People have been practicing various forms of mindfulness for centuries, realizing an abundance of benefits such as stress reduction, improved creativity, and increased personal awareness. With scientific evidence backing these perks, it would seem reasonable to expect that most people could appreciate mindfulness. However, there are still many who struggle to accept its helpfulness.
In fact, mindfulness has become the center of controversy in recent months. An article published in The Guardian accuses the practice of being too dissuasive of activism, acting as a kind of "social anesthesia." To discover how mindfulness can be (and already has been) a potent tool for positive social transformation, we decided to take a step back to re-explore mindfulness and how people can use it to make a difference.
An Overview of Mindfulness
For people new to mindfulness, one of their first introductions to the practice is often "the raisin exercise," which involves extricating a raisin from its little cardboard box and eating it. Simple, right?
Well, there's more to it than that; the exercise isn't merely about enjoying a dried grape as a snack. Instead, it's designed to showcase the full experience of eating the raisin. It’s a practice in being.
While this exercise may sound simple, it’s easier said than done. It requires close attention to every aspect of the experience, from opening the box, to smelling and feeling the texture of the raisin, to tasting it and feeling the sensation of what’s it’s like to be chewing something.
Once you experience being fully aware of a moment, it can actually be startling to realize how much extraneous noise you have absent-mindedly bouncing around in your noggin. It’s this incessant inner-chatter that mindfulness exercises endeavor to change, helping practitioners to focus in a way that our fast-paced, multi-tasking society seldom allows.
At its most basic core, mindfulness is defined as "being fully cognizant of yourself (both mentally and physically), your environment, and the present moment.” In a world that offers almost endless distractions, from the constant pressure to multitask to the hundreds of daily notifications from our electronic devices, it becomes increasingly difficult to be present in the moment. Mindfulness also encourages objectivity and acceptance, asking that, as we pay attention to our thoughts and emotions, we refrain from making any value judgments about them. By quieting our own inner critics, we avoid telling ourselves that it is wrong to feel a certain way or that we are thinking “correctly” in any given situation.
Recontextualizing Mindfulness
However, mindfulness has managed to generate its own share of critics who question how the practices are applied and worry that mindfulness is sometimes marketed as a commodity or practiced with limited forethought in the pursuit of a vague, idealized lifestyle. This type of mindfulness is frequently referred to as “McMindfulness,” referencing the fact that some Western practitioners of mindfulness have divorced it from its foundation in Eastern philosophies and theologies, specifically Buddhism, and sell it on the market as a new-age commodity. The term is also used in the context of pseudo-consultants and erroneous or distorted research.
While neglecting the theological Buddhist roots of mindfulness can certainly be problematic, there has been a value and purpose to the secularization. As Positive Psychology Lecturer, Dr Tim Lomas notes, the secularization efforts have been
"(a) necessary and (b) useful. First, without this secularization, mindfulness would arguably not have made the degree of impact in the West as it has done. Second, even in its decontextualized way, mindfulness has been utilized successfully across diverse academic and professional fields, from education to health care."
This suggests that, while the criticism of the secularization of mindfulness may not be entirely without merit, it was a necessary sacrifice for mindfulness to be able to flourish in Western culture. Moreover, even without its early roots, mindfulness is still an incredibly valuable and effective practice.
The Guardian Article
In June of 2019, a piece was published in The Guardian that took issue with the "trend" of mindfulness and accused it of being merely a temporary tool for stress-reduction instead of a practice that could lead to real and effective change. The author of that piece, Ronald Purser, alleges that, "Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live," which he believes distorts reality and continues our imprisonment in troubling societal frameworks.
Further, he claims that since mindfulness focuses on acceptance and awareness, it teaches us to simply "cope" with the suffering society throws at us instead of encouraging us to question and dismantle the injurious frameworks. In essence, he contends that mindfulness leads to passivity and kills the drive for positive change.
However, according to 2017 APA International Humanitarian Award recipient Kathryn Norsworthy of Rollins College, far from being mutually exclusive, mindfulness and activism share an invaluable link. True mindfulness requires us to challenge the status quo, especially since, as mindfulness teaches us to observe the present objectively, we should be aware of the world around us—its beauty and defects—more than ever. As Norsworthy states,
Mindful activism involves intentionally remaining conscious, aware, attentive, and reflexive from moment to moment throughout the processes of our work, particularly in relation to our core values and commitment to liberation. Both of us [Norsworthy and colleague, Ouyporn Khuankaew] are practitioners of engaged Buddhism, which emphasizes social activism from a foundation of mindfulness, compassion, noninjury, and interdependence.
In addition to actually being an instrument of change, mindfulness also empowers those who desire to make a difference in their own lives and for those in their communities and around the world by helping them to see things in a new and positive light.
This allows and encourages active change, then, as it permits us to see what should be in our lives and in the world, and to be brave enough to try and make that happen without being crushed by the shadow of past failures.
Certainly, it is easy to look at prior perceived personal or societal failings and worry that past defeats will dictate present results. This doubt can lead to a sort of paralysis, in which an individual becomes afraid to even attempt a previous task that didn't lead to success. In fact, research suggests that failure can actually generate fear, causing stress when the task is attempted again. For this reason, coping with mistakes is often difficult because of the emotions and thoughts that are attached to that activity.
Enter the mindfulness idea of "reframing." Reframing is the cognitive practice of acknowledging and changing negative thoughts. This shift in perspective can change the way you view all of your negative experiences, including emotions, ideas, interactions, and events.
To be clear, reframing isn't about ignoring unfortunate events, it's about accepting. In conjunction with this acceptance, we can often discover new opportunities and ways to better ourselves that ultimately help use make the positive change that we wish to see in the world.
Drive Positive Change for Your Organization
In the workplace and in our personal lives, mindfulness can be an incredibly powerful and valuable practice. With it, we can achieve positive changes across the interpersonal, professional, and societal spectrums. If you'd like to learn more about mindfulness and how it can help your organization, please contact us today. We would be delighted to help you on your mindfulness journey.