What led you to this path of focusing on mindfulness, and
how it can be applied to everyday life? I'm always so
interested in people's stories and how they wind up where they are today.
>> Yeah, thank you. I'm interested too in people's stories. And for
me...I was studying at Duke University, and I was studying mind body medicine,
and it was kind of the whole revolution of psychoneuroimmunology.
And there was a lot of research saying, think happy thoughts and be positive, and
then your natural killer cells will go up, and your immune system will go up, and
it's good for you. And I was 19, and I didn't always feel happy.
I felt sometimes really lost and confused and lonely, and I didn't really know what
to do with that. And it felt inauthentic to kind of always have to be happy,
and think positive thoughts... And yet on the flip side, I was like, Oh, crap...
I'm going to get cancer or something, because, you know...
All this research is showing think happy thoughts and it leads to stronger
immune functioning. And that summer I was studying on a NOLS course...
A National Outdoor Leadership School in New Mexico... And
you go out into nature for a month and just live simply. And my father,
who is a long-term meditator, had just received Jon Kabat-Zinn's book,
Full Cat... No, it was Wherever You Go, There You Are. And he said, Why don't
you take this with you on your backpacking trip? I said, No, it's a hardcover.
>> [LAUGH] >> I don't want, you know, it's too much weight. And he said,
Why don't you try? So I took it, and while I was living in nature really simply,
I started reading about mindfulness. And
it was one of those moments where everything in my body just said, Yes,
this is truth, this feels like truth in my own experience. And,
from that moment forward a lot shifted in my life, and I started studying and
exploring mindfulness, and ended up going to Thailand and
Nepal to really study deeper and immerse myself. And
when I came back, I said, I want to keep studying, and
I want to study mindfulness. What kind of program could I become part of?
And it seemed like clinical psychology was the best choice,
although I remember when I started, they said, If you ever want to
go into academia, you better stop studying this meditation stuff.
You know, if you want to be taken seriously. And I had an advisor,
Gary Schwartz, who really believed in studying what you were passionate about.
And he said, If this is what you love, if this is what's really true in your heart,
do it. He said, But learn how to do statistics and rigorous methodology,
too, because you're going to be held to a higher standard. So, that was it.
And it's amazing looking back,
that was 1996 that I started my PhD program. And
now mindfulness is so much a part of mainstream,
really mainstream culture, but also medicine and
psychology. >> I was noticing that some of the dissertations and things that
you've worked on have been about bringing mindfulness into professional fields...
Medicine, law, maybe law enforcement... What are some
things that you've seen as far as the benefits that go into those fields, and
also some of the concerns that those fields may be expressing when it comes to
actually having a practice? >> Yeah. So, in terms of the benefits,
one thing I've been really interested in is compassion and empathy.
Because a lot of the professionals I work with are physicians, nurses, and
psychotherapists, and this program that I'm a professor in is a Master's program
in Counseling Psychology. And so, really what I've been interested
is how do we best train people in these healing and helping professions?
How do we cultivate compassion? How do we cultivate presence and empathy? And
mindfulness is an obvious way to train the mind and heart to be more present,
to be more compassionate, and also to be more compassionate to ourselves.
I really, as my practice has deepened, have come to recognize how important
that piece is. How, I think in the beginning of my
quote spiritual practice, or my meditation practice,
I was very disciplined and really wanted to do it right.
And so there was a striving involved and a real almost rigidity. And
a lot of self-judgment... And what I began to realize is,
I was using my practice as just one more way to be perfect...
One more way to beat myself up... One more way to see how I didn't measure up.
And so, this piece of self-compassion and
self-care I think is an essential part of the practice. And so, when I'm
training healthcare professionals, when I'm training physicians or
people in the helping professions, I really like to emphasize that mindfulness
is not just about attention. It's not just another practice or
a cognitive behavioral technique. It's attention with a certain intention...
The intention to be curious, and kind, and compassionate, and
accepting of whatever my experience is--even if it's not how I want it to be.
Even if I'm not how I want myself to be... I can hold all of it with kindness.
So that's really how I'm working with mindfulness, and working with it with
professionals. And you asked about kind of one of the dangers or
pitfalls, and I think there's two. One is in our culture,
non-doing is not really valued, and so a lot my students will say,
I'm so busy, I have so many people to help, I have a family,
I have this career I'm trying to begin, I don't have time for
this practice. And so I think one piece is just beginning to help
people value it and understand that this is actually essential to
being fully alive, and essential to taking care of yourself, and
taking care of your patients. And so, I say to them, you know,
Did you have time to brush your teeth today?
Did you go to the bathroom today? They look at me, Yes, of course.
I say, I kind of view a practice in the similar vein...
That this is about self-care, and it should be valued in that same way.
So that's one piece is just finding the time and really valuing it.
The other piece that's challenging is getting back to that perfectionism.
I find a lot of my students, most of them are women in the counseling program,
there's this way in which it's never enough. They're never doing it right,
and they're not okay... The sense that I'm not enough, I'm not okay...
And this real self-judgment... And I would even say self-loathing... And it's so
sad to even use that word and that languaging... And yet,
as I experience it in my own life, and as I am more authentic with them, and
they're able to be more honest with me, there's a real sense that I'm not okay...
That we're all feeling that same way,
of this sense of there's...I should be more generous, more patient,
more kind... And what mindfulness can do, I think, at its deepest level,
is start breaking down that ego identity that's saying you're not okay.
However, one of the dangers with mindfulness is it becomes one more way to,
with a really laser-beam attention, criticize yourself. >> And
I find that to be the case a lot with some of my people, my cohort, or maybe myself
as well... You know, we'll be in a meditation, and I'll immediately judge,
right in the middle of it... Like, Oh, I shouldn't have thought that.
>> Right. >> Or, Oh, my mind just went off... Or, Oh, you know,
you're not paying attention to the sounds like you should be...
>> Right. >> Isn't that part of the natural human condition, though, as well?
Just to kind of always want to do things the way they're supposed to be done?
>> I think there's an underlying anxiety that... >> Yeah. >> A lot of us have of,
it's supposed to be this way, and I'm not quite meeting up... Or
there's some right way out there and I just can't figure it out. If I just
think a little harder, then I'll find the perfect way, and then I'll be happy...
Instead of actually trusting that by just being with things as they are and
resting, that's where happiness is found... Not something out here...
So, one of my teachers said to me--it was one of the best teachings--she said,
When you notice your mind wandering off,
notice how you come back. Notice the tone of your voice...
>> Hmmm... >> Notice the quality of your attention as you come back.
Are you saying, Darn it, Shauna, what's wrong with you? Why can't you do this? Or
are you saying, Oh, hooray, I'm back... And just celebrating that you're back?
Because the moment your mind has wandered off, the moment you know that it's
wandered off, you're already back. One of my students last week, she said, Dr.
Shapiro, it was really interesting this week. My mind wandered off, I noticed it,
and I said, Welcome home. The moment she noticed it,
that was her response instead of, What's wrong with you? >> Hmmm...
>> And so, I really believe it's how you're attending,
how you're practicing that's important. It's not just the practice.
Some people kind of sit down, they get in their posture, and it's like, Okay,
now I'm meditating... [INTERVIEWER LAUGH] And this is how you do it.
This is good for me, and there's, you know, we know about neuroplasticity...
What you practice is what becomes stronger. If I'm practicing this rigid,
striving, judgmental, I have to do it right,
those are the pathways that are becoming stronger. And so for me the practice is,
am I cultivating softness in my heart? Am I cultivating clear seeing?
Am I cultivating kindness, flexibility, ease, curiosity, discernment?
That's what I want to be practicing. >> And it's funny you should say that,
because when I think of that, I think of the typically maybe Eastern point of view,
and I've been reading a lot of articles where they talk about
the American point of view, even when it comes to spirituality as a whole.
That it's... >> Um-hmmm... >> Something we need to strive for.
I need to be spiritual within five years in order to reach that goal of being,
you know, this spiritual person who everyone's going to admire, or what not.
And I think that that's a really beautiful way of discerning whether or
not...how we're looking at this as a practice. >> Right,
right... We're looking at it as a way to change, and to make things different so
we can finally be happy... Instead of a way to actually embrace life, and
to actually know something about what it means to be alive...
To actually feel that aliveness moving through us...
And children teach us perfectly, being with babies,
being with my grandpa right now, who's in transition and dying...
Feeling his aliveness, and his presence, and his joyfulness,
is for me the most exquisite teaching. That that's what this practice is about...
When I'm sitting, resting into that, and holding all the other things that arise,
such as a lot of sadness for me right now... A lot of grief,
and some anger at life as it is...
But holding all that in this aliveness, and really feeling it, instead of trying
to change it or tune it out. And that's, I think, the beauty of the practice is that
whatever is happening in this moment is okay. There's so much space.
>> I think a lot of us think that being spiritual means having to do something
different than who we actually are. And so I think that that's, for me, it was really
tricky for me to understand how mindfulness could actually be spiritual.
Does that make sense? >> Yeah. For me, the word spiritual often has so
many different meanings and baggage for different people.
And there's almost like a way that it moves me outside of my experience.
For me, at the deepest level of being spiritual means being alive.
Fully alive here, in this moment, in this body...
And I sometimes say to my students, you know, they'll be sitting there
in class when we talk about mindfulness, and I rarely use the word spiritual...
You know, I try to keep it as academic as possible, but
we'll be sitting there and I say, do you know what it means to be alive right now?
Sometimes I see your eyes glazed over, and your body doesn't go anywhere, but
I know your mind's gone... Your body's just sitting here, it's this empty shell.
I want to see you fully alive and embodied, and inhabiting your aliveness,
and feeling it in each moment as best you can. And that to me is being spiritual.
>> Just to tag off of that. Do you have any idea what you want to focus on for
the upcoming conference, the ITP-ATP conference, as far as your speech?
Have you thought about it at all? >> [LAUGH] >> I mean, something that's new or
something that you've been... >> Yeah... >> You've been kind of marinating in?
>> Well, I'm delighted to be a part of this conference, and I think it's so
important, weaving together different ideas of spirituality and
psychology, and really enquiring into what does spirituality mean?
What are the promises? What are the pitfalls? What is our vision?
What is our intention? And I think for
me, what I'd like to talk about, because I'll be speaking about mindfulness,
is really inquiring into what is mindfulness,
and looking at the essential components, which I believe involve intention,
and what is our vision? Why are we even practicing, right? So
it doesn't just become one more thing to do... Our intention, our attention...
>> Um-hmmm... >> Where am I placing my attention? What am I cultivating?
Where do I want to focus attention? And then our attitude...
What is the attitudinal quality I bring to my attentional focus?
Which is what I've been talking about with you about, is, am I bringing compassion,
and curiosity, and ease to my attention, or am I striving and rigid?
As an example, when I first went to my very first retreat, it was in Thailand at
a monastery called Wat Suan Mokkh. And I didn't speak Thai,
and the monk didn't speak English. A little bit, but not very much...
And so I understood that I was supposed to feel the breath coming in and
out through my nose. And I'd just graduated from Duke University, and
I felt like I could kind of make my mind do what I wanted it to, and
I sat there for days upon days...and I couldn't do it. Maybe for
a couple breaths, and my mind would wander... And I became so frustrated, and
so kind of judgmental of myself. Why can't I do this? What wrong with my mind?
And then judgmental of them. Like, why are they just sitting there doing this?
Like, what's the point? And, you know, it was hot,
and it was 110 degrees, and mosquitoes were biting me, and
you had that whole thing of not harming, so you couldn't swat them...
And, you know, I was getting more and more irritated, and
a monk from London came, and I said, Please, can I have an interview with you?
And so we sat and I told him my experience, and he said, Oh,
you're not practicing mindfulness--you're practicing impatience, and anger,
and judgment, and self-righteousness...and those are what are getting stronger.
He said, The attitude with which you pay attention is essential. And
that really stayed with me.
And in my academic work, and when I write about mindfulness, even in the scholarly
journals, I talk about attitude, about kindness, about care, about acceptance...
And that this is an essential part of mindfulness. It's not just some add-on,
right, just to be sweet--it's actually essential. And so in the conference I
really want to be nuanced in our understanding of what mindfulness is, and
talk about these three elements of intention, attention, and attitude.