Wendy GraceReal mindfulness can be a deeply Catholic experience, writes Wendy Grace
Mindfulness is getting a lot of press these days – it even made the front cover of Time Magazine. It’s being heralded as a way to deal with anxiety and stress. Most of the classes, books and Zen-like discussions you will hear about mindfulness derive from Buddhist practices. The big differences between the mindfulness Christians have been practising for thousands of years and the Eastern influenced mindfulness is they want you to meditate inwardly. Christian meditation does precisely the opposite. To take you out of yourself, towards God and from there to other people.
Secular mindfulness is a brain exercise. It creates a ritual for those who don’t pray. Christian meditation practices have been freely handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. In recent years, however, teaching meditation and mindfulness has become a billion dollar industry that is arguably more interested in your cash than your well-being.
Christian meditation and Christian mindfulness, on the other hand, are guided in a true understanding of who we are and why we were made in union with God. While frustrated in traffic we can choose to shout at the steering wheel or be aware of our surroundings, thanking God for the music on the radio, or the trees and natural beauty around us.
A 2010 meta-analysis of 39 studies “… found that mindfulness is an effective treatment for anxiety and mood disorders.”
Future attacks
It seems that people with depression tend to fixate on the past, whereas people with anxiety disorders tend to worry about the future. “Helping people who have suffered from these things to focus on the moment can help stave off future attacks, and to become aware of, and in control of, negative emotions.”
So tailoring mindfulness and linking it with our Christian faith is undoubtedly positive. What is equally true is we don’t need to recreate the wheel, you might be tempted to dismiss it as a ‘New Age’ fad, it’s put forth as if it is some secular modern idea, but really mindfulness can be a way to both deepen our faith and manage stress in our everyday lives.
The sad reality for many is the fact that faith and prayer has been etched out of their lives and the public sphere. This has left a gaping hole which people need to fill.
Often we are filling our need for reflection, silence and prayer with business and the superficialities of life. Could it be that sidelining the original master of true mindfulness, God, has had a massively negative impact on people’s lives? I’m not surprised; the world is looking for new ways to cope with the stress of life when faith has virtually been airbrushed out of the picture in Western society.
We don’t need to replace thousands of years of Christian tradition and techniques; all we need is already tried and tested.
As Catholics we can reap all the benefits while enriching our faith by simply pointing our meditation in the right direction. We all need to have that personal relationship with God which is hard to find in a noisy, busy modern life.
The more we get from God in our quiet time, the more we can give in the busy parts of our lives. Perhaps a better word for mindfulness is prayer. It can be done in many ways including longer periods of quiet time and living in the present moment.
“Pause a while and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a). So many examples of this quiet time are in Scripture. For centuries Christians have been practising meditation. Jesus himself engaged regularly in times of contemplation during his ministry on earth.
There are some great places to start, for example practicing what is offered in lectio divina, and Taizé which I believe are better than any modern methods of mindfulness.
The Catechism defines prayer as “… the raising of the mind and heart to God”. If we are to be truly connected with our Catholic faith we would automatically be mindful most of the time. We are meant to be detached from the superficial things, walking around in a mindless state but one that is open to God in the moment.
Mindfulness can sometimes be defined as being present ‘in the moment’; it is about being aware and being able to choose the best emotional response at that time. It requires discipline to be in control of our emotions.
For example, if a colleague in work was irritating you and you were being reactive, you might lash out and from a mindfulness perspective you are aware of the anger you feel but you decide on a better response. It is in this type of every day mindfulness that we can weave our faith into things ‘Lord, please give me the patience to not lash out at this person.”
So the opposite of mindfulness is a reactionary, superficial approach to life. A lot of modern day writings on mindfulness draw from Eastern Spirituality, so it is important as Christians to draw on the thousands of years of what Catholics have been practising such as ‘active contemplation’.
We can do this any time day during our day: while running errands or doing work or at home. It will help inspire us to be more mindful throughout our day.
The goal is to be mindfully centred in the Holy Spirit when we make breakfast, drive the car, engage in work, talk on the phone, wash the dishes, walk to the bus or take out the bins.
This is a prayer aimed at building our relationship with God; it allows us to use the mundane tasks of live to better engage with God and, consequently, the people around us.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola gives us a mindfulness prayer called the Examen which is a prayerful reflection on your day to bring God into your day. Jesuits (and so I assume Pope Francis) practice the Examen twice daily.
A technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us, the Examen can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience. When doing it, these are the steps you take:
1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look foward to tomorrow.
Adoration
Meditation is also an important part of mindfulness. From a Christian perspective there are a few ways to meditate; the first is to use familiar prayerful words repeatedly, in the mind or out loud using them to override our worries or fears. Or we can simply breathe, sitting quietly with God, contemplating Scripture, perhaps in Adoration or just in a quiet space. Yes your mind may wander but when it does just gently bring yourself back into silence.
Some other examples of a classic, traditional Catholic spirituality that we can learn from can be found in Abandonment to Divine Providence by Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade and The Practice of the Presence of God by Bro. Lawrence.
When we focus on the present moment, we can have a sense of being present with the reality of where God exists. That is why Bro. Lawrence calls it the “sacrament of the present moment”. The present moment is when an experience of an encounter with God, who is invisible, is possible.
Really it is about that trustful surrender to God, who is ever-present, which actually leads to mindfulness. Christianity holds the key to authentic mindfulness.
The prayer below by Thomas Merton from Life and Holiness sums up what true mindfulness is all about:
“When I am liberated by silence,
when I am no longer involved
in the measurement of life, but in the living of it,
I can discover a form of prayer in which
there is effectively no distraction.
My whole life becomes a prayer.
My whole silence is full of prayer.
The world of silence in which I am immersed
contributes to my prayer.”