McKenzie - Mindfulness at work: how to avoid stress, achieve more, and enjoy life

Dr Stephen McKenzie has over twenty years experience in researching and teaching a broad range of psychological areas, including depression, dementia, substance abuse and, most recently, mindfulness. He has a unique ability as a lecturer, researcher and writer to present potentially complex information in a warm, engaging and entertaining way. Dr McKenzie has recently been appointed as the Research and Evaluation Officer for the Healthy Together Geelong Preventive Health Project, and is providing research support to help improve the health of Geelong residents. Together with Dr Craig Hassed, he is the author of Exisles highly successful Mindfulness for Life.

CHAPTER 1

Mindfulness isnt what we think it is. Mindfulness isnt anything that we think; its what we dont think. Mindfulness isnt something that other people do; its something that we all do. If the only mindful people were the ones doing courses in it or reading books about it or writing books about it, or all three, then humanity wouldnt last very long. We all need to be at least a little bit mindful to get through our days without being hit by the first bus that we mindlessly wander out in front of, or getting hit by the first other totally mindless person whose toes we mindlessly tread on. On a more subtle survival level, being continuously rather than just occasionally mindful can help us to get through a dayor even longerwithout getting upset by life.

Simply defined, mindfulness is an ancient life-enhancing and healing technique that can help us to remember our natural state of happiness and health, even if we think we are too modern and too busy to prioritise whats really importantbeing fully alive and fully alive to our full life potential.

However, the essence of mindfulness is, like the essence of everything else, beyond words. Words are just symbolsmodelsand sometimes they can get in the way of our understanding, rather than help it, so lets just use the word mindfulness as a working construct, a signpost to a fullness thats beyond words.

Mindfulness can be simmered down (perhaps a better mindfulness metaphor than boiled!) into just two active ingredients: awareness and acceptance. These two basic elements of mindfulness can be seen as two wings of a single bird that can fly us higher than we could ever have thought possible as long as we recognise and use both our wings together. Without acceptance, awareness could be scary; without awareness, acceptance could be tranquilising. When we are aware and when we accept what we are aware ofwhats actually happening to us here and nowwe are not slaves to our minds, not at war with our lives, and our life circumstances tend to improve.

Being mindful simply means being fully aware, fully able to consciously direct our awareness to what isright here, right nowand fully accepting of what we are aware of. Living and working mindfully is possible for all of us if we can simply let go of our ideas about what we can and cant be. This is our natural state of peace and happiness and it happens all by itself when we stop getting distracted by what isntour imaginings of times past and future. The trick to mindfulness, if we believe in the power of tricks, is that its a lot easier than we think it is.

Most phenomena can be divided into two basic typesman and woman, good cop and bad cop, etc. Mindfulness can also be divided into two types: formal and informal.

Formal mindfulness is the regular practice of a formal mindfulness exercise, which can be described as meditation, if youre comfortable with this term, or as the systematic focusing of attention on a particular aspect of sensory reality, if you arent. We can practise formal mindfulness in a suit and tie or a long dress and tiara, depending on our preferences, or we can practise formal mindfulness in any clothes and at any time.

Informal mindfulness just means giving our complete attention to what we are doing and observing our thoughts about it, no matter how we are dressed and no matter how much our mind resists it. Our thoughts can be hard to resist at first, and they can include such sneakily seductive ones as: I have something much better to be doing! (than being happy and at peace?), This isnt working!, or even Bart Simpsons famous Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? A valuable practice of informal mindfulness is simply being fully aware of an activity that our minds habitually dont accept, such as washing the dishes or dog, and just doing it, without indulging in the potential mental and physical destructiveness of resisting doing it. If this applied mindfulness exercise seems a bit too strenuous, then you could try the classic mindfulness experiment of eating a sultana while giving your full attention to each of your senses, one by one. If even this seems a bit too challenging, then try it with a chocolate!

The good news then is that we can all spend more of our time mindfully happy, peaceful and healthy, and less of our time, as we habitually and unnecessarily do, being miserably mindless. But practising mindfulness doesnt mean being mindful all the time. If it did, we would probably all give up on it before it did us any good. Practising mindfulness actually often involves, especially at first, simply being more frequently mindful of our mindlessness, more aware of our lack of awareness, more accepting of our non-acceptance; and less frequently judging our judging. If we can even occasionally be conscious of our unconsciousness, then we are making huge progress on our journey to greater happiness and usefulness.