A choice between two worlds

Two worlds

There is a choice for you to make – a choice between two worlds: one limited, minute, and scary. The other beautiful, wonderful, and prosperous.

Most of us find ourselves living in the first world – the ignorant, living a mindless empty life.

Years ago, there was a beer commercial of people in a bar.  Everybody looked the same, dressed in white shirts and black pants.  All of them were having the same brew of beer. The white noise sounded like the bleating of sheep. A man then entered the bar, wearing white pants and a floral shirt. He was obviously different from everybody else and ordered a different brew of beer.

The men in the bar just stared at him, as if he came from another planet. Was he conforming or really living?

Most of us live like we were raised. We are programmed to be like the Jones’s – just to fit in. We are born, grow up, and finish school – if we are lucky, we get tertiary education, and then start a career. We work to conform to the norm to live as comfortably as possible.

We get married at a certain age, have children when expected. We work to buy a house with a white picket fence, a garden, a dog, and a canary. We raise children and do our work daily faithfully. We work so hard just to be able to retire successfully, receive a golden watch, and hopefully relax on the stoep for the rest of our life. Making sure our will is in order and then eventually die. At least we can afford a coffin with golden handles. Is this how we should live, what our life expectancies should be? What a miserable, predictable, and dictated life to live!

This is how most of us live our lives. We chase after achievements – we live in pursuit of wealth. We boast on Facebook about our successes and those of our children.

It’s also a terrifying and fearsome life. In this life, you become what society expects of you. You lose the faith you had in yourself and allow society to judge you. Comparing your achievements to the people around you, resulting in constant self-doubt. You lose all self-respect and start to feel scared and anxious. Feeling worthless.

This world has no purpose, no meaning. It’s an empty world. You are confused, just trying to survive.  The negativity overwhelms you to such an extent that the beauty of it all surpasses you, unnoticed.

There is, however, another world.

In this world, there is life. It is being. There’s existence, and pure thought. There is the Great Mind (God, if you wish). In this world, you are infinitely unique. Your earthly existence is only a small part of your eternal existence. In this world, you instinctively know that you have a task to complete, not always knowing what it entails. But you are important and enough. In this world, you do not feel inferior. You do not feel as if you have to escape reality. In this world, you want to live this reality.

Here, you are no longer afraid but filled with awe. Filled with the awe of the greatness we experience every day. Consumed by the beauty of our universe and the obscurity and greatness of it, unaware of time and space. This universe has no limitations or boundaries. In this expanse, you are so small that you actually are nothing and yet you are everything. Here, you just need to take care of yourself, knowing you always have choices. In this world, there is never-ending joy, peace, and happiness – the adventure of life itself!

If you choose the first world, you choose your challenges. Should you choose the second world, you will enjoy the free world, mindfully.

The Mindful life

Mindfulness means to be alive every moment, to live as meaningful as you possibly can.

When you live mindlessly, you may tend to worry about the future which may result in anxiety disorders. To dwell in the past may cause depression. To feel overwhelmed by the future or the past is alienating us from a life in the present, in the now – this may result in anxiety. Thus, the now that is our life, passes us by. Research shows that mindfulness, in addition to anxiety and depression, is also successful in the treatment of psoriasis, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain.

To live mindfully is indeed liberating. When you live mindfully you are less critical. Mindfulness frees you from judgement, allowing you to be less critical of others, but most importantly, less critical of yourself. It allows you to live without assessing or analysing. Analysing yourself, only results into analysis paralysis. It gets you nowhere.

With mindfulness, you simply enjoy what you are experiencing in the here-and-now.

People who live mindfully:  

• are likely to experience less anxiety and worry. They have a greater understanding and acceptance of their emotions and recover more quickly from a bad mood. They also have fewer negative thoughts and can easily extinguish those negative thoughts when they appear;
• are more in control and have a greater ability to overcome their inner negative thoughts and feelings, or are able to change them so that they do not respond to their immediate impulses;
• have better and more stable self-esteem and are less dependent on external factors to make them feel better about themselves.

Mindfulness is just being in the world, which means to be present and aware of ourselves and of the world around us. It’s an awareness that allows you to really experience with awareness and observe without criticism, judgment, assessment, or analysis. It’s about compassion for yourself and the world around you. Mindfulness is simply observing challenges and crises, to observe with a friendly curiosity as they just pass you like dark clouds, without getting stuck in them.  Without getting involved. You understand things that happen can only be as hard, bad, wrong, etc. when you choose to think about it that way. You do not ask questions about whether it is right or wrong, or whether it is good or bad. You simply become aware of your experience of it, like watching a play, from a distance. You only become aware of what is happening in and around you, without getting involved.

Mindfulness is a very still experience. There are no necessarily ecstatic feelings or feelings of bliss and excitement. It is rather a calm and quiet feeling without any anxiety. For me, it is like silently stroking a cat, experiencing the cat’s tranquillity. The purring of the cat and the quiet serenity that it brings about.

With mindfulness, there is no particular focus involved. It is more an awareness of what is currently happening, without having to do anything about it. You are not necessarily striving towards ambition, desire, a quest, or a goal. Mindfulness is about observing with your five senses, rather than responding, monitoring, or analysis of what you have experienced. Mindfulness can be regarded as a form of meditation.

You are simply fully aware of the here and now, of what your thoughts and feelings are right now, to let them go rather than try dealing with or managing them. You do not allow them to overwhelm you. Almost as if you are just standing back, watching these feelings pass you by, as if you are just watching a movie or a play.

The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness. The sense of mindlessness is a sense of being on autopilot, being disconnected from yourself, having an obsession with the past, and a fear of the future. Just trying to cope, trying to survive and get through the day.

You can just quietly become aware of your negative feelings and identify them, accept them, and let them go without any effort to get rid of them or get involved at all. The harder we try to suppress our feelings, the more these feelings will persist.

When we simply accept these feelings and thoughts, they will automatically go away, whereafter we can truly live with the full awareness of life. We can live calmly and in the here and now.

The core components of mindfulness:

You are created equipped with everything required to be successful.

The focus, therefore, should not be on what is wrong with us as human beings, but rather on what is right with people. It may require us not to be judgmental, but rather question people’s positive intentions behind their behaviour.  As a matter of fact, we are all created perfectly as unique individuals.

You can therefore accept your emotions and be aware of the messages your emotions are trying to tell you, without analysing them, without putting yourself in a box. When we can understand and accept this, we might be able to make our world a better place.

Break away from your thoughts

Our thoughts determine our feelings. The more we attend to our thoughts, the more we realise that our thoughts are not facts, but merely interpretations. Depression, for example, can only happen when we allow ourselves to constantly judge ourselves. Anxiety, on the other hand, results from irrational thoughts about the future and such thoughts always start with what if?

It’s a to be rather than to do

To do is a goal-driven activity, focusing on just one goal or activity at a time, for example:  to feel better. Feelings may however be judged as positive or negative. The to do mode constantly focuses on the elimination of negative emotions (of the past), or fear of the future.  This means becoming in sync with oneself without constantly categorising these feelings as negative or bad.

It might be a culture shock to rather think in terms of what is possible, rather than to think of doing things the wrong way.

Our culture implies that:

• the harder you work, the more successful you will be;
• the more energy you use, the better the outcome;
• the more you cooperate, the better.

The more you do the more you are trying to avoid your current challenge, instead of focusing on what you want.

Mindfulness is about just being aware of where you are at this moment in time, with full depth, richness, and a broader experience, as discussed below.

Focus on your intuition

Intuition is nothing more than becoming aware of and focusing on your five senses. Intuition also means an awareness of your own gut feeling, free from thoughts. You can trust your gut, your intuition. It has never let you down. How many times in your life have you simply felt like doing something, just to realise that it was exactly the right thing to do?

We have become too absorbed by the things happening around us, the bad news, and all the negativity that we forgot about our own mindfulness.

Listen to your body

Mindfulness implies that you get back in touch with your body. To listen to what your body is telling you. Should your body tell you that something feels wrong or right, you may take it to heart. You can become more in touch with your body when you eliminate the distortions of your thoughts. You may just get a gut feeling that something is either right or wrong.

The process of mindfulness

Breathing

To breathe is to live. After man was created, according to the Scriptures, man was only a lifeless body. Man only became a living being after God breathed His own breath into man. Our breathing is the difference between us being dead or alive – not only in a physical sense but also in a spiritual sense.  The Latin word breathing is the word spiritum. The word not only refers to breathing, but it is also referring to spirit and soul.

Our breathing changes in accordance with our state of mind. During times of anger or stress, our breathing will become faster, more thoracic, and shallow. During times of happiness and relaxation, our breathing will become more relaxed, slower, and deeper. We can even stop breathing during surprise or shock.  During slow and deep breathing, we start gaining control over our thoughts and feelings. In summary: our breathing is the one thing that we always have absolute control over.

Your breathing can help you slow down everything, and to transfer you into the moment of now, thus causing you to have a complete awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Breathing is bringing you right back into the here and now.

You might want to imagine yourself watching the ocean. Waves are rolling in and out. Every breath you take can be experienced as a wave retracting, and every breath you exhale, might feel like a wave washing out on the shore. Whilst exhaling, you might wonder how far on the beach the next wave will break. Wondering how far the wave will withdraw as you inhale the next breath.

Our life is a constant chase of trying to fit in as much as we can every day. We multitask and never take a moment to take a deep breath. Our breathing becomes shallow which is locking our body in a state of panic – associated with fast, shallow breathing, accelerated heartbeat, cold or clammy hands, and neck spasms.

Panic is the direct result of chronic anger, anxiety, and feelings of guilt which results in the so-called fight–or–flight response (the reaction to survive during real or imagined danger). This vicious cycle can be broken by deep breathing.

However, as human being, we are more than often becoming anxious about our survival and false sense of security that we start to hyperventilate as an immediate response to stress. We have fears about our survival, fears about not fitting in, fears about not being good enough, just to mention a few.  All these things cause us to become out of touch with ourselves and the world around us.  We feel overpowered by imaginary threats and enemies, stress factors, and external challenges whilst hyperventilating just to reach at least our targets.

Only when breathing slowly and deeply, will we get in touch with ourselves. Happy people take slow, deep breaths. You may even observe a happy baby or pet. They are always breathing slowly and deeply.

When breathing deeply, you will become aware of the following:

• your focus will become more relaxed and easier;
• your visualisation and creativity will improve;
• you’ll master lateral thinking;
• you’ll experience insightful problem-solving;
• you will experience a whole-brain function;
• you will accomplish peak performance, as well as transformative and transcendental experiences;
• deep breathing can even help with pain, anger, relationships, and daily stress.

Breathing transcends us from the core of our physical well-being to the integration of our mental and spiritual abilities.

The endorphins released during deep breathing are considered a painkiller, even more, effective than morphine. Breathing has the ability to not only relieve physical pain, but also emotional and even spiritual pain.

Relaxation

Relaxation is our antidote to stress and the feeling of not being good enough. Relaxation starts with deep breathing. When relaxed, your body starts regaining the energy lost as a result of tension. You also know that the more you force yourself to do or resist doing anything, the more the opposite will happen. As Jung said: whatever you resist, persists. We have all experienced this phenomenon in our lives – the more we try to battle anything, the more it devours us, and the more it interferes with accomplishing our feelings of contentedness. Instead of using words such as must, should, and ought; or must not, should not, or ought not, we may choose to use something like: I choose to, I would like to… We indeed always have choices.

Relaxation helps to clear our mind, increases energy levels, and improves our mood. The benefits are initially subtle, but it evolves as you become more relaxed. During relaxation, our intuition takes over and shows us all the joy given to us by simply living a decadent life. 

The slow life

Life moves pretty fast. If you do not stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it – Ferris Bueller.

Our society is materialistically inclined. We are always in a hurry, on the run.  We chase targets and we are making money.  We are however forgetting ourselves completely. We lose touch with ourselves, as well as our emotional and spiritual world.

Ways to slow down life:

• find time to have no time

This is your time. Find some time to have no time. It is yours. Do nothing. Just become quiet within yourself. Get in touch with yourself, even for only ten minutes a day.

• do one thing at a time

Do one thing at a time but do it mindfully. There is a Zen proverb that says: When you walk, walk. When you eat, eat. Do one thing at a time. Get it done. Do it well. Focus on the one thing without the buzzword of multitasking.

• do less

We are forever trying to get more done in less time. The more we do or try to accomplish during a short time period, the less we get adequately done. Doing less will help you do things more comprehensively and with more mindfulness. 

• take your time

Whilst doing something, take your time. It may even improve your focus and the quality of the outcome.

• eating

Eat slowly.  Sit down at a table when eating. Eat mindfully and with full awareness of your food and yourself.

• as if for the first time.

You may even want to attend to your garden to become mindful. Observe every flower, every leaf, and every twig in every detail. Almost like a child seeing a flower for the first time.

• just observing

How about sitting on your stoep and just observing the sprinkler in your garden? With your five senses, become aware of how the water splashes in all directions. Even to hear the spraying of the water, smell the scent of cut grass, and even feel the freshness of the water on your skin. You can even taste it with your tongue and touch it with your fingers.

• using your five senses

When you use your five senses to the maximum, everything, even your route to work, may become new and fresh.

• daily routines

You can even brush your teeth, shower, or clip your nails, mindfully!

• power of patience

You might like to take a moment to observe a pot of honey. Dish a spoonful of honey and let it flow back into the pot. Use your five senses to be aware of this.  Clear your mind – think of absolutely nothing except the honey dripping slowly from the spoon. Continue to breathe and relax, waiting for the final drop. Even if it is taking hours to complete. Finally become aware of your thoughts, without analysing them.

Here and now

Mindfulness emphasises the experience of your journey, and not necessarily the goal or destination of your journey. The experience of the journey is more important. The journey itself is more the destination than the destination itself.

The only time that exists is now. The past exists only in our thoughts as a memory and the future only as a fantasy, or a fear.

Mindlessness means we no longer live in the now. We live in the past or future and we just let moments pass us by.

Life itself only consists of moments. It exists from this moment to the next.  Free from the constraints of time and space.

When we lose the moment of the now, is when we become mindless and this is where psychological challenges arise.

When you are in the now and becoming aware of an emotion and what it is trying to tell you – you are mindful. We are simply responding to what we are becoming aware of at that moment, rather than thinking of our reaction to it.

Feelings of guilt, shame, sadness, anger, and depression only trap us in the past, keeping us stuck with ruminations about what went wrong, or what we have done wrong.

Fear and anxiety relate to the future and the fear of what might possibly happen. When we are living in the future, we might lose the moment by preparing ourselves for what possibly could happen, even if it might never happen.

Mindfulness enables you to respond in the present to those events of the past or fears of the future. Those events of the past or the future are experienced differently by our present awareness.

Gratitude is something that we experience in the now. It is a positive response to what happened in the past. If we can be still, breathe and relax, we can focus on what we can learn from the here and now.

Positive responses to what may happen in the future, are experienced as hope, optimism, and excitement.

Accept your emotions and feelings

To avoid getting trapped in the past or future, it might help to simply accept your emotions without analysing or trying to get rid of them.

Take a deep breath and relax. Instead of suppressing these negative emotions, you can just become aware of these emotions and thoughts and simply accept them from a distance. When trying to suppress our thoughts and feelings, will only cause these feelings to become more powerful. By accepting them they will simply begin to disappear. On the other hand – when trying to enforce positive feelings upon ourselves will only cause these feelings to elude us. 

Acknowledge how you feel without analysing, evaluating, appraising, or assessing them. Without getting involved.

Sensory Awareness

You were created with five senses. Sensory awareness means how you utilise all five your senses to be ultimately conscious of yourself and everything around you.

The more you focus on your five senses, the more information you will acquire. By using your five senses, you can refine your reaction to the world around and within you.

You will become acutely aware of the pleasure you can derive from it. When walking, or driving to work, you can once again become aware of your wonderful surroundings. When was the last time you stopped at Lovers Lane to look at the mountain? At Blouberg Beach to hear and smell the ocean? Walked barefoot on the beach, feeling the sand between your toes? When last did you even taste the fresh air, or watched the beautiful sunset in the Bushveld?

You might need to come to a complete halt, be completely still, forget the first world, and ask yourself: What is really important?

Beginner Brain

Beginner Brain means that you experience everything fresh and anew, using all five senses as a new born baby would. You see yourself and the world, as it was before you developed cognitions and rational thoughts of analysis, evaluation, judgment, and so on. Observe a child, in particular, a baby staring at everything as if for the very first time. A baby can sit for hours staring at their hands, without judging, evaluating, or criticising. Infants or toddlers have this awareness and complete confidence because they have not yet learned to think negatively or critically.

It is almost as if we are reborn and seeing everything fresh and without criticism. To see every sunrise or sunset as if it was for the very first time. We are seeing all the colours, the wonder, and the beauty as if for the very first time. Every bird, every tree, everything in your everyday life as if you are seeing it for the first time. Almost as if you are listening to your favourite music as if you’ve never heard it before. When you listen mindfully, you will always discover something new. You might even imagine the water running from your shower over your skin for the first time. You eat your food and smell the aromas as if it is a completely new experience. Beginner Brain happens when you start to enjoy and experience your world mindfully as if you are experiencing everything in your everyday life fresh and new!

Beginner Brain requires you to set aside all your beliefs, your impressions of the past, your judgements, and conclusions you have made to date. It wants you to be an observer, only an observer, as a young child would be like.

You will start creating new neural pathways when living in the here-and-now with new interests and curiosity. It changes your experience of life altogether.

Experiencing the mindful and mindless life

You might want to do the following exercise:

Do this exercise whilst standing on your feet, with an open space of about a meter in front of you.

1. Get yourself in a comfortable position. Stand comfortably on both feet, evenly balanced.
2. Imagine yourself standing in your current world of mindlessness and chasing after shadows.
3. Become aware of what it feels like.
4. Imagine a world of mindfulness and consciousness more or less a meter in front of you.
5. Use your sensory awareness.  Become aware of the colours, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, and intuition you would have when you are in that world. Are there any objects in that world, a meter in front of you?
6. Start to have an idea of how you would feel when you are in that world. What would you like to feel? Would you like to feel confident? Or maybe relaxed? Or anything else?
7. Place that feeling within that new world, whatever feels right for you.
8. Now take a step forward. Step into your new world. Allow yourself to feel and experience those feelings that you want to feel.
9. Now, take one step back, back out of this world, back to your current world where you are right now, and become aware of how different it makes you feel.
10. Look again at your new world. Are there any adjustments you would like to make to your experience in this world?
11. Step forward into your new world again, and make it even better in your mind, more intense, and become aware of the change in your feelings.
12. What is different now?