Although there have been many studies that tout the benefits of mindfulness I don’t usually see them talking about the exact mechanism that is employed in getting those results. I’ve seen various ideas talking around the “on switch” of the mindful experience so I would like to be very specific in what I see to be the actual mechanism/machinery engaged in creating the mindful experience that so many people for so many years have been able to benefit from.
As a preface to this discussion I would like to say that the following qualities are generally developed over a period of time with earnest practice. The first quality is perhaps the most obvious and is the simple quality of being able to focus or pay attention to what is happening moment to moment as a result of direct experience. That means being able to fully experience life through the body, thoughts and emotions by being fully connected to oneself. Most people have a degree of disconnection they are dealing with as a result of chronic and lingering stress, so to be able to connect to oneself is a real accomplishment.
Once we are able to be present in this way we are more able to accept experiences as they come and go in and out of our field of attention. It’s very important to accept this flow of experience as this continual change is part and parcel of the nature of the reality that we live in. It is the resistance to this change that is at the core of creating stress…..no doubt because we are resisting the very reality we live in. Once we have learned to accept experiences we also need to learn how to let go of them. Since constant change is the nature of life, we need to make room for each new experience as it comes into our field of attention. The only way to do that is to learn to let go of each experience in order to make room for the next one. If we can’t let go then the system gets backed up with experiences that need to move on to make room for the next one. Sometimes I see this as the experiential plumbing getting backed up where the only Drano/Roto Rooter type of effect comes from the ability to fully experience things as they are happening. By attending to, accepting andletting go of each experience we prevent the clogging up of the system. When our system gets clogged up we ultimately have to deal with the repercussions. Why not just prevent the clogging by practicing mindfulness and employing the skills of attention, acceptance and letting go. Once the mindfulness kicks in we can fully experience what an unclogged, free flowing system can be like.