Living Mindfully

Strategies for greater wakefulness

By Fleet Maull, Ph.D.

Living mindfully is a profound and transformative journey that calls us to embrace the present moment with intention and heightened awareness. In a world characterized by constant distractions and overwhelming demands, mindfulness serves as a powerful remedy to the chaos and stress that often dominate our lives.

To embark on the path of mindful living, it is crucial to prioritize both formal mindfulness practices and the seamless integration of mindfulness into our daily activities. Today, I will delve into practical strategies that can help us strike a harmonious balance between these two aspects. Whether you are an experienced mindfulness practitioner or someone curious about exploring mindfulness and meditation, my aim is to provide valuable insights that cater to individuals with diverse backgrounds and levels of experience.

When we engage in formal mindfulness practices and integrate mindfulness into our daily lives, we invite a quality of attention and presence that is infused with transformative qualities. These qualities include reflection, equanimity, self-acceptance, openness, curiosity, and joy.

Presence vs mindfulness

While being present in any given moment is valuable, it is important to note that mindfulness goes beyond simple presence. We can experience intense fear or other overwhelming emotions that arise from survival instincts while still being fully present. However, mindfulness, as understood in this context, entails being present with a sense of spaciousness—an inner expansiveness that allows us to embrace the present moment fully. It involves a willingness to meet our experiences with curiosity, openness, and acceptance, without judgment or attachment. This aspect of mindfulness distinguishes it from merely focused attention.

Through both ancient yogic science and modern neuroscience, we have gained valuable knowledge about mindfulness and mindfulness practices. One such finding is that through dedicated and consistent practice, we have the capacity to elevate our baseline level of mindfulness and sustain it over time.

Engaging in mindfulness practices grants us entry into temporary states of mindfulness, which are inherently transient by nature. However, the true power lies in the cumulative effects of regular practice. By cultivating mindfulness on a consistent basis, we not only experience these temporary states but also enhance our baseline level of mindfulness. This means that our overall capacity for mindfulness expands, resulting in a more significant and enduring presence of mindfulness and its attendant qualities like equanimity, openness, and joy, in our day-to-day lives.

Practice

Mindfulness practices involve various techniques and methodologies that facilitate a shift from a state of distraction or mindlessness to mindfulness. These practices serve as strategies for cultivating mindful presence and awakening from a relative lack of awareness and tendency toward automaticity and habitual reactivity. They not only induce temporary states of mindfulness but also strengthen the neural circuitry that underlies baseline mindfulness. These practices contribute to developing a sustained capacity for mindfulness and mindful presence.

The benefits of mindfulness practice span a wide spectrum. On one end, it can assist us in mitigating the impacts of stress prevalent in our modern lives, while also supporting the healing of underlying traumas and effectively managing mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, and addictions. On the other end, mindfulness can propel us towards profound spiritual development, facilitating complete psychological freedom, and leading us to what has been described as awakening or enlightenment. These transformative outcomes can manifest both in the present moment and accumulate over time as we engage in regular mindfulness practice.

During our mindfulness practice, we typically select an object of mindfulness to anchor our attention. This object can be anything, but traditionally we begin with mindfulness of the body and mindfulness of breathing, which are easily accessible, naturally occurring in the present moment, and requiring no effort to create or visualize. The body, in particular, offers a tangible, grounding experience that serves as a reliable anchor for our practice.

For some, however, due to traumatic experiences, bringing close attention to the moment-to-moment experience of body and/or breath may be overly activating and thus an external object of mindfulness may better serve their practice. Over time, however, by approaching mindfulness of body and breathing in a gentle, titrated way, leaning in and leaning out, so to speak, within one’s window of tolerance (to use Dr. Dan Siegel’s term), most of us will be able to reclaim our embodied experience as a workable and effective anchor for our practice.

Regardless of our chosen object of attention or anchor, as we cultivate mindfulness, we encounter moments when our attention wanders. It is during these moments that we gently bring our attention back to the chosen object of mindfulness, repeatedly strengthening the muscle of mindfulness and gradually developing the neural circuitry that supports the stabilization of our attention.

From default-mode network to task-positive network

By synchronizing our attention with the body, we can shift our focus from the often overactive cognitive mind—the "chatterbox" of thoughts, self-referencing and time-traveling—to a state of greater calm and stability. This shift involves moving away from the default-mode network, associated with rumination and mental noise, towards the task-positive network associated with focused attention. These networks are somewhat mutually inhibitory, and by cultivating mindfulness and synchronizing mind and body, we can reduce the activation of the default-mode network and enhance the attention-stabilizing effects of task-positive network activation.

In our culture, which tends to prioritize cognitive thinking, we often neglect the wisdom and intelligence residing in our bodies. Our bodies are sometimes reduced to mere vessels for our active brains. A friend commented that for many of us in Western culture, our bodies have been relegated to the role of “brain taxis.” However, by directing our attention to the body and fully inhabiting it, starting from the head and moving through the neck, shoulders, upper body, back, chest, torso, waist, buttocks, hips, legs, and down to the soles of our feet, we reconnect with our embodied experience. We come home to the body.

As we cultivate a profound and embodied awareness of the physical sensations within our body, it begins to ground us in the present moment. This anchoring effect makes it more challenging for the mind to wander and easier for it to return to the present moment. Consequently, the mind naturally starts to quiet down.

It is important to clarify that meditation does not involve attempting to turn off or suppress our thoughts. Such endeavors are counterproductive and hinder our practice. Rather, through the synchronization of body and mind and the activation of the task-positive network, the activity of the default mode network naturally subsides, allowing the mind to settle. We have all experienced moments of quietude in the mind when we are engrossed in a task requiring intense concentration, like threading a needle, even if only for a moment.

The mind-body experience

When we embark on a deeper exploration of the body, we discover that the tangible sense of physicality expands into a more intricate and profound experience. Even with closed eyes, the body remains present. We can still feel it. This leads us to ponder, "What am I feeling?" The answer lies in the realm of sensation. Our perception of the body may shift from a purely physical sense to one that incorporates the interplay of body, mind and energy.

Mind, as postulated by my colleague Dan Siegel, is a flow of energy and information within and without or between, that is within our own embodied experience and between ourselves and others, the interpersonal dimension, and the natural world. This concept aligns with Thich Nhat Hanh's insightful term, "interbeing." As we close our eyes and turn our attention inward, we tap into this ceaseless flow of energy and information. Through this exploration, we begin to recognize that the body and mind are not separate entities but rather different dimensions of a unified whole.

As we deepen our attention and focus on the external field of sensations (exteroception), particularly those on the surface of the skin, we engage a highly myelinated neural network. This heightened sensitivity to touch on the skin's surface allows us to discern subtle sensations and connect with the rich tapestry of our external somatic experience. By connecting the dots, so to speak, of the limitless array of external sensations on the surface of the skin all across the body from head to toe, we can begin to experience ourselves enveloped by and held with an exquisite field of benevolent sensate experience and attentiveness at the relative boundary between our body and the space surrounding us, which is not empty but actually tangible. We can weave an almost womb-like structure of compassionate attentiveness in which we feel lovingly held by the space and can relax further into the practice.

Interoception

Having created that structure of safety and benevolence for our practice, we can then begin to explore the inner landscape of sensate experience. The entire body, all the way down to the bones and including the bones, is a complex living organism, each component of which contains neurons connected to the central nervous system. Thus the entire body is sensory. Internal sensations travel through a different set of neural pathways to the brain that are less myelinated and thus less efficient compared to external sensations, making internal sensations generally more subtle but nonetheless completely experienceable. Our capacity to feel or sense the internal landscape of physical sensation or touch within the body is known as interoception (short for internal perception).

We are all very familiar with interoception, even if we didn’t know the term because this is how we know when we are hungry, thirsty, tired, or in need of the restroom. Unfortunately, absent some kind of discomfort, we generally ignore the internal landscape of the body and remain habitually distracted by or focused on our discursive thinking (overactive default mode network) and the external world… mostly visually and auditorily. Thus, we live up in our head most of the time.

By bringing awareness to the internal landscape of physical sensation within the body, we can activate and enhance our capacity for interoceptive awareness and learn to live in a much more embodied manner with moment-to-moment awareness of bodily sensations. Enhanced interoceptive awareness has been shown to support healing, deepen resilience, and increase emotional intelligence and relational capacity.

As we delve deeper into interoception, we move beyond the gross level of physical sensations and explore subtler and subtler realms of experience. This journey takes us into the realm of the subtle body, the energy body, and even the subtle mind. Ultimately, we may touch the essence of pure being.

Through this exploration, we can develop an internal neuro-biofeedback loop within our body-heart-mind system allowing our practice to become more and more effortless. As we employ various forms of self-directed self-regulation to synchronize body and mind and facilitate the shift from an overactive default-mode network to the attention-stabilizing task-positive network, our awareness expands and deepens, providing our body-heart-mind-system with a great deal of data related to any changes in technique, posture, focus of attention, level of relaxation, etc., essentially activating an internal neuro-bio-feedback loop or system through which the body-heart-mind system learns to auto-regulate itself into deep attention stabilization, profound states of awareness and ultimately pure, nondual presence or beingness.

With time and practice, the internal neuro-biofeedback loop becomes increasingly refined and we develop a capacity for effortless, deeply embodied mindfulness and awareness. This internal learning process and the experience of resting in pure presence and nondual embodied awareness gradually rewire our neural networks, allowing our body, heart, and mind to remember and access these profound states with ease. The body is an integral part of this transformative process. By cultivating deep states of being through body-based practices, we train our neural networks to regulate themselves, maintain a state of deep attention and embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery and remembrance. The body serves as a gateway to unlocking the vast reservoirs of innate wisdom, intuition, and awareness within us, allowing us to develop a profound connection with ourselves and the world around us.

The Power of Intentionality Now, let's explore the integration of mindfulness into our daily lives. Many of you who have been practicing for a while may have experienced a disconnect between your dedicated meditation practice and the application of mindfulness in the midst of daily life. It can feel as though the benefits of formal practice are not fully manifesting in your everyday experiences. This is where the power of intentionality comes into play.

First and foremost, having a general intention to infuse mindfulness into our daily lives and paying attention to the transition from formal practice to daily activities can be immensely helpful. Cultivating this intention to bring mindfulness into every moment of our lives is a powerful starting point. Additionally, employing various strategies for engaging in daily activities with mindfulness can further deepen our practice. It is important to continuously explore and mix up these strategies to keep our practice fresh and vibrant. For example, we can set the intention to be fully present while brushing our teeth, relishing the sensations and the cleanliness it brings to our mouth. We can approach tasks like washing dishes, doing laundry or walking our dog with mindful intention. The possibilities are endless, and we can continually discover new ways to incorporate mindfulness into our daily activities.

Furthermore, it is essential to embrace moments of distraction or reactivity as opportunities for practice. Rather than suppressing or dismissing these experiences, or feeling bad about ourselves, we can view them as valuable moments for mindfulness. Recognizing and acknowledging distractions or triggers with a non-judgmental attitude can deepen our understanding of our own mental processes and emotional reactions.

Overall, cultivating intentionality and employing strategic approaches to both formal practice and daily life integration can unlock the many benefits of mindfulness and meditation. From reducing unhelpful stress responses and lowering anxiety to experiencing enhanced physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health & well-being, the potential benefits are vast. Ultimately, with dedicated practice, we can tap into the profound depths of mindfulness and awareness meditation, allowing for transformative growth and spiritual awakening.