All in Your Mind

There are many words which sneak into everyday language and rapidly become popular.  Some I  come to dislike, like those connected to ‘New Age’ thinking: ‘mindfulness’ and ‘manifesting’ are among them.  These share the same characteristic: empty of any clear meaning, they are applied to an insanely wide range of activities.  Even more frustrating, they embrace practices which make good sense, but which are lost in the other mystic mumbo-jumbo that surrounds them.

Of the two, manifesting is the easier to address.  In fact, it was in addressing a golf ball that I first tried to make use of manifesting.  However, before starting I should make certain you know  what manifesting means.  The idea is simple.  Here’s a seven-step guide summarising the basic idea, from Huff Post. [i]  In case you aren’t excited enough, the headline to this read: “Here are the seven steps to manifest anything you want — including money.”  Now I’ve got you interested!

Here’s a summary of the seven steps:

“Manifesting your desires is 100 percent possible but, to do so, you must use ALL the steps.

1. Get clear on what you want.
2. Ask the universe for it.
3. Take action (help the universe make it happen).
4. Trust the process.
5. Acknowledge what is being sent to you along the way.
6. Increase your vibration.
7. Clear all resistance.” [ii]

Now, in case your built-in cynicism is getting in the way, I’d like to explain how I used this to help me play golf.  The first bit was easy:  I was clear on what I wanted, and that was when I drove off from the tee the ball would sail down the course for 200 yards, and stay on the fairway.  You have to be specific, so I applied this to the second hole at the Ivanhoe Public Golf Course, and, as advised, I thought only in positive terms.  I could see the damn ball, whizzing along.

Asking the universe is a bit tricky, but the options include prayer, meditation, visualization, and vision boards.  I went for prayer.  As for the third step, I had that one down pat.  I had been trying to hit a good drive for … let’s just say a long time.  And I kept practicing (albeit only on fairways, as I was too embarrassed to go to driving ranges).  As for trusting the process, and believing I would keep making progress: yes, you bet (after all, everything else had failed, though I did remember not to think negatively, so I maintained a buoyant positive belief).

We were down to the last three steps.  Receive and acknowledge what is being sent to me along the way?  I can tell you, every time the darn ball went straight, I was exultant, and thanked God, the universe, and even Sophie, the dog accompanying me on those challenging (and frequently random) walks.  That thing about increasing my vibration:  years ago, when I was playing golf, we didn’t have vibrations (and in fact too much of that kind of thing would doom any shot I wanted to play).  Instead we had to stay positive and thankful, no negativity allowed.  In the Huff Post summary, it mentioned joy.  There was going to be plenty of that!  That left clearing my resistance.  I have to admit, here was a real challenge.  To try to explain to non-golfers, if you have failed the same shot time after time, you begin to believe that you will never be able to repeat the perfect shot, not even twice.  The odd fluke, sure, but repeatedly?  No way.  I worked hard on reassuring myself:  I could do this, and I would do this; nothing would hold me back.

I cleared my mind.  Back went the club, and as I swung down, in my mind I could already see the ball lifting away, racing through the air, and landing close to the green.  Sophie leapt up (I kept telling her she had to stay with me, but she wouldn’t listen): I looked to see where she was going.  Off to the left?  What!  On to another fairway?  No, no, no!!  It was at that moment I realised, manifestly, golf wasn’t for me, and I haven’t tried to play again in more than 30 years.

What was really frustrating was, leaving out the mumbo-jumbo bits, the recommended process highlighted practice.  Set a target; work on what you are attempting to achieve; keep practicing by concnetrating on what you need to improve; and, above all, remain confident.  If I had read (yet another) book on how to improve my golf swing, I would have been reminded that it’s all very simple, simpler than manifesting; it’s just “practice makes perfect”.  I have to confess, however, I did wonder if there was also some limit on what can be achieved, if, for example like me, you had no hand, eye and brain co-ordination.  Indeed, sincethat was my problem, I should have abandoned golf much earlier.  In fact I could have done that, and instead come up with my own patented way of becoming better at skeet shooting, or pottery, or mountain climbing, written the book, produced the video, given the TED talk and made a fortune.

It’s not too late.  There’s mindfulness. I could write a book on this, although I was somewhat discouraged to read Amazon already has more than 100,000 titles on the topic. [iii]  But it’s a $1.5bn business, and there have to be some opportunities left.  Unlike my golfing experience, this may be where I can’t yet do it, but I can learn how from Goop, say, one of the many places where mindfulness is promoted.  You won’t be surprised to learn mindfulness is also achieved through a process.  There might be TED talks on this already?  No matter, mine will be better!

“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”  [iv]  OK.  Fundamentally, it seems mindfulness is achieved through meditation.  At the simplest level, meditation requires four easy steps:

1. Sit or lie comfortably (it’s good to have your feet off the floor).
2. Close your eyes (to avoid distractions).
3. Breathe naturally.
4. Now comes the key part: focus your attention on your breath and on how your body moves with each inhalation and exhalation. Pay attention to your body as you breathe, your chest, shoulders, rib cage, and belly. If your mind wanders, return your focus back to your breath.

Apparently, mindfulness meditation can have another element, where you are encouraged to observe wandering thoughts as they drift through your mind;  not to get involved with them or to judge them, but simply to be aware of each thought as it arises.  Through mindfulness meditation, you can see how your thoughts and feelings tend to move in patterns, and with awareness, an inner sense of balance develops.  Like work-life balance, maybe?

Got the idea?  Too late!  We’re past that simple stuff.  Mindfulness has developed, and many exponents no longer emphasise meditation.  Rather it is about the mind “fully attending to what’s happening, to what you’re doing, to the space you’re moving through. That might seem trivial, except for the annoying fact that we so often veer from the matter at hand. Our mind takes flight, we lose touch with our body, and pretty soon we’re engrossed in obsessive thoughts about something that just happened or fretting about the future. And that makes us anxious.”

Like any good process, there are mindful steps to unlock our intuition.  How about these:

1. Notice dualistic thinking. Life is not dualistic. There are always more than two choices. Whenever you find yourself stuck with only two, it’s likely that the conditioned mind—the one caught up in a false urgency syndrome—is in control of your process.
2. Offer self-compassion. Ask yourself these questions:
   1. How does it feel in my body right now?
   2. What am I saying to myself? What am I believing about this situation?
   3. How am I feeling? What part of me is feeling distressed by this decision?
   4. What expression of compassion is needed right now?
3. Learn to ask for guidance from stillness rather than eagerness. Step back.
4. Listen deeply: To receive guidance, listen deeply, in a relaxed, patient, and attentive way
5. Be patient and receptive.
6. Gather with others to access intuition together. Start an intuition support group that meets on a regular basis. After getting quiet together in some way (meditation, silent walking, or ceremony) for ten to twenty minutes, each person can write out any questions they are struggling with—and can then host any answers that come. Intuition belongs to all of us when we devote earnest time to the sacred within us and around us. [v]

Yes, I can do this.  But wait, there’s more: another twelve-step program.  Chew mint-chocolate flavoured sweets with melatonin, L-tryptophan, and vitamin B6.  Rest your head on a silk pillowcase, sprayed with aromatherapeutic botanicals, like lavender, rose, and chamomile.   Maybe a bath will help, adding a ‘soak’ with a mix of valerian root, Australian sandalwood, and magnesium citrate, followed by a hot organic cocoa drink, and an aromatic candle.  This is sounding really good.  What?  Oh no!  I wasn’t checking:  this was about sleeping better! [vi]

It’s easy to make fun of a lot of this stuff, but the ability to focus, to slow down, to be still and avoid distractions can be, I think, very helpful, and contribute to better working practices.  One adviser suggested you can use mindfulness to enhance planning activities and envisioning the flow of tasks for the workday.  She suggested some questions to consider:

1. Why does the work I do matter to me? How does my work impact the lives of others?

2. Who are the people—both at work and in my personal life—who support me and my professional success?

3. What would I like to focus on today?   [vii]

What can I say?  Planning isn’t a bad idea.

Leaving aside the other silly stuff about healing crystals and (good!) vibrations, there is another, darker side to manifesting and mindfulness.  Focussing, pushing aside distractions, recovering yourself from the parts of your life taken up with friends, family, co-workers to the point you have no inner calm:  yes, these are very important issues.  However, the underlying message implies more than this.  In reading, I discovered “The father of the mindfulness movement, Jon Kabat-Zinn, tells us that we are suffering from a “thinking disease”. The diagnosis is simple: our stress is self-imposed because we are distracted, addicted to Instagram, and fail to live mindfully in the present moment.”  [viii]  Stress is self-imposed?  I gather this means the problems we face are the result of our failures.  The mindful answer to our stressful lives seems to be:  “Wellbeing is just a matter of training your brain by practicing mindfulness. External resources and social conditions don’t matter. Individuals are responsible for their stress and anguish, regardless of the social and economic milieu in which their lives are embedded. As a DIY technique, mindfulness is viewed as something isolated individuals can perform in order to cope with the challenges of modern life.” [ix]  We can recover from disappointment and stress by training ourselves to go inwards, stop thinking, and declutter our brains in a kind of personalised Marie Kondo process.  It’s all about clearing out the rubbish, just before hanging up the healing crystals. [x]

Let’s be honest.  Stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed isn’t just about our internal  processes and an inability to cope with daily pressures.  It is ludicrous to suggest wellbeing can be achieved solely by meditation; anxiety removed by stopping thinking.

No, we live in a world that creates distress, through economic, political and social processes.  Hiding from all of that, taking on the belief that we are to blame for not managing our mental weaknesses ignores the world we live in.  If I’m working in an Amazon warehouse and feel stressed, am I to believe it’s not the working conditions to blame, but my inadequate or non-existent efforts to meditate and relieve my feelings.  If I am following the accounts of climate change and its impact, and this is making me anxious, the solution is already there for me:  I only need to ‘find my inner calm’.  Really?  Keep calm while the world collapses?

For sure, I know having some time to free yourself from daily pressures and strains is important:  we all should find our own ways to ‘de-compress’, that is important to well-being.  However, while coping with stress isn’t irrelevant, action is critical, and we shouldn’t decide to waste our lives by hiding away in a sheltered goop-land (a rather expensive way of life, I noticed).  Individually and collectively we need to keep pursuing actions to engage with and improve our world, whether it is marching alongside young people protesting about climate change, pushing representatives to take up issues in parliament, joining and supporting a workers’ collective, or any other actions that build community and address our political, social and economic problems.

We want to be actors in the real world, making it a better in whatever ways we can.  The old saw is right: actions do speak louder than words; certainly, the way to change isn’t all in your mind.

[i] See https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-steps-to-manifest-anyth_b_7806936

[ii] Ibid

[iii] The Dark Side of Mindfulness We Need to Wake Up To, Ronald E Purser, Yahoo, 29 September 2019

[iv] In the description that follows, I must acknowledge Mindful: https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/

[v] Summarised from: https://goop.com/wellness/mindfulness/why-we-doubt-our-intuition/

[vi] https://goop.com/wellness/mindfulness/nighttime-routine-for-better-sleep/

[vii] https://www.mindful.org/do-this-in-the-morning-for-a-better-workday/

[viii] Purser, op cit

[ix] Purser, op cit

[x] Like the ones mined in appalling conditions in Madagascar? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/17/healing-crystals-wellness-mining-madagascar