Senses Archives - Mindful Call

Stream of experience

Imagine standing in a stream with water flowing past your legs. Then imagine that it’s not water flowing but thoughts, feelings, images, sounds, physical sensations, impulses, actions, and behaviours. This is your stream of experience, a dynamic flow coming at you in many different modes, from outside and inside, in each flowing moment. You may have encountered the “Stream of consciousness” in writing, where writers like James Joyce use his characters’ internal dialogue in an unpunctuated flow of ideas, impressions, impulses, and imaginings, to Illustrate what seems to happen in our experience.

Consider how much stuff comes your way during a typical workday. If you work in an office environment, there are typically 50 to 100 emails and other messages, conversations with around 15 people, and 30 separate tasks and activities to progress. You may experience changing situations, such as travelling, meeting people, listening, talking, problem-solving, planning, and deciding. On this scale, there must be boundless billions of things entering our experience over a lifetime.

Our experience includes memories and feelings from the past, what’s happening in the present as well as what we anticipate and plan for in the future. There are moments of high attention, focus, and awareness as well as times when our attention drifts and our mind wanders.

Everything that comes into our experience goes through the same cycle of arising, playing out, and then dissolving back to where it came from. For instance, it’s quiet; we hear an aircraft approaching; flying overhead, then the sky returns to silence. We walk past a concert poster and have the thought, “Remember to buy tickets”, which then passes away. Or we hear about some injustice in the news and feel momentary anger towards the people who were responsible and compassion for those who were affected and move on.

Mindfulness can be defined as working skilfully with present-moment experience. Adapting a quote from Aldous Huxley, “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s how skilfully you work with what happens to you.” How we work with our experience also depends on how tired we are and our background level of agitation, stress, anxiety, or low mood.

Obviously, we don’t process everything; our brain filters out a lot of sensory experience and many of our thoughts and emotions arise below conscious awareness. But when so much is automatically filtered out of our awareness, how would we know if we missed something important? Apart from the fact that we’re always physically embodied at the centre of our experience, it’s the quality of our attention, awareness, and attitude toward our experience that makes the difference.

We like to think that we are masters of our own attention, but a simple exercise like focusing on the breath for a few minutes soon demonstrates that our attention is often automatically directed for us to whatever happens to be most prominent in our experience at the time.

Like water flowing over rocks, if our stream of experience is turbulent with stress and agitation, we’re more likely to react automatically and fall into past habits and patterns of behaviour that are unlikely to serve other people and us. With stable attention and open awareness, we can access choices and options in how we can respond more skilfully.

By recognising that there’s only this flowing moment of experience, we can bring acceptance, patience, openness, kindness, and non-judging, which can make a real difference. By cultivating mindfulness, we create the space to respond skilfully, rather than react automatically. We’re also more likely to notice when we resist or avoid what we’ve judged as an unpleasant or unwanted experience.

In this way, we change the nature of our relationship with experience. The benefits include finding greater ease, avoiding unnecessary suffering, and feeling a rich sense of aliveness and connection with our lived experience.

Suggested weekly practice

Try a sitting meditation where, using curiosity, openness, and kindness, you simply notice and observe and mentally note where your attention lands. For instance, breathing, tingling, voices, distant train noise, planning, worrying, etc.
Explore the different modalities from sensory, sensations, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. in your stream of experience.
See if you can notice things as they come and go; arising, playing out, and releasing back to where they came from, within a peaceful, open, and aware space.

Guidance

Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to explore the different modes of experience and then observe the natural flow of experience as it arises in awareness.

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Mindful day

We all know that a day is the 24 hours it takes as the earth rotates towards and away from the sun. Although the convention is to start the day from midnight, in medieval times the day began just after sunset. Some cultures and religions still use the sunset to mark this boundary today.

In the Western world, we have an average life expectancy of around 80 years, or 29,200 days, which seems generous when compared to the 24 hours of a mayfly; but in the fast-paced world we live in, days and weeks can easily flash past. Many of us share the same daily routine, which punctuates most of our working lives: we wake up, wash, eat, maybe travel, work, exercise, socialise, relax, and sleep. It’s no wonder that when we get caught up in the routine, one busy day merges into the next until the weekend arrives.

As far as we know, being born human gives us the greatest potential of any life form in the known universe. At the latest count, there are over two trillion galaxies, each with billions of stars. Astrophysicists speculate that almost all stars have planets, but only one in 100 billion supports life. We’re extremely fortunate to live on one of them, a watery planet that orbits its star at just the right distance called the Goldilocks zone. Even the orbit of our large moon accelerated evolution and contributed to the cycles of life on Earth.

On an everyday basis, we tend to get caught up in the human-scale activities, narratives, and dramas of our lives that are quite disconnected from this amazing cosmic reality. If every day is precious, how many days have we squandered by not fully appreciating the joy and wonder of being alive? It’s not that we expect to be mindfully aware of every moment of the day; there are bound to be times when we drift off in thought or get caught up in emotions, which is only human. It’s also unrealistic to expect each day to be an amazing, life-changing experience. Although some days will stand out, most will be average and relatively normal. So how can we meet each day with awareness, appreciation, and gratitude for what it means to be human, even when what we’re doing seems mundane?

Bringing mindful awareness into our day can make a real difference to how skilfully we work with whatever arises. One useful analogy is to imagine that we’re an experienced driver on a busy street. As we progress, we’re open and aware of whatever arises in our field of view: the mother with a pushchair waiting to cross the road, the wobbly cyclist, or the bus pulling out ahead. Alert, open, and aware, working with whatever arises, we respond skilfully to navigate a smooth and easy path through the situation.

Some practical steps for embedding mindfulness into your day include:

Waking: When you awake, before your head fills up with thoughts, turn your attention and awareness to your body and take a few aware breaths in appreciation and gratitude.
Presence: Use routine activities like cleaning your teeth or showering to let go of automatic thoughts for a moment and bring your attention to the present; to your senses and sensations.
Morning meditation: See if you can find 5, 10 or 15 minutes in your morning routine to simply sit and open your awareness to your body, breath, and senses, acknowledging any thoughts and feelings, but letting them come and go without getting caught up in them.
Breaks: Take regular mindful breaks of 5-10 minutes during to the day. If you can, go outside to appreciate nature, or look up at the open sky, which is a great way of finding a bit of peace and calm.
Pause: Let go of any mental and emotional energy and momentum when you come to the end of a task so that you’re ready to begin the new activity free from accumulated noise.
Relationships: Feel appreciation and gratitude for all your relationships with others, whether close or distant, bringing kindness and compassion to whoever you encounter.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the routine of the day. Before you know it, another week, a month, then a year has passed. By weaving regular formal and informal mindfulness practice into each day, you can improve your well-being and performance as well as your mental and physical health, which leads to a longer, healthier, and happier life.

Suggested weekly practice

Aim to start the day well with some peaceful and calm awareness when you wake up. Sending your attention and awareness to appreciate your body, rather than running off in thoughts.
Notice and appreciate things that are special and sacred during the day: your loved ones, the flowers or birdsong in the garden, the beautiful sky, for example.
Read an up-to-date book or watch a documentary on what we have discovered about the amazing wonder of nature and the universe. (for instance, on BBC iPlayer: The Green Planet with David Attenborough, Earth with Chris Packham, or Universe with Brian Cox)

Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware. There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second audio to reflect on the day, then explore what it really means to be alive in the present moment.

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Simply being

There is a concept in science fiction that is also a hypothetical future development called Mind Uploading. For extreme transhumanists, it’s imagined that the contents of someone’s conscious mind can be uploaded to a computer to achieve immortality in a virtual world. To explore this in a thought experiment: imagine that you are in a special laboratory where people in white coats have connected electrodes to your head. A few minutes later the operator announces that your consciousness has been successfully uploaded into computer memory. As you are still conscious in your body, how do you know whether this is true?

Interestingly, a US start-up is working on Mind Uploading, based on their work on rabbits; they promise to upload a copy of your brain to a computer. There’s only one catch – as they need to freeze your brain to make a copy of all the neural connections, the process is fatal.

Partly driven by our quest to develop artificial intelligence, a vast amount of research is being done on understanding human consciousness. One useful distinction is between the content of consciousness, for instance, the words you are processing reading this, and broader conscious awareness – the background awake energy and aliveness that you wake up with every morning before thoughts come streaming in. Another distinction is between the objective reality of the world, the trees, roads, buildings, and the sky, and the thoughts and perceptions we have about them. We can look at an apple on a plate and think “I see an apple on a plate”, but reality is always far more complex than we think. For instance, the subtle range of colours on the apple skin, the sweet and sharp tastes of the fruit, the arrangement of seeds within its centre, the bruise under the skin where it’s been knocked, and so on.

So, when we become caught up in the content of consciousness, we experience a more limited view of ourselves, other people, and the world around us. This can be summarised as our tendency to:

Conflate the content of consciousness and conscious awareness as the same thing.
Skim over the surface and miss the rich complexity and wonder of reality.
Overly identify with our thoughts. Although they may be about us, they are not who we are.

So how can mindfulness help us break through these limitations? Given that our minds typically wander around half of our waking lives, bringing ourselves into the present moment to notice the thoughts we’re entertaining is a good start. We can then shift the focus of our attention away from our thoughts to a different mode of experience; by coming into being, which is conscious awareness. Simply being means resting in the expanded space and stillness of awareness that includes all the thoughts, emotions, and sensations (content) that come and go within that space. Thinking is often directed inward. Being is turning our attention and awareness outwards to our body and senses.

We can bring ourselves into being mode by:

Letting go of overly identifying with thoughts and beliefs about “me and my situation”.
Disengaging our attention away from thoughts and turning it out towards our body and senses
Fully accepting whatever is happening in our experience
If thoughts and feelings arise, acknowledge them and allow them to come and go
Bringing openness, kindness, and appreciation to our experience

Our busy work and personal lives are often so full of responsibilities, activities, and deadlines that it’s no wonder that our minds become agitated and that we spend so much time in our heads. By developing and practising mindfulness, we discover that there is a different mode of experience, a hidden resource that is always available in the background. Coming into being connects us to a more open, flexible, and direct experience of reality that can free us from our mind-made limitations and transform who we are in that moment.

Suggested weekly practice

Notice the difference between thinking and being, where your attention is consumed in content (thinking) or broader awareness (being) of what you are doing
Explore the space of background awareness as you walk, turning awareness out to the broad soundscape as sounds come and go, the movement of your body, and thoughts that arise are acknowledged and pass away as you rest in being while moving
Try resting in awareness as you move into activity – doing from a state of being. For example, extending the walking practice above into other areas of activity, like listening in a meeting, etc.

Guidance

Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware. There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then close your eyes while this meditation plays to explore and experience coming into being.

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Replenishing

Our bodies need energy, in the form of oxygen and food, to remain healthy and effective throughout the day. When we run out of food at home, we go to the shop and replenish our fridge and kitchen cupboards. Apart from eating lunch, a parallel in our work lives is to take a break, away from the busy activity, messages, and screens so that we can replenish our mind, body, and emotions, to begin again; fresh, open, and energised.

The 2020-22 pandemic changed how many of us work, from working from home to an improved focus on mental health and well-being at work. Although avoiding the need to travel to unnecessary face-to-face meetings is more sustainable and productive, we are busier than ever, packing more activity into each day. So, it’s unsurprising that fewer than a third of people can take a full hour for lunch, and around half work through their lunch break. Taking breaks and having the time to eat properly is important for our health and well-being. A bit like the battery in a smartphone, we occasionally need to replenish and re-charge; allowing our busy minds to settle down a little while releasing any stress and emotional tension that may have built up in our bodies.

The UK Working Time Regulations are not overly generous but say that people are entitled to one twenty-minute rest break during the working day, which could be a work or lunch break if we work more than six hours. If we work in front of a screen all day, it’s recommended to take a break of between five and ten minutes every hour of continuous screen time. Not surprisingly, there’s good evidence that taking proper breaks has a positive impact on performance at work. Recent research found that people who took regular breaks performed much better than colleagues who continued without a break.

And for many of us, the end of the working day does not mean we can relax. There may be children or other dependents to look after, meals to prepare, and many other tasks that make some evenings seem like a busy workday.

So, what has all this to do with mindfulness? The answer is that mindfulness is very relevant, as it’s about bringing a set of skills and attitudes to our experience that make a difference at work and in our personal lives. Although mindfulness often focuses on finding a better path through the difficulties and challenges, we encounter, the practice also opens possibilities to learn, grow, and appreciate the positive things in life, while we’re living it.

Here is a quick mindful replenishing practice to use during a short break:

Take some slow deep breaths with your awareness of the physical sensations of breathing
Connect with your body and notice any tension or tightness
Relax and release the areas of tension and tightness and connect with the aliveness in your body
Acknowledge any emotions, and allow them to be just as they are
See if it’s possible to let go of and begin to release any held feelings, as you relax your body
Acknowledge any thoughts that are around, without being pulled into the full story of anyone’s thought
Allow any agitation and restless thoughts to settle
Bring your attention to your sense of hearing and expand your awareness, opening to the space and stillness that’s always available in the background of experience

Other ways to replenish mindfully during the day include:

Walking mindfully, open, and aware of your body and senses
Taking a mindful break in the park, or in nature, or find somewhere where you can look up at the sky
Eating a piece of fruit mindfully
Practising gratitude and acknowledging the positive in yourself and other people

In our busy lives, it is all too easy to get caught up in activities without time to pause, reflect, and recharge. Setting aside time to replenish ourselves during the day can make a big difference to our overall performance, happiness, and well-being.

Suggested weekly practice

Notice when your energy drops during the day and take a replenishing break as soon as you can. Use the natural breaks between tasks, for instance walking between meetings, to run through the mindful replenishing practice outlined above.
If you experience eye strain during the day, try the 20–20–20 rule; every 20 minutes, focus your eyes on an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. As you look into the distance, see if you can also relax any tightness or tension around your eyes, face, jaw, neck, and shoulders.
Practise good sleep hygiene, together with a mindful routine, before you go to bed to give yourself the best opportunity of having a restful and replenishing sleep.

Guidance

Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware. There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to replenish by relaxing the body, releasing emotions, and calming the mind.

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Time

There is a saying that goes something like, “When you’re young you have time and energy but no money, in mid-life you have money and energy but no time, and in later life, you have time and money, but no energy.” Maybe we are having the time of our life now, but many of us feel that we are time-poor, with too much to do and not enough time, both at work and in our personal lives. We look back at old photos and see we’ve grown older and that our children or younger family members have transformed into young adults, in what seems like no time at all.

We have no sense, like taste or touch, to measure time. Although we think of time as the steady ticking of a clock, our experience of time is more elastic and depends on how focussed we are on what we are doing. Time seems to slow down when we’re engaged in something new, something scary like paragliding, or when we’re focussed on the detail of an activity, like listening closely to a piece of music.

When we intentionally open our awareness and focus our attention, our brains process more information about our experience. When we’re not aware and focussed, our brains tend to label and filter the world around us as familiar and “already known”. This makes sense from a processing perspective; why spend energy processing the same things we come across every day? Although this mode is useful, it also means that we sometimes miss out on a richer experience of life. For instance, our brain may notice “flowers” in the vase we walk past and then quickly move on. The difference when we walk past with awareness is that we’re more likely to notice and appreciate the beauty of the vivid purple tulip petals and enjoy their subtle fragrance. This mode is about experiencing the world in a more direct and connected way, rather than indirectly when we skim over the surface of the world around us.

For tens of thousands of years, our ancestors measured time during the day by following the movement of the sun across the sky, which connected them to the broader reality of life on Earth. We’ve only had standardised time for around 180 years, since the industrial revolution and the use of railways. Although people had clocks and watches before then, actual clock time varied across the country. Today we’re surrounded by time information on our computers and smartphones and conditioned to clock time that has little to do with noticing the sun. One surprising development is that in our digital world people are now growing up without knowing how to tell the time from an analogue clock face.

Different cultures relate to time in quite distinct ways. Researchers found that the pace of life tends to be faster in industrial economies, with large populations and cooler climates. Not surprisingly, in countries like the US and Northern Europe, work tends to be full-on, fast-paced, and challenges our work-life balance. At the other extreme, African Bushmen work six hours a day for two to three days a week.

When we’re mindful, our awareness rests in the flowing moment of experience. The previous moment is now in the past and, apart from what gets stored in memory, is out of reach. The next moment, which we sometimes anticipate, is flowing towards us and has yet to arise.

It’s only ever now, even when we replay yesterday’s news on TV. When researchers explored mind-wandering they discovered that we drift into automatic thoughts, mulling over the past, anticipating the future, or commenting on our present experience 48% of the time. By being more aware of mind-wandering and bringing our attention back to the present, we’re less likely to get drawn into negative or worrying thoughts about the past or future, or judgements about the present, that no longer serve us.

Sometimes it’s useful to scan across the surface of things. Mindful awareness gives us the choice to switch between, the often less aware, top-down skimming and a more aware and rich experience from the bottom-up, depending on what we’re doing.

Time is one of the key measures of our lives; it marks our age and structures our behaviour over each day. Although we’re relatively affluent compared with our recent ancestors, we find ourselves time-poor in many areas of our lives. By practising mindfulness, maybe we can make better use of the time we have and even slow down, or speed up how we experience time itself.

Suggested weekly practice

Notice the relativity of time by exploring how time flows in different ways depending on what you are doing during the day.
If time seems to be passing very slowly and you’re feeling a little bit low, send your attention outwards and see if time speeds up and your mood improves.
Explore the perceptual difference between top-down skimming and bottom-up awareness. For instance, the difference between looking superficially and really looking.

Guidance

Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to explore the different modes of direct, bottom-up and detailed experience and indirect, top-down and more superficial experience. You’ll also explore how you perceive time passing.

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