By Linda Nguyen, PhD MBA
It’s inevitable that life has tougher moments, softer moments, happy moments, sad moments and all the gradations in between. There were times during graduate school when I felt like my brain’s CPU was being maxed out and I couldn’t stop the thoughts and calculations that my brain was so keen on doing. It was unsustainable, untenable and not an efficient use of my brain power.
What helped me was integrating arts together with science to maintain a healthy mind and body. I intentionally would go to Tae Kwon Do classes (the best TKD school in the world was in Boston) and danced Argentine tango to round out the highly technical aspects of my PhD training. However, that was only part of what was needed. Meditation and mindfulness still needed to be further developed and practiced to feed the soul, quiet the mind and meet any circumstance with equanimity. Here’s how I learned to cultivate my meditation practice to quiet my mind.
Embracing Full Catastrophe Living
In April of 2020, I began developing a meditation and mindfulness practice that would change my life forever and bring me closer to my soul. I started meditating for about two hours a day using guided meditations from Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn’s life changing book, “Full Catastrophe Living.” As part of the Full Catastrophe Living practice, there is a program of meditations for 45 min/day for 8 weeks (the guided meditations are available on Audible and the App store). I chose to do more than what was prescribed in the book, knowing the return on this time investment would bring back dividends on my quality of life and interactions with the people I meet.
The guided meditations by Jon Kabat Zinn were different from the other mindfulness apps and guided meditations I tried previously. With those, I never could get into them and be consistent with the practice. Jon Kabat Zinn’s guided meditations were effective for me because his voice gently, clearly guides and supports you as you go on the (sometimes trying) meditative journey.
He was taught by the leading Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh who has several monasteries all around the world dedicated to living life peacefully with each step before he passed away recently. Jon Kabat Zinn also runs a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Clinic at UMass Medical School to help cancer patients, healthcare providers, those suffering from PTSD, etc. learn how to live more mindfully according to Thich Nhat Hanh’s principles.
Developing a Meditation and Mindfulness Practice
At first, it was really difficult for me to meditate for an hour at night before bed (I would typically do the loving kindness meditation) and an hour right when I woke up (normally I would do the choiceless awareness meditation or loving kindness meditation again) because my mind would wander, come back, and I had to just sit with it and notice these wanderings without judging them. I knew it was going to be good for me to pick up this skill so I kept going to train my mind to be at peace, to notice my thoughts bubbling up from the bottom of a pot and letting them pop when they met the air.
Achieving Mental Clarity
By month 8 of my twice daily (BID) meditation practice, my mind was as sharp as a blade and I was able to get to a state where my mind was as empty as a mirror. Just reflecting 🪞 This particular experience of choiceless awareness, seeing things as they are, comes and goes, like trying to clutch onto sand, but is such an incredible feeling of connection to myself and the universe. Sustaining that mindful feeling wherever I go in daily life would be a game changer.
The Advantages of Developing a Mindfulness and Meditation Practice
I have taken breaks in meditation and recently have re-devoted myself to the development of my meditation and mindfulness practice to meet the good and bad situations presented in life with the same level of equanimity. There’s still a lot more to do to get back to that level I was at before, but I can feel the improvements in mental clarity already, the confidence it affords me and the reduction in stress knowing that I can choose peace with every breath, every step no matter what happens.
Be brave. Develop a meditation and mindfulness practice. Face yourself. Explore the forest of your mind to unleash the warrior in you.
Daring Greatly
For anyone looking to take up meditation, even a few min a day to yourself sitting is valuable and you can build up to 10/15 min, especially when the benefits of doing nothing and just being by yourself is so vast. Be brave. Develop a meditation and mindfulness practice. Face yourself. Explore the forest of your mind to unleash the warrior in you.
I’ve read quite a few books by Jon Kabat Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh on meditation and will recommend some below for you to develop your meditation and mindfulness practice. Let me know which books on meditation you’ve enjoyed and how your mindfulness practice has served you.
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