Get Some Headspace: 10 minutes can make all the difference (4 page)

The idea of mindfulness and meditation and how they relate is not necessarily that easy to grasp. So try thinking of it this way: imagine you’re learning to drive a car, presumably you’d head out to a quiet country road rather than a busy motorway at first. Of course you can drive on either, but one is much easier than the other when you’re learning. The same is true of mindfulness. You can use it in any situation and for any purpose, but the easiest place to learn the skill of mindfulness is during meditation. The funny thing is, even when you feel confident in applying mindfulness to everyday life, you’ll probably still want to take a short time out to meditate each day. That’s because no matter how good a driver you might be, there’s something comforting, and even exhilarating, about driving along a quiet country road that a motorway never can quite match. What’s more, it also gives you the time and space to notice what’s going on around you, to admire the scenery.

The distinction between meditation and mindfulness may not sound that important, and often the words are used interchangeably. But unless you’re about to pack your bags and start life afresh as a monk or a nun, this distinction matters a lot. Because so long as you’re living life outside of a mountain retreat, there’ll always be a limited amount of time to sit down and practise meditation in a formal, structured way. Often I hear people saying ‘I don’t have time to meditate, I’m too busy, I’ve got too much to do, I’m too stressed!’ But if we look at the broader context, in terms of training and cultivating the mind no matter where we are or what we’re doing, then suddenly it starts to look more achievable. At the very least it sounds more compatible with all the responsibilities and commitments of modern-day living. And that’s what will hopefully make this book such an invaluable guide for you. It will show you how you can continue to live in the world with a daily meditation practice bite-sized enough to fit into your schedule, yet long enough to make a difference. It will also show you how you can use this broader idea of ‘mind training’ or ‘mindfulness’ to transform your experience of everyday life.

I’m sure there’ll be some seasoned meditators who’ll throw their hands up in horror at the idea of a ten-minute meditation. If you’re one of them, then at first glance I appreciate this may sound like the equivalent of a ready-cooked-microwavable meal. But examine the intentions of mind training a little more closely, and you’ll see that the idea of ‘little and often’ makes a great deal of sense. We need to be flexible, adaptive and responsive in our approach to meditation. It’s all well and good to sit perfectly still for an hour, but if you’re unable to maintain your awareness for all that time, then little benefit will come from it. And what about the other twenty-three hours of the day? Like so many things in life, when it comes to meditation it’s about quality rather than quantity. Start by taking just ten minutes. If you find it easy, want to do more and have the time, then great. But there are still many benefits to be had from simply sitting for ten minutes a day. Even if I ignore all the anecdotal benefits that I’ve heard and seen over the years, there’s now substantial scientific evidence (which you’ll notice throughout the book) to support the health benefits of short, regular, daily meditation sessions.

If mindfulness is the ability to be present, to rest in the moment whatever you’re doing, and meditation is the best way of learning that skill, then ‘headspace’ could be considered the outcome. I’m using the word in the broadest possible context here. In fact, many people might choose to use the word ‘happiness’ instead. The problem with the word ‘happiness’ is it tends to get confused with the
emotion
of happiness. Don’t get me wrong, having fun, enjoying yourself, laughing and smiling are wonderful aspects of life. Who wouldn’t want to experience more of these things? But life’s not continually like that. Stuff happens. And that ‘stuff’ is not always nice. As much as we try to ignore the fact, life can be difficult, stressful, upsetting and even painful at times. So the type of happiness that just comes and goes dependent on our circumstances and mood is too temporary, too unstable, to offer us any lasting sense of calm or clarity.

That’s why I prefer the word ‘headspace’. It describes an underlying sense of peace, a feeling of fulfilment or unshakeable contentment, no matter what emotion might be in play at that time. Headspace is not a quality of mind dependent on surface emotions; this means it can be experienced just as clearly in periods of sadness or anger as it can in times of excitement and laughter. Essentially it’s ‘being OK’ with whatever thoughts you’re experiencing or emotions you’re feeling. That’s why meditation feels so good, often even the very first time. It doesn’t (necessarily) leave you rolling around in laughter or swinging from the chandeliers, but it leaves you with the sense of having touched upon that underlying sense of contentment, that place where you just know that everything is OK. The consequences of this can be life changing.

This distinction between headspace and the emotion of happiness is an important one. For some reason we’ve come to believe that happiness should be the default setting in life and, therefore, anything different is somehow wrong. Based on this assumption we tend to resist the source of unhappiness – physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s usually at this stage that things get complicated. Life can begin to feel like a chore, and an endless struggle to chase and maintain that feeling of happiness. We get hooked on the temporary rush or pleasure of a new experience, whatever that is, and then need to feed it the whole time. It doesn’t matter whether we feed it with food, drink, drugs, clothes, cars, relationships, work, or even the peace and quiet of the countryside. If we become dependent on it for our happiness, then we’re trapped. What happens when we can’t have it any more? And what happens when the excitement wears off?

For many, their entire life revolves around this pursuit of happiness. Yet how many people do you know who are truly happy? And by that I mean, how many people do you know who have that unshakeable sense of underlying headspace? Has this approach of chasing one thing after the next worked for you in terms of giving you headspace? It’s as if we rush around creating all this mental chatter in our pursuit of
temporary
happiness, without realising that all the noise is simply drowning out the natural headspace that is already there, just waiting to be acknowledged.

During my travels in India I met with a man called Joshi. He was one of those people who is instantly likeable. He started talking to me as I was waiting for a bus one day. As anyone who’s been to India will tell you, that can be a long wait, especially in the mountains. We got on well and had a few mutual interests – the most notable being meditation. Over the next few weeks we spent more time talking and sharing our experiences. Each day Joshi weaved into the conversation just a little bit more about his life.

A few years before we met, Joshi had lived with his wife and four children. Because neither his parents or in-laws were particularly wealthy, they also lived with the family. Joshi said that although it had been a very crowded house back then, it had also been a very happy one. But not long after his wife had returned to work, having had their fourth baby, she was tragically killed in a road accident. Her parents and her newborn child were with her in the car at the time. It was a very serious accident and there were no survivors. As I think back to Joshi telling me this story, it still brings tears to my eyes. He said that the pain had been unbearable, that he hadn’t been able to face the world, that all he wanted to do was to retreat within himself and hide away at home. But his parents reminded him that he still had three children who needed his care and support, and that what they needed most of all was a father who was there for them. So Joshi threw himself into looking after the children and giving them his undivided attention whenever he could.

A few months later the monsoon arrived and with it came the typical floods in that region of the country. As a result there was a lot of standing water in the area and the incidence of disease shot up dramatically. Along with many other children in the village, Joshi’s children got very ill. His mother also became unwell. Within two weeks, all three children and his mother had died. His mother had been weak beforehand and passed away quickly. The children had been stronger, but not so strong that they could fight off the illness. Within three short months this one man had lost his wife, his mother, his children, and his in-laws. His father was the only survivor in his entire family. Unable to live in the same house that had witnessed so much tragedy, Joshi went to stay with his friends. His father, unable to leave the house that he had always called home, remained to look after it. Within just a few days of moving, Joshi received the news that his house had burnt down, with his father seemingly trapped inside. Joshi said he still wasn’t sure whether it had been an accident or whether his father had decided that he was simply unable to go on.

As I heard this story unfold I felt increasingly ashamed of my grumbling, moaning and complaining in life – of always wanting things to be exactly as I wanted them to be, and not being satisfied unless I got my way. How could I get so upset about the train being late, or being woken up in the middle of the night, or a disagreement with a friend? Here was a man who had suffered in a way that I could only ever imagine, and yet who still seemed to have this extraordinary sense of calm and presence about him. I asked him what he’d done since losing his family and he described how he’d moved to this new area. He said that having no family, no home and no money had forced him to think very differently about life. In the end he’d chosen to live in a meditation centre, where he spent most of his time. I asked whether he thought that his time spent meditating had changed the way he felt about what had happened. He replied that it hadn’t changed the way he felt, but had instead changed his experience of those feelings. He said that while he still felt a great sense of loss and sadness at times, he perceived it differently. He described how he’d found a place beneath those thoughts and feelings where there was a sense of peace, of stillness and of calm. He said that it was the one thing that could never be taken away from him, that no matter what else happened to him in life, he would always have this place within himself to return to.

While this may be an extreme example, life will inevitably serve up challenges for all of us, situations we wish were different or would prefer to be otherwise (although hopefully none so tragic as the story of Joshi). Meditation can’t change that, nor can anything else for that matter. It’s part of being human, of living in this world. Sometimes there’ll be external situations that
require
change, that might even
demand
change, and you’ll need to handle these situations skilfully, with mindfulness. But when it comes to the way you think and feel about those situations, the starting point is to acknowledge that it’s the mind itself that defines your experience. This is why training the mind is so important. By changing the way in which you
see
the world, you effectively
change
the world around you.

I think often this point is misunderstood and people feel as though they have to give up their dreams and ambitions in life in order to practise meditation. But that’s not the case at all. There is something inherently human about striving to achieve something, and having a sense of purpose and direction in life is vital. But, if anything, meditation can be used to clarify and support that purpose, because what the practice will show you, in a very direct way, is that a lasting sense of happiness and sense of headspace is not dependent on these things. This will allow you to live with a greater sense of freedom and ease, confident in where you’re heading in life and yet not so attached to the outcome that an unexpected obstacle or unfavourable outcome will result in heartbreak and loss. It is a subtle yet profound shift in perspective.

When was the last time you sat down, completely still, undistracted and undisturbed, with no television, music, books, magazines, food, drink, telephone, computer, friends, family, or something you needed to think about or resolve in your own mind? If you’ve never looked at anything like meditation before, then my guess is probably never. Because usually, even if we’re just lying in bed, we still tend to be involved in the thought process. So for many people, the idea of doing absolutely nothing sounds at best boring and at worst positively frightening. In fact, we’re so busy doing stuff the whole time that we no longer have any reference point for what it means to be still, simply resting the mind. We’ve become addicted to ‘doing stuff’, even if it’s just thinking. So it’s not surprising that sitting still without distractions can feel a little alien at first.

How was it? Perhaps it felt very relaxing to do nothing. Or perhaps you felt the need to ‘do’ something, even if it was doing something within the exercise itself. Maybe you felt the urge to focus on something, to keep yourself occupied in some way. Don’t worry, it’s not a test, and there’ll be plenty to keep you occupied when we get on to the meditation in the next section. But I think there’s something beneficial, even at this early stage, in noticing the habit or desire to
do
something the whole time. If you
didn’t
experience the urge to do something, then you might like to try the exercise again, but this time for a few minutes longer.

Now I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with watching television, listening to music, having a drink, going shopping or hanging out with friends. On the contrary, these are all things to be enjoyed. It’s just useful to recognise that they facilitate a certain amount of
temporary
happiness, rather than a lasting sense of headspace. Have you ever finished work for the day feeling really strung out with a busy mind? Perhaps you decided to just ‘switch off’ for the evening and watch a bit of television to make yourself feel better. If the programme was really good and you were fully distracted, then it might have felt as though it gave you a break from all those thoughts. But if it was not very interesting, or had lots of adverts, it will probably have created just enough space for those thoughts to arise every now and then. Either way, when the programme finished, there’s a pretty good chance that all those thoughts and feelings will have flooded back again. Sure, they may not have come back with the same intensity, but they are likely to have been there in the background none the less.