, if I was a cave woman and with a bit of time on my hands it would not increase my chances of survival if I sat around thinking about the beautiful the sunset or how lovely my kids are. If, on the other hand, I sat worrying about whether we would have enough berries to survive winter or what we would do if a bear was in the cave we were going to use for winter I might take steps to address these worries and that may help me survive longer. If I survived longer I would pass on more of my (worry) genes and those of my children who worried more would survive longer and passed on their worry genes.On and on through generation after generation.
In other words, it would seem that our happy-go-lucky ancestors died off while the worriers and ruminators amongst them lived longer and passed down their genes to us. The consequence is – unfortunately for us – that we now have a mind that is an expert on worrying and rumination. We have a mind that is capable of incredible things (e.g., communication, art, inventions) but the mind has not developed the ability to manage itself!
The solution?
Yes you guessed it: mindfulness.
Mindfulness is one of the only remedies, as far as I can tell, for our tendency to torture ourselves with past perceived wrong-doings or future catastrophies.
Mindfulness helps manage the mind in several ways: 1) because mindfulness is about being in the present moment it limits the time spend in visiting either the past or the future. 2) It develops our ability to sit back and observe the theatrics of the mind without becoming too caught up in it. This ability has been referred to as the impartial spectator or detached observer. 3) As we observe the mind we come to realise that thoughts and feelings are not facts but often random ramblings of the mind. 4) We come to realise the impermanent nature of thoughts and feelings and we can therefore take the whole thing a bit less seriously.