Chapter 6

Busy doing nothing (at all helpful, anyway!)

Practice 6.1: Mindfulness right now!

Unhooking from worry and stressful thoughts

As we covered earlier, stressful thoughts will come and go, passing through our awareness on their own accord, naturally. But what tends to happen more often when we are not being aware is that we get caught up in our thoughts, which can have a detrimental impact on our stress levels and our actions. We can start to behave in ways that move us further away from the kind of person we would prefer to be or the kind of life we would prefer to be living.

This is what was happening to Mark, as you will discover below.

Sometimes, our thoughts are very convincing and compelling, they are very good at hooking us in. Sometimes, there is some truth to back them up. We do not suggest you spend your time trying to convince yourselves otherwise, trying to challenge or provide a counter-argument to what your mind is giving you (as we saw in the previous chapter). Instead, as we have said, when stressful thoughts do show up, we encourage you to ask yourself the following:

• Is it really helpful to keep thinking it, at this time and in this situation?
• Does thinking it help you to move towards the life that you want, that you really care about?

The more we allow ourselves to get caught up in thoughts in an autopilot fashion – worrying about ‘catastrophic’ eventualities such as losing our jobs, failing to get everything done or anything else – the more our stress levels increase and the more changes in our behaviour and functioning occur and these changes may, in fact, take us further away from what matters most to us in any given situation.

In Mark’s case, getting caught up in his thoughts without any awareness that this is what he was doing, made it more likely he became ineffective at work, that others would notice a drop in his performance and that job loss would, inevitably, follow. It might seem counter-intuitive not to but, for Mark, buying into his worry about losing his job eventually may have become self-fulfilling.

Being pushed around by thoughts!

As mentioned earlier, an arm of behavioural science (called relational frame theory) provides us with an account of how, as humans, we learn to use thought and language. It helps us to understand that the human mind has the amazing ability to form symbolic representations of everything it encounters and can also then make use of these representations later on. This allows us to think about things and experience them beyond what we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch within any given moment. For example, thinking about ticking off all the items on your to-do list and then lying on a beach in a few weeks’ time can make you feel excited. Remembering a scary scene from the horror film you watched last week can leave you feeling scared as you fall asleep (or, as in Mark’s case, thinking about losing his job can make him feel anxious and tense as he tries to get work done).

Basically, we can react to an idea in our heads as if it were happening right now, in this very moment. What is more, we also create links between these representations held in our mind. For example, if you learned that a new TV programme was even scarier than the film you saw, you may be afraid to watch it, despite never having actually seen it. For Mark, thinking back to his previous bout of depression and losing his job before, made him even more anxious around the thought of being made redundant this time. The ability to react to ideas and situations in our minds, which we have never actually experienced, provides us with significant benefits, particularly as we are able to problem-solve tricky situations that we may not be encountering right now. However, it also means that, sometimes, we forget that we are dealing with a representation in our mind rather than the real deal. We can become paralysed with fear just thinking about something that might go wrong in the future or crippled with shame by regretting what we may have done in the past. We can become trapped, immobilised and behaviourally ineffective when falling under the control of the thoughts and language produced by our minds. We become psychologically rigid and stuck in our ways. It is as if our thoughts have come to own us rather than us owning our thoughts!

Short-circuiting the thinking mind

The truth is that we might not be able to stop thoughts popping into our mind, but we certainly have a choice about what kind of attention we give to them when they do. If you had the thought, I am a green alien from outer space, the chances are that you would laugh that thought off without paying any real attention to it at all (we assume, but if you do have this thought and do not find yourself laughing it off, that is OK, too).

But, like Mark, if you noticed a thought that presented some threat to your downfall in life, suggesting something about your failure or rejection in some area of your life – such as I am fat, I am ugly, I will never get all this done today, I am going to lose my job – then you would be more likely to pay lots of attention to it. This attention is driven by our inherent survival mechanism (see Chapter 4 to refresh yourself on this), which is programmed to believe that if we do not pay attention to the threat (content of that thought) and try to work it out somehow then it is bound to get worse and lead to our downfall.

It may surprise you to know that you have the ability within you to treat any thought that may show up in your mind in the same way that you would treat the thought I am a green alien from outer space, which is a really helpful skill to have, if certain thoughts are causing you stress and getting in the way of what you want to achieve in life and what you want your life to be about. You simply do not have to pay attention to or think the thoughts in your mind if you choose not to, when it seems helpful not to. Wow! Amazing! We know, right? Well how do I do that? Before we take a look at how we can develop more of the ability to unhook from our stressful thoughts, let us just take a moment to gain a better understanding of how our minds work by taking a closer look at the amazing world that goes on in our heads.

The hamster mind

As we mentioned previously, we have two modes of our mind: the thinking mind and the awareness/observing mind. We now want to encourage you to consider your thinking mind as a very busy hamster, frantically and endlessly running on its wheel. Because what is also certain about our thinking mind is that it is a creature of habit, reinforcing its same pattern of busy behaviour throughout our lives.

Our hamster (thinking) mind is on autopilot in very much the same way as the many other habits that we tend to find ourselves running through automatically each day, such as our morning ablutions, our journey to and from work, rushing around to get everything done, etc. Much like the varied behaviours that make up these daily tasks, there is also a pattern of intricate and connecting thoughts (patterns of thoughts as we discussed in the previous chapter) that occur in our thinking minds that we remain mostly unaware of as they continue to tick away on autopilot each day. Our thinking mind is a problem-solver – much like a hamster, busy doing, analysing, trying to reach the end of its wheel, trying to find an end result and work everything out.

Now, as we have said, this problem-solving habit of the thinking mind is all very good when we have a practical problem to solve, such as how do we get from A to B. In fact, without the problem-solving habit of the thinking mind, we might never have learned how to get ourselves dressed as a child, been able to find our way to and from work as an adult or sniff out the tastiest seeds as a hamster. This problem-solving approach to our lives is forever reinforced amidst our busy days and often within the technical aspects of our work. It helps us to navigate ourselves through the entirety of tasks to get things ticked off on our to-do lists (yes, those again!), often with much success.

It is quite understandable, therefore, when we have an emotional problem (like Mark in the earlier example), that instinctively we would apply the same tried-and-tested problem-solving approach to navigate our way out of it in an attempt to get rid of it – we feel the need to evaluate it, to understand where this problem has come from, where it is going, what we need to prepare ourselves for in the face of it. This is completely understandable and natural (but usually unhelpful).

As we saw, Mark’s instinctive tendency to think through his emotional problem in this way just seemed to escalate and worsen it even more – his thinking mind was not helping him to resolve his situation (emotional ‘problem’) at all – he just became more anxious and irritable as a result. He noticed that his mood had worsened and his functioning and behaviour declined. In true testament to this thinking mind, he began to ruminate and worry on past negative experiences, what had been going wrong, all that he could not do, and what negative eventualities might materialise and where this all might end up for him once again. As he thought through his problem in this way, his mood and performance deteriorated. Imagine your hamster, running faster on the wheel, perhaps believing that the cat is coming: but running faster to escape is not the answer!

Our problem-solving mind is not going to solve an emotional ‘problem’, no matter how hard it tries – after all, emotions are not a problem to be solved, they are a condition of life and, therefore, they do not have a solution. The habitual behaviour of our hamster minds is, in fact, the real problem that we have to deal with.

Watching thoughts come and go

Touching a thought that pops up into our thinking mind with awareness is like touching a soap bubble; the impact that the thought has on our behaviour often vanishes. The simple and beautiful reality is that we cannot be both in our thinking mode of mind (running on our hamster wheel) and our awareness mode of mind (noticing the hamster frantically running) at the same time, in the same moment – it is humanly impossible. In other words, as soon as we ‘wake up’ and notice that our hamster is frantically running around its wheel, simultaneously we slow down the hamster on its tracks. With each moment of awareness that we bring to our thoughts, we reinforce the behaviour of noticing, slowing down the hamster, moment by moment.

Human being rather than human doing

Mark thought that this all sounded great, but asked what he should do with the thought once he had noticed it. As we have outlined, nothing, that is it – noticing is all we have to do. We are so programmed in a way to do something that it is understandable that, like Mark, we feel a bit weird about doing nothing and believe that surely there is something else that needs to be done. Remember, you are cultivating a totally new way of being and relating to your experience and, specifically, your thoughts in this instance, it will feel unusual at first.

Simply noticing and becoming aware of our thoughts, rather than trying to challenge them with positive thoughts or push them out altogether is the way that we can gain some relief from the stress and busyness produced by our minds. As we become aware of our thoughts, we simply ‘sit’ and be with them as they are, letting go of our natural tendency to resolve these thoughts, come up with an answer or find a solution.

Being with our thoughts in this way helps to lessen the emotional impact of them in that moment – we are not exacerbating them or making them worse by struggling with them – instead, we are noticing and accepting them for what they are (thoughts, stories, sounds, images, experiences in our mind). Furthermore, we are freeing up the natural tendency for our thoughts to come and then to pass by of their own accord, as they will naturally. We now have abundant space with which to experience and actually live our lives, in this very moment, allowing us to get on with, savour and gain greater pleasure from what is worthwhile and fulfilling to us. This is the difference between a human doing mode and a human being mode.

Try the following practice to notice the difference between these two modes right now. In the first part of this next practice, you will be doing; thinking, judging, analysing, perhaps even worrying whilst, in the second part, you will practise simply being with sensations and thoughts that arise.

Practice 6.2: Mindfulness right now!

Back away from the brick wall

With mindfulness, we are able to stand back, distance and disconnect ourselves from the content of our thoughts and see them exactly for what they are – streams of words, sentences, images, pictures or events in our mind, passing by in our awareness.

As we have seen, what we do, instinctively and usually, is get caught up in them and what they may somehow be telling us and assume that they represent some real danger or threat. We might find ourselves scurrying through these thoughts and images like Mystic Meg looking into her tea leaves, attempting to glean portends about the future; no matter how compelling this seems, it is about as effective as trying to dig yourself out of a hole. Save yourself the trouble of consulting an old quack (your thoughts) and let them drift off in their own time into the ether.

You do not need to waste so much energy figuring ‘it all’ out – this is really stressful for you and it does not work well anyway. And, as hard and tricky as it seems to resist meddling in your thoughts and instead to distance yourself from them, the pay-off is that, after all these years of banging your head against a brick wall, finally you notice how painful it has been and that you have a headache – plus you are still no closer to ‘the answer’. Now, you know, and we have already told you there is no answer, so back away from the wall and see how much of a relief it is to let go of it all.

Practice 6.3: I haven’t got time for this!

Never mind your mind

• To help you distance yourself from thoughts, you can try to imagine that they are the voices of some noisy school children playing up in the back of the car, teasing and judging you, as you drive them to school. They may be shouting: ‘You’re going the wrong way – you’ll never get us to school on time!’ Your natural tendency may be to slam your foot onto the brake and turn around to the children and tell them to be quiet and argue back: ‘I know exactly where I am going and we will be there in good time.’ Of course, the more you do that, the more fuel you are adding to the fire, encouraging them to argue back with you some more. Instead, what you can do is keep your foot on the accelerator and your eyes on the road ahead of you, ignoring the teasing that you can hear, although remaining aware of it in the back of the car and, eventually, soon enough, the children (your unhelpful thoughts) will quieten down, leaving you free to pursue and efficiently complete your task of getting them to school on time (or whatever your goal in reality may be).
• You may also try to imagine that your thoughts are like the sound coming from the radio as you are busy getting on with the housework or some other task at work. So, if someone asked you what the radio show was all about, you may reply that, although you heard that the radio was on in the background, you did not pay much attention to it at all.
• You could imagine that you are standing at the side of a busy city road and that your thoughts are all the taxis whizzing past you – just remember as you stand there watching them in this way not to jump into the back of one to catch a ride.
• A busy mind could also be considered like a handful of coloured helium balloons or a flock of birds chattering in a tree, ready to rise one by one or all together into the skies.
• You could also imagine that there are leaves floating down a flowing stream in front of you and that each time a stressful thought shows up in your mind that you place that thought on one of the leaves and watch it float away.
• You may also like to label your thoughts as they show up in your mind throughout the day – you may silently say to yourself: thinking to allow yourself to stand back from them and notice them for what they really are – just events, sounds, images passing through your awareness.

With all these ways of seeing and responding to your thoughts, it is important to recognise that your thoughts may come and go, they may change, become louder or quieter, show up more frequently or infrequently but, while all this is happening in your thinking mind, your awareness remains unaffected by these changes. Your awareness has enough room to hold all these changing thoughts, and you can expand your awareness to focus also on whatever task you want to get on with instead.

If, on the other hand, you allow your attention to get caught up in thoughts, maybe analysing or struggling with the content of what they are saying, do not be surprised if you end up in a place that you do not want to be in at all – you will be on the first fast train out of here, straight to stressville, but that is OK also, because there are no one-way tickets to anywhere when it comes to mindfulness – the present moment is always there for us to return to at any time!

Practice 6.4: Mindfulness right now!

Practice 6.5: Mindfulness right now!

Tracking your practice

In Part 2 we have covered a number of mindfulness practices. We invite you to pick out as many of the following practices as you like. Like any skill, the more you practise the more you will cultivate and embody mindfulness in your day-to-day life, even when you are not purposefully practising. Having said that, thinking about doing all of these practices might seem overwhelming and it could be that you just want to turn the page and keep reading. We understand that, so it is really important to be aware that even a small amount of mindfulness practice can have a significant affect over time. It is also very normal for people starting out in practising mindfulness to dip in and out of the practices, and that is fine also. Please choose whatever feels comfortable for you and, remember, you can always come back to these practices to try them out again.

As before, feel free to make any notes of what you tried out, what you found more or less easy or what made it difficult to do. In addition, if you find yourself beating yourself up for not doing enough practice or not doing it right somehow, notice those thoughts and bring yourself gently back to your breath.