Mindfulness: Deactivate The Automatic Pilot

Andrea went to the kitchen and stood for a moment with the refrigerator door open in her hand: she did not remember what she had come there for.

The whistle of the mobile warned her of the entry of a wasap. He rushed to answer it and took the opportunity to go through his email. Then, since he was in the kitchen, and although he was not hungry, he snapped a couple of toasts with cheese.

In three hours I had to make a presentation at a conference and did not know where I had put the memory stick. New wasaps. He answered them, found the pencil, hurriedly dressed, got in the car, and drove to college.

“What a way to live,” he thought on the highway without hardly realizing he was driving. Andrea’s mind wandered from topic to topic, unable to focus because of the multitude of thoughts and feelings that tried to shove their way into her head.

Everything seemed to be slipping out of her hands lately, and her mind was never where it should be.

Andrea’s gaze found itself in the rearview mirror and her heart skipped a beat: she didn’t recognize herself. Who was the woman in the mirror? Andrea? Of course, he told himself, what nonsense! But he couldn’t get over the unpleasant feeling he had just had.

Why not feel? What had happened to his life? Why this continuous anguish of the cracked time, the sensation of the crumbled self?

“Mindfulness is not for me”

Andrea’s is not an isolated case. The acceleration of the rhythm of life together with the profusion of new technologies favor an intermittent, superficial and fragmented contact with reality. When we blindly follow a routine or automatically carry out meaningless or contradictory orders, we end up acting like automatons.

After reflecting on the life she was leading, Andrea decided to join a women’s mutual aid group at her neighborhood civic center. He was not seduced by the mindfulness program that was being carried out, nor by the specific goals of the group. It was a photo: twenty women of different ages who gave the camera a frank, slow, peaceful smile.

Andrea was immediately comfortable. They immediately began to talk about the topic they had agreed on the week before: fear of the future. Those women built something together, they empathized with each other, they listened to each other with respect and, above all, they let the silences open between them, silences without urgency, without requirements, friendly.

After a while, Monica, the host of the group, suggested that they start the session. He began by relating the fear of the future with the maelstrom of the present in which they were all immersed, something that Andrea knew perfectly.

“ Mindfulness or mindfulness –explained Mónica– consists of the attentive and reflective presence of what is happening in the present moment, trying not to interfere with or value what is felt. It is a merely contemplative experience (close to the Zen ideal of living in the present moment) accepting the experience as it occurs, without judging. It seeks, above all, that the emotional aspects, and any other non-verbal process, are accepted and experienced in their own condition, without being avoided or trying to control them ”.

Overcome resistance to regain full attention

One of the first tasks was to help them provide an anchor for their minds: “The most common is to focus on the breath, the center and origin of all automatisms and our most loyal friend: she accompanies us from birth to death. and regulates our thoughts and our emotions ”.

The problem for Andrea was that she couldn’t get rid of her own competitiveness. She wanted to do it right, and fighting her own flow, trying to dominate her breathing instead of letting her accompany her, triggered her anxiety.

It took a few weeks for her to understand that she was not meditating to improve herself, but to end this recurring compulsive effort.

She was not the only woman in the group to whom this happened; Despite understanding the pitfalls of their own selves, they found it very difficult to concentrate on their breath, so they began to try meditations of a more itinerant nature : walking through the fields, being aware of their limbs as they advanced step by step. .

How Andrea enjoyed these group meditations! When his mind began to wander and was lost in a thought, a memory, an emotion or a concern, he would simply take note and refocus his attention on the objective again and again, with kindness, with patience, even with extreme slowness in gestures.

Monica also encouraged them to find a safe place where they could always withdraw, an image in their mind to turn to to calm down. Andrea found her imaginary place in a fresh, hand-embroidered linen sheet, which she wrapped herself in whenever she needed it.

Thanks to the mutual help group and mindfulness practices , Andrea has learned to relate in a different way, more slowly and authentically with herself and with the world. Above all, when feeling felt by other women, she has left behind her haste and acceleration, assuming a margin of error in her life, deactivating the fear of fear and visualizing herself as a whole person and owner of herself.

Maybe the benefits of mindfulness are what you were looking for, after all?