Stress doesn't only happen in our thoughts. We experience it throughout our bodies, emotions, beliefs, and behavior, sometimes before we're even consciously aware of how overwhelmed we've become.
Mindfulness can help us slow that process down.
I describe mindfulness as awareness of our present-moment experience approached with curiosity rather than judgment. Instead of immediately trying to fix, avoid, or criticize what we're experiencing, we begin by noticing what's actually happening.
In this first episode of The Mindfulness Series, I explore how mindfulness can be applied to everyday stress through a practical four-step process.
Part of The Mindfulness Series from Living More Fully.
EPISODE NOTES
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness is the practice of becoming more aware of what's happening in the present moment with curiosity rather than judgment.
That can include our thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, impulses, behaviors, and what's happening around us.
We spend a surprising amount of our lives on autopilot. We react to an email, worry about something that hasn't happened yet, replay an uncomfortable conversation, tense our bodies, or rush from one obligation to another without necessarily recognizing everything that's happening inside us.
Mindfulness gives us an opportunity to notice.
And once we can see our experience more clearly, we might have greater freedom in deciding how we want to respond to it.
USING MINDFULNESS WITH STRESS
Imagine you're at work with an important deadline approaching.
You're behind where you hoped you'd be and can feel your stress increasing.
Perhaps you respond by frantically working faster, becoming scattered and making mistakes. Or maybe the anxiety has the opposite effect and you procrastinate, become overwhelmed, or have difficulty getting started.
Instead of automatically following either reaction, mindfulness invites us to become curious about what's happening.
Even a few minutes of intentionally paying attention can help us understand our experience differently.
- NOTICE HOW YOU'RE HOLDING STRESS PHYSICALLY
Begin with your body.
Without immediately trying to change anything, notice what's happening physically.
• Are your shoulders or neck tense? • Is your breathing shallow or restricted? • Does your stomach feel unsettled? • Are you clenching your jaw? • Do you feel restless, heavy, numb, energized, or exhausted? • Where do you notice stress most clearly?
There isn't a correct answer.
The first step is simply becoming more aware of how your body communicates stress.
- RESPOND TO WHAT YOUR BODY NEEDS
Once you've noticed what's happening physically, consider whether your body is asking for something.
Perhaps you naturally want to take a deeper breath, relax your shoulders, change your posture, stretch, stand up, drink some water, eat something, or briefly step away from what you're doing.
Mindfulness isn't about forcing the body into relaxation. It's about listening more carefully and responding with greater awareness and care.
Sometimes even recognizing that we're stressed changes our relationship to the experience.
- NOTICE THE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS UNDERNEATH THE STRESS
Next, become curious about what's happening emotionally and psychologically.
What are you feeling?
Fear? Pressure? Frustration? Shame? Anger? Uncertainty?
And what thoughts accompany those feelings?
Returning to the deadline example, perhaps the immediate thought is:
"I have to get this right."
But underneath that might be something more significant:
"If I make a mistake, people will think I'm incompetent."
Or:
"If I disappoint someone, I've failed."
Mindfulness can help us notice that our reaction to a present-day situation sometimes carries meaning shaped by earlier experiences.
The stress might not only be about today's deadline. It might also touch something we've learned about achievement, approval, failure, belonging, or our own worth.
- BECOME CURIOUS ABOUT THE BELIEFS DRIVING THE STRESS
Perfectionism is one example.
At some point, striving to get everything right might have helped us earn praise, avoid criticism, feel safer, or experience a greater sense of control.
Rather than attacking ourselves for being perfectionistic, we can become curious about why that strategy developed.
How has it helped me?
How does it help me now?
And where does it create unnecessary suffering or make my life more difficult?
We don't have to decide that a protective pattern is entirely good or bad.
We can appreciate what it has been trying to accomplish while also considering whether we need to rely on it quite so much anymore.
FROM PERFECTION TO "GOOD ENOUGH"
Once we understand some of what's fueling our stress, we can experiment with another response.
Perhaps this task doesn't need to be perfect.
Maybe excellence is enough.
Maybe good enough really is good enough.
Maybe making a mistake doesn't determine our worth.
And perhaps the stress we're experiencing can become information rather than evidence that something is wrong with us.
Mindfulness can create a little more room between the experience we're having and what we do next.
THE FOUR-STEP PROCESS
- Notice how you're experiencing stress physically.
- Respond with care to what your body might need.
- Become curious about the thoughts and feelings connected to the stress.
- Notice and care for underlying beliefs or protective patterns, such as perfectionism.
The purpose isn't to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling or become perfectly calm.
Stress is part of being human.
Mindfulness can help us become more aware of how we're experiencing it, understand what might be contributing to it, and respond with greater intention rather than simply operating on autopilot.
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