Chapter 9

Letting the good times roll

Attack of the sleeping zombies!

Much of the time, it is as if we are blundering through life ‘asleep’, absent from most of what goes on in our lives, absorbed in primitive fear, much akin to a population of zombies! It is important that we wake up and show up to our lives, as they will continue to tick away, whether we are present and connected to them or not. We can assure you that, with the transformative power of mindfulness, you will be showing up to your life more often, reaping and enjoying the varied and numerous rich fruits it has to offer you.

Strangely, it can be a real challenge, especially in our Western, busy lives, to allow ourselves any genuine pleasure. As we have seen, many of us spend a lot of time uneasy, ‘looking over our shoulders’ or second-guessing the next dilemma in a defensive position, readying ourselves to deal with and solve the next problem that arises to avoid any further painful feelings. If pleasure can even penetrate this fog of anxiety, often we do not even really know how to savour it, and instead already mourn the time when it will be gone or worry about grasping it a bit harder and thus end up squeezing all the life out of these fleeting moments of joy and tumble back into a miserable downward spiral.

Maybe you even find yourself shuddering at the idea of feeling anything pleasurable. Perhaps your mind is thinking you do not deserve all this good stuff, especially as you have not done enough yet, you need to do more cleaning, more work, more helping others out, more organising for the following week, more of anything and everything and then you can sit down and ahhhhhh … relax. But by that time, you probably find yourself exhausted and irritable, worrying about all the other things you have got to do later. And maybe nothing you do is ever enough and you will never deserve to feel good, and all this positive stuff is to be avoided at all costs.

Finding ease with life’s ups and downs

Grim stuff, all this. So, here is the good news … letting go and accepting life in a state of ease and openness is not a very common experience for many of us, and yet it is a very natural state for us to be in and we love it. You may find that, by dropping the judging or evaluating of the worthiness of something (e.g. job, relationship, your body, yourself in general), then your experience of life becomes more and more about just being there in the moment, and that can bring a great sense of ease to your life, whatever else is going on.

When we recognise painful emotions and see them as a fundamental (and natural) part of life, we see that it is pointless (in fact impossible) and ineffective to fight or flee from them. The truth is that you cannot pick and choose which emotions you want – you can try, but our guess is that, if you have attempted this, it has not been that helpful and has not made for an easy ride. Because of this realisation, we are free to experience a deep kind of relaxation, even alongside our difficulties. This is both mentally and physiologically healthy, as many studies into mindfulness have now shown.

Further studies into mindfulness, specifically related to kindness, gratitude and developing compassion, show that enhancing these can also improve our health, well-being and level of functioning. Also, research has shown that these qualities occur because we accept our difficult emotions and our vulnerabilities and not despite them. It is this very quality of acceptance and, perhaps even more so, willingness to accept life as it is that leads us, ultimately, to being free from unease. When we are at ease, we experience a fundamental sense of well-being; we feel joy, contentment and peace in our hearts. This is not a giddy, grasping euphoria where everyday life seems bland and mundane by comparison. This is the realisation that the bland and mundane are nothing of the sort, that what appears ordinary is rich, sweet and delicious (it is also part of the deal, it is part of our life). We then know that all that muck that we have been in is this fantastic fertiliser for all this great rosy stuff to come springing up out of.

The tiny seed knew that in order to grow, it needed to be dropped in the dirt, covered in darkness, and struggle to reach the light.

Sandra Kings

The crazy paradoxical thing about this is that, without pain, we would not know pleasure and it is only our own mind discriminating one from the other anyway. Take Marmite, love it, hate it, whatever. Marmite is just extremely salty black stuff (or so our very own extensive scientific investigations have shown), whether you like it and it gives you pleasure or you hate it and it gives you pain is totally subjective. This is the same for anything.

Practice 9.1: Mindfulness right now!

Yin-yang, thank you mam

Have a go at thinking through the answers to the questions below:

• Do you say pot-ate-toe or pot-art-toe?
• Is the cup half empty or half full?
• Is this a picture of an old lady looking down or a young lady looking away?

• Are you on the top of the world or on the world’s bottom?
• What is the sound of one hand clapping?
• Was your mother always right?
• If so, who was left?
• Is the answer to this question yes or no?

We know, stupid quiz, you might say, and we would agree, but add that it does illustrate that all these questions and concerns about good, bad, right, wrong, nice or not nice can bog us down and we can get carried away in trying to figure it all out instead of just rolling about in life with a willingness to savour all it has to offer as each new moment unfolds. This is, essentially, joyful, like a puppy rolling about in the grass.

To help you along with this we have another handy acronym. This time it is EASE:

E	Embrace: everything, nothing more, nothing less, all experiences.
A	Accept: just this moment, this experience as it is.
S	Soften: no need to interfere, struggle, work it out or evaluate it, let it be.
E	Exhale: you can keep breathing (notice how, when you are tense, full of anticipation or struggling with effort, often you hold your breath and this can increase physical and mental ‘up-tightness’; when we exhale, naturally we relax slightly and let go).

When we come to appreciate our reality – that life is ‘just this’, and only in those moments, do we realise that we can make SLOW choices, because we are freed from our habits, caveman/woman tendencies and knee-jerk reactions. As Carl Rogers, a famous psychologist, once aptly said: ‘The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.’

The overview effect

This reality of ours is a lot more incredible than we tend to realise. For astronauts, they have really had the best opportunity to get a physically wider perspective on the world. When in outer space looking back at the earth, often they describe a profound experience, a shift in their thinking and sense of self-awareness. From this place, they have, quite literally, stepped back from their usual day-to-day activities and gained a new viewpoint with a completely fresh perspective, which they call the overview effect. From this new perspective, they report a deep sense of awe at the fragility of earth, the complexity and beauty of nature, the ebb and the flow of weather, the impermanence of life and the realisation that earth is just a drop in a vast expanse.

In mindfulness, we too can get a sense of this effect. By practising stepping back from our thoughts, our feelings and the rest of our experiences, we too can gain a fresh perspective and see the bigger picture. Just like the astronauts, we can discover what really matters and where we really want to put our time, energy and attention. We also learn to appreciate the beauty in little moments of our life, the beauty of the sun shining on our face or freshness of rain, the impressive design and technology of our gadgets, the comfort of our sofa, the smell of fresh coffee and the tastes of our food.

Try out the next exercise to see if you too can experience a similar shift in perspective to astronauts, but without needing even to step out of the front door, let alone travel to outer space.

Practice 9.2: I haven’t got time for this!

Gratitude

When we are so busy bustling along in our lives, we can forget gratitude easily. Often, we often overlook all those chances to be pleased with our lot. This is especially true if it is ‘one of those days’. The dog ate our breakfast, we missed the bus, the boss is in a bad mood and, no matter how much we think of stardust, it just is not cutting it. What is there to be thankful for in this? What about being met with a hot, steaming helping of illness, bereavement, redundancy, assault, eviction, bankruptcy or other threats to our safety or well-being?

This would be a good moment to reach habitually for the choccy biccies. Give the following exercise a go to enhance your awareness of gratitude.

Practice 9.3: I haven’t got time for this!

The gift of giving

A simple act of kindness can bring you great personal rewards. There’s nothing quite like the gift of giving. When you see first-hand the impact it can have, it becomes the best feeling in the world.

Richard Branson

It is painful to see others not taking care of themselves and, if we know this, we also know that when we do not care for ourselves, we hurt others too. When we are too busy to notice this, often we are blind to the carelessness with which we treat others. We can get caught in a ‘who’s had the hardest day’ competition with our partners or bury our head in a book, pretending not to see the pregnant lady hanging on bravely to the rail in the bus, we walk hurriedly past the collection tins, Big Issue seller and lost tourists.

But do you remember a time when someone showed you a random act of kindness? Maybe they gave up their seat for you, offered you a helping hand, gave you a spare ticket to something, a thoughtful gift or made a friendly comment? Many of these gestures cost us very little in terms of time or money and yet they can make such a significant impact on our day, or even our whole life. As psychologists, we know the precious value that even the simple act of listening to someone can have, even in the direst of circumstances.

If you think you do not have time for expressing gratitude, kindness and appreciation, try this following exercise as you go about your days and see how it goes.

Practice 9.4: I haven’t got time for this!

Practice 9.5: I haven’t got time for this!

Child’s play

As children, most of us loved simple pleasures. You may recall lying in the grass and watching the clouds, building dams in streams, playing football with your friends, collecting stones or stickers, skipping and running – just for fun, care-free. You might even remember times when you saw or did things for the first time, your first look under a rock, the first time you learned to ride a bike or your first kiss.

Life can be like this now, when we open those innocent big eyes of ours (no matter what you have seen before) and look at the playground we have in front of us. As adults, most of us even get the big toys and games to play with – like cars, real money and sex. We can make decisions and choices about where and when we go and with whom. And, sometimes, especially when we are having a tough day, we might like to remind ourselves how to play by going to a comedy show, watching a children’s film, eating chocolate by torchlight under the duvet, buying sweets or blowing bubbles in the park.

Practice 9.6: Mindfulness right now!

Too much of a good thing

How many times have you longed for your weekend or holiday to begin, only to find that once it has begun you are not enjoying it as much as you had anticipated, feeling anxious as you count down the days, minutes until its inevitable end and you are right back at work? What about feeling sad and alone being single, anxious that you will never meet anyone and longing for a partner to take that pain away, only to find that once a relationship is under way, you are scared and worried that your partner may leave you or that the ‘grass may be greener’ with someone else?

Clinging hard to positive emotional states that come from events, such as weekends, holidays or being in a relationship, while simultaneously remaining fearful and averse to negative feelings, such as those associated with going back to work, being single or ‘stuck’ with a partner who annoys you, is human and understandable, but often results in an emotional rollercoaster effect in life.

The truth is that our emotions change, as do our life circumstances, so having a strong attachment to a situation or event, and the inherent positive feeling that comes with it, is going to result in frustration and disappointment every time, leading to soaring highs and plummeting lows in your mood.

Take a look at Jackie in the following example. She clung to positive experiences and struggled with negative ones –ultimately, these ways of being caused much upset for her and brought about the exact reality that she feared and wanted to avoid.

Waking up and letting go of our natural tendency of attachment to positive feelings as well as our aversion to our negative ones means that we may come to experience more:

• emotional stability and balance in our busy life;
• clarity of mind to get ahead and move on to the things that are important to us;
• of the reality we want for ourselves.

If we are unable to do this, we may find ourselves feeling a bit ‘sick of the ride’ (pass the bucket, please).

Fantasising and dreaming

Perhaps, like all of us, you think that, if life was just a bit different in some ways (less busy and hectic, smaller nose, bigger house, better sex, promotion, less rain, stronger body, honest politicians, etc.) then we could be OK, we could at least find our way, maybe sustain it and enjoy life a bit. Fantasies and dreams can look innocent enough, and often are. However, they can also be the poisoned chalice that taints our world by promising ‘real happiness’ and leaving us dissatisfied with our lot.

When we begin to crave past experiences, alternative realities or a perfect future, we are inadvertently rejecting the present and ourselves along with it. By looking for something else, something a bit better, more of a ‘good’ time, we are also saying ‘this is not good enough’. That might even be true sometimes, and then we have acceptance, but change the emotional tone to one of perpetual dissatisfaction and we see the repetitiveness, the undermining of anything pleasant or ‘positive’ anyway, and we just want more.

Imagine going on a date, being dressed in your glad-rags and sitting down for some scintillating conversation over a miniature plate of expensive morsels. Your date is not looking at you, not talking to you and not even picking at the food. Instead, they are constantly looking over your shoulder, scanning the room, checking their phone, fidgeting and, no matter what you do, your date just is not interested. This is you.

When you fantasise constantly about something better, this is what you are doing to yourself, over and over. Just a bit depressing, is it not? Not only that, but this can get harmful, too. The fantasy can be inflated further through gambling, dieting, compulsive behaviours, promiscuity, drug-taking or just about any other activity when done to excess.

So, we have exploded the myth of ‘having a good time’ because, when it gets like this, it is ‘avoiding a bad time’. When we notice this, we are undoing all that avoidance, we are seeing life as it is. We see, hopefully with a little grace, that we are sat right in the muck and, guess what? That person over there laughing just a bit too loud is probably up to their eyeballs in it, too.

Try this following exercise as often as you can as you bustle about your busy existence and notice that you might be engaged in unhelpful habits such as fantasising or daydreaming. It is a great and very quick way to help you wake up and feel alive and make contact with your life – your rich, present moment experience, whatever that may be.

Practice 9.7: I haven’t got time for this!

Tracking your practice

Part 3 has seen an abundance of different mindfulness practices. Remember, the intention is not to do everything all at once, the intention is to begin slowly incorporating mindfulness practice in to your life, in a way that works for you. Of course, we are not forgetting all the exercises you have learnt so far and covered in Parts 1 and 2. Instead, return to these whenever you like. It might even be the case that you continue trying out the practices from the previous parts of this book before you start practising the ones from this part. There is no right or wrong way to practise mindfulness.

With the following practices, we encourage you to make a note of which ones you have found more helpful and that you would like to try out again at another time.