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...and it's paying attention in a particular way,
because we're paying attention in a friendly way,
in a nonjudgmental way.
and out of being on autopilot.
So most of the time, we're caught either in the past
or in the future with our thoughts,
and we're really missing what's going on in this moment.
GREG SERPA: A lot of people think,
"Well, I'm paying attention all the time.
I'm here in my life."
a lot of us aren't right here.
Where are we? Right?
We're either
and planning mine, thinking,
and next and next?"
Or maybe we're rehashing the past, thinking about
what happened before and,
"I should've said this instead of that."
So between all the rehearsing and the rehashing,
we forget that this moment right here is when we're alive.
Mindfulness is a pause button.
and be there
stop the worry and the anxiety.
Or at least put it at bay.
So it's this very, um... it can feel,
actually, pretty paradoxical
what we're doing, or what we ask people
to do, and we have a saying that
the fastest way, in this practice, to get from "A" to "B"
is actually to be fully at "A."
to kind of center myself
at a time,
to take a moment to relax.
Mindfulness is not something that is foreign to us,
so we all know how to do that,
so we all know how to be present.
It is just something that we are not trained to be
in this place more often, so the training really helps us
not to only be mindful for a moment,
but to stay in that moment.
Or when the mind wanders off,
which is what it will do, of course,
you just bring it back.
And so the process of really learning mindfulness
is to bring the mind back, but gently,
and not judging yourself that the mind wanders off.
This is just a... a normal thing that it will do.
So, in meditation,
we have, uh,
and informal practice.
is when we take the time
in the present moment.
And we can do that sitting,
focusing on our breath; we can do that walking,
feeling our feet; we can do that lying down,
feeling into our entire body;
but we're doing nothing else during that time.
And then, in informal practice,
we are paying attention to what we are already doing.
Like, we're drinking a cup of coffee,
or we're patting the dog, or we are driving our car.
So that would be informal practice.
So we're using all of our senses
to bring into that activity in that moment,
and noticing what is really here
compared to what I think is here.
So, sometimes it's helpful
to think about what mindfulness is not.
is a secular practice
from all walks of life.
an experience enhancer, either.
It's just the ability to be
experience,
just as we are with kindness.
And through our mindfulness practice,
we learn some essential things.
discrepancy analyzer:
The way life should be
actually is in our minds
our life sucks.
And we're doing that constantly, constantly,
constantly, in each moment.
And when we can allow ourselves just to be present
with whatever is here in this moment,
we notice that this moment actually might not be so bad.
Some people coming to this practice
have this sense that, "Oh, I should be feeling relaxed,"
or, "I should have a particular outcome with this,"
and that striving in and of itself is a barrier
to doing the practice.
We're falling a little bit into receptivity.
This is very curious because we actually don't know,
um, what makes us be mindful.
So, I mean, if something happened--
like there's a loud sound or something--
then, of course, you're mindful, but then sometimes
you just walk down the street and you notice suddenly
your feet or you notice the sun
or the trees or whatever.
Why we have that, we don't know,
but what we do know
is how we can get more of those moments,
which is by practicing mindfulness.
So that's another really good reason
to have a regular mindfulness practice--
let's say even, like,
ten minutes every day-- and people really,
really feel a difference throughout their entire day,
because it's easier for them to remember to be mindful.
Training veterans to pay attention
to the present moment with kindness
is a fantastic intervention
across a number of
diagnostic presentations
for not just mental health patients,
but for patients with a lot of physical suffering,
for chronic ailments and for chronic pain.
Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org