Mindfulness. You hear that word a lot from people like me trying to help you move toward health…it's kind of a tough concept to describe. Over the weekend we were experimenting with the iPad and filming a pilot"Yoga for PCOS" class, and something happened during filming that perfectly illustrated how mindfulness works.
We live in a culture that is constantly bombarding us with stimuli. It has gotten worse in the past 5 years or so with the advent of smart phones, as we can literally be on alert 24/7 with beeps, buzzers, and"push" notifications. We can get so drawn in to social networking sites that we feel if we don't read every single status update, watch every single video, respond to every single event invitation, we are somehow missing out.
It is possible to spend an entire day connected to a screen, at the expense of losing connection to real people right in front of us. To see this for yourself, I challenge you to go for several hours with your phone and tablet left behind, and spend time in a public place. Look at how many people are focused on their phones…texting, IM'ing, talking…instead of participating in the world right in front of their faces. I have actually started turning off email and wireless connection on my writing days, so I am focused on one thing, and not constantly being tempted to shift my focus by random, multiple notifications coming at me from all directions.
The drawback to this is that when you are absorbed with your techno toys, you are also not listening to important messages your body is sending you.
You might ignore hunger. Which might seem like a good thing…except that in ignoring hunger, you often push yourself to the point of being ravenous before you respond to the cue.
You might ignore that you are tired, and stay up half the night playing Farmville, and you know if you regularly read this blog, poor sleep hygiene drives insulin resistance and worsens the symptoms of PCOS.
You might also ignore emotions. Feeling angry, sad, lonely, are uncomfortable to allow yourself to do. But those emotions are no different than physical cues, they are guiding you toward actions you need to take. If you ignore your emotions, they don't go away, they just amplify and amplify until they get your attention. If this is how you choose to deal with your emotions, their magnitude by the time that you are forced to acknowledge them, can be so great, that your response to them is at risk of being extreme--rage fits, excessive exercise, binge eating, alcohol dependence--are all common ways that people often deal with emotions they are afraid to face.
Mindfulness is a conscious exercise that develops your ability to be more aware, throughout the day, of how you are feeling. It is also called"being present". Your attention is on you, your immediate surroundings, and how you feel in those surroundings. If you pay attention to those things on an ongoing basis, and make conscious decisions about how you are going to address the situations, you can avert a lot of emotional outbursts, and binge/compulsive-type behaviors that sabotage PCOS management.
Meditation is a way to practice staying focused on yourself without being pulled away by distractions. Most people struggle with meditation at first, because until they start, they are not even aware of what thoughts and feelings they have been avoiding. It can be extremely uncomfortable. If you stick with it, it does get easier, you do develop more comfort with those thoughts and feelings, and they tend to not hit the magnitude where they convert into toxic behaviors.
When we were filming the other day, one of Sarah's kitties really wanted to help. So while Sarah and Deborah were busy focused on practicing meditation, kitty felt a little bit left out because her usual attention-getting behaviors were not working for her. (That is often what happens when we stop allowing ourselves to be distracted…the people who are positively reinforced by distracting us lose their own distraction and"up the ante" to pull us back into the unhealthy thing they need to do.)
So in this video, Kitty works and works and finally gets Deborah 's attention. For a split second, Deborah's focus on meditation was broken. But she quickly caught herself and got right back into the groove.
Now if it wasn't Kitty wanting some loving that could wait, and rather a sudden thunderstorm, Deborah may have chosen to prioritize getting out of
the rain.
Practicing mindfulness is exactly like that. You develop the ability to close out distractions. You can't ever really make them go away, life is about prioritizing and ably handling then,any distractions that are thrown in our path. The goal is to acknowledge them, just as Deborah acknowledged Kitty, and get back to more of a personal focus as quickly as possible.
Enjoy the video! It is one of several segments the kitties helped with…as the person behind the camera I was experiencing my own special mindful moments, working extremely hard to not disrupt the session with laughing, or peeing in my pants from not laughing.
We had a great time, and will have updates soon on how you can participate in our yoga program.