Meditations of a wellness sceptic
3 min read . Updated: 31 May 2019, 10:06 AM IST- The writer discovers mindfulness meditation through Andy Puddicombe’s dulcet voice
- With mindfulness any activity can become meditative
For the longest time, I was a wellness sceptic. Talk to me about massage therapy, juice cleanses and acupuncture, and I would look at you doubtingly, with a “whatever" shrug. Yoga was all right, as long as it was about the exercise and becoming more flexible and strong. The mind-body-soul connection completely passed me by; maybe I lacked the right genetic make-up, I thought, or was too headstrong and wilful to be able to surrender myself while meditating.
Slowly, my yoga instructor won me over. The first breakthrough came while doing the bhramari praanayam, where you plug your ears and hum gently till your mind is occupied solely by the sound of your own humming, blocking everything else. Suddenly, the chatter of thoughts, that background noise of ideas and emotions, was quietened. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was blissful not to hear my own voice in my head.
“I can never meditate," I hear people say. “If I can, anyone can," I want to tell them. And you don’t even need a dedicated yoga instructor. Over the past year, the mindfulness meditation app Headspace has been my guide to finding a quiet space within from time to time.
Guided mindfulness meditation is the practice of meditating with a teacher, following their voice instructions (though ‘instructions’ sounds too harsh; most good guides will lead gently instead of instructing). I used to think you need to focus on “one thing" during meditating—a thought or idea or deity— but I learnt that the most effective way to meditate (and what most mindfulness practices teach you) is to focus on your own breath and body. “Mindfulness is the quality of being present and fully engaged with whatever we are doing at the moment—free from distraction or judgement, and aware of our thoughts and feelings without getting caught up in them," explains Headspace founder Andy Puddicombe (whose gentle, lilting voice with a British burr I choose to follow during my meditation sessions) on the Headspace website. “We train in this moment-to-moment awareness through meditation, allowing us to build the skill of mindfulness so that we can then apply it to everyday life."
The best thing about short, guided meditation sessions is that you can literally do them anywhere. Although it’s recommended that you set a routine for the practice—preferably in the morning or last thing at night—I meditated for months every day during my commute. It wasn’t the most desirable setting, but I found that the enforced inactivity of sitting in a cab while being jolted around Bengaluru actually encouraged me to open the app and plug in my earphones. I was, and remain, a difficult student.
Gradually, I learnt that with mindfulness, any activity can become meditative: brushing your teeth, listening to music, running your hands over a soft comforter, just looking at your hands as you gently clench and unclench them…. It’s all about focusing on that one activity at a time, and letting yourself truly feel it—in body and mind. I slip up and multitask more often than I do this, but even if I remember to focus on a couple of tasks a day—the simplest, most ordinary tasks—I feel instantly calm and focused.
Headspace often uses animated videos to explain some of the concepts and benefits of meditation (look them up on YouTube if you want). One of them, my favourite, likens the mind to a clear blue sky, and thoughts and feelings to clouds floating through. “Sometimes we get so obsessed about the clouds that we forget about the blue sky altogether. But it’s still there…it’s easy to forget that what we’re looking for is already here, and that’s why we need reminding."
There are several popular and excellent guided meditation apps: The Mindfulness App, Calm, Insight Timer, 10% Happier. I am not here to tell you that I have tried them all and found Headspace to be the best, nor am I completely sure they differ greatly in their approach (I do know there are variations in technique but all of them follow the basic protocols of mindfulness). All I can say is, choose one and stick to it. At the end of the day (or the beginning, or even the middle), meditation is all about visualizing that blue sky and reminding yourself that it exists.
