“What do I notice about this situation right now? Is a good question to ask yourself. It helps differentiate what’s actually going on from your mental projections. This then helps you to stay ‘reality oriented’, and build confidence in your capacity to deal with any presenting challenge.”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This weeks article looks at the relationship between mindfulness and learning in the moment. Its an area that I have found particularly useful over the years!
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In the spirit of the journey,
Toby
Optimizing your experiential learning
One of the main aims of mindfulness is to optimize your capacity for learning in the moment by being more present. It aims to help you see more clearly what is happening right now, as opposed to what you think is happening.
What do you mean ‘what you think is happening’?
Normally when we experience something, we assume that our perception is accurate and related to what is actually happening. Actually, what’s happening and what we are experiencing are two different things. This is because our mind projects its idea of what is going on on top of the actual event. Three things are generally happening in any given situation:
- What is happening in the moment
- Our projection of what we think is happening based upon our past experience and ‘story’
- Our idea of what is happening based upon the ‘mental models‘ of reality that we have learned from our education, culture, society, religion and so on…
Good mindfulness practice aims to help us stay with position 1, what is happening in the moment, without confusing it with points 2&3. Positions 2&3 can help us, but only as secondary advisers.
An example; the crying baby
This example is current for me right now, having a three-month year old in the house! If you can understand it with this example, then you can apply it to your own circumstances. So, its 4am and I have a crying baby. Examined from position 1, I notice she is upset, possibly hungry. I notice I am tired, and so on. This source is literally what I experience in the moment
From position 2 my mind will be projecting images and emotions from the past, for example;
- How much the baby has been crying in the recent past
- My idea of what sort of parent I would like to be/think I should be
- Ideas from my own experience of being parented as a child
- My past experience of babies
From position 3, my mind will also be projecting ideas, for example:
- Psychological models I may have learned at University
- Religious worldviews I may have picked up at the church or mosque
- Books I’ve read on parenting and baby care
As a mindfulness practitioner, I aim not to get lost in positions 2&3. I aim to be primarily focused on position 1, learning from what I am seeing and experiencing in the moment. Ideas I have from my past, or from learning models are helping me as a support, but are never leading the operation. They are secondary rather than primary.
Working like this I aim to try and solve the situation at hand, based on its own unique merits and circumstances, rather than confusing it with a mental projection of what I think is going on.
“What do I notice about this situation right now?”
…is a good question to ask yourself when you’re trying to learn and work experientially with a challenge. It helps differentiate what’s actually going on from your mental projections. This in turn helps you to stay solidly ‘reality oriented’, and build confidence in your capacity to be as adequate as possible to any presenting challenge!
Watch Toby’s video on this Subject:
Related article: Mindfulness – Facilitating Your Own Experiential Learning
Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com
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