Let's Talk About Mindfulness

How to apply the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in everyday life.

You may very reasonably find yourself wondering:

“Dear psychologists, all these ‘mindfulness’ things of yours — that’s all well and good, but what does it actually mean, for goodness’ sake?! Does it mean I’m now supposed to reach some enlightened state after mindfulness practices and just live my best life and never complain again?”

There are so many myths surrounding the word “mindfulness.” It’s often confused with meditation or some kind of shamanism. In reality, mindfulness encompasses a wide range of things:

• What kind of person do I want to be right now?
• Which of my actions helps in the short term, and which is harmful in the long run?
• What matters to me right now?
• Giving yourself permission to experience all kinds of emotions, including unpleasant ones. Yes, it’s alright to complain — even if your life looks perfectly fine from the outside.
• The ability to make a deliberate choice in the moment when you’re strongly tempted to be swept away by your emotions and veer off course.

I’d say there’s a kind of analogy here: Riding the old tracks vs. Riding new tracks. That is, I automatically travel the old, familiar route — my brain is used to it, it makes sense to it, even if this route causes me a lot of discomfort. Whether it works or not doesn’t matter; I learned to do it this way. To switch to new tracks, I have to somehow make the transition, literally and figuratively. And then my brain says: “Nah, it’s not even worth starting… Let’s do it the way we’re used to — less hassle, and we don’t know what’s on those other tracks, it might be worse… no time to figure it out.” Our brains operate on an energy-conservation principle, that’s how evolution shaped us.

And this is where we start talking about that moment before the turn. How do you catch it so you can actually switch from the old tracks to the new ones? In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this moment is called the choice point, from which you move toward your desired goal. We define this point ourselves, not other people for us. But the goals we set also matter. This might be a slightly exaggerated example, but it makes it clearer.

One and the same activity, f.e., playing video games, can be either movement from the choice point toward my desired direction, toward a goal (let’s say the goal is achieving work-life balance, and the value is self-care), or movement in the opposite direction. These questions can help you figure out which it is: What am I doing this for? What matters to me? Enjoying the process of playing, being absorbed in the game for a certain amount of time, resting — and thanks to that, briefly disconnecting from things and having fun — that’s movement toward the goal of balance. Getting pulled into gaming for hours until you forget about the bathroom and food and only go to bed in the early morning — that’s movement away from the goal of “work-life balance” and the value of “self-care”.

That’s why, for change in life to become possible, it’s important to define both your values and your goals. They serve as your anchor, the place to start from at each choice point, looking at what your actions are bringing you closer to, and what’s pulling you away. I should also add a few words here about your willingness to encounter difficult emotions and feelings along the way, but I’ll save that for another time.