One of the participants in our Mindful Motherhood Training for new moms (I’ll call her Cindy) told us a story about one of those moments that every mom dreads. At the park one day, she and her husband took their toddler and their four-month-old baby in her stroller to the pond to watch the miniature boats sail. There was a band playing, the sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, kids were laughing and feeding the ducks, vendors were selling hot pretzels and ice cream, and teenagers were roller-blading. It was an all-around lovely day. While she was paying attention to her older child, out of the corner of her eye, Cindy saw the stroller, baby strapped in, rolling toward the pond. Seemingly in slow motion, the stroller rolled right into the pond, baby and all! Luckily the baby only ended up wet and surprised, as she was pulled out of the pond by Cindy’s husband. Freeze frame.
This experience contains lots and lots of elements at first glance. There are the sounds of music, kids chatting and laughing, the sparkle of sun reflecting off the water, the feeling of the breeze and the warmth of the sun, the scent of soft pretzels from the cart nearby, the yells of “Hey!” and “Oh my God!” from people who noticed what had happened. For the minute it took for her husband to race to the rescue, Cindy had already had all kinds of thoughts: “How could I have let this happen? I know I set the parking brake on the stroller…or did I? How will I tell people how my baby drowned in a shallow lake in the park? What did they say about baby chest compressions in that infant CPR class!?” Her body tensed up; there was fear and panic. This all became understandably overwhelming quite quickly.
But actually, this experience (and every experience you have) contains three elements: your thoughts, your feelings, and your body’s sensations. Even in this complicated moment, there were only three things that were happening in Cindy’s experience. She was thinking: in this case, trying to figure out how to get to the baby and not leave her toddler alone, and wishing people would get out of the way. She was feeling: fearful that her baby was in real danger, shocked, perhaps a little angry, and energized to get to the little one. And, she was sensing through her eyes, ears, nose, sense of touch, sense of taste, and body sensations. She took in all the sights and scents around her, the tension, the feelings of wind and sun on her skin, and the sensation of being jostled about by the people in her path.
In every situation you’ll encounter as a new mom, whether it is chaotic or mellow, there are three things happening. Examine what’s going on for you right now. You are probably having some thoughts, or your mind is focused on reading and digesting this information. You may be having some feelings or emotions. There may be some body sensations, like relaxation , coolness or warmth, or tension. And everything that is happening “outside” of you is being perceived through your senses—the usual five senses of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. There is also a sixth sense that I like to call your felt sense, or your gut feelings or overall bodily perception of things (like when the hackles rise on the back of your neck or you feel at home and relaxed). Mindfulness begins with noticing what is happening in these three realms of experience—thinking, feeling, and sensing.
THINKING
If you are like me (and like most people I’ve worked with), your mind chatters constantly. It gives you a running commentary on everything that is occurring. It’s almost as though you’ve got your own personal CNN anchorperson reporting on your life as you are living it. It labels things as good or bad, evaluating each experience. It plans for the future and reflects on the past. It looks for problems or things that are not working or that are out of place, and it tries to solve, fix, or figure them out. It tells stories about how and why things happen in each situation. It categorizes and compares. All of this, whether or not it serves you well, is the realm that we will call thinking.
Thinking in and of itself is not a problem. We all have lots and lots of thinking that is positive and helpful. Your thinking may be directed toward solving problems, or appropriately planning for the future, or reflecting on the past. Or your thinking may be simply random—chatting about whatever comes along. Thinking is a useful tool that we humans have been provided with to help figure things out, solve problems, learn from the past, and plan for the future. Thinking is great for things like: “How can I get that peach down from the highest branch?”, or “How many diapers will I need over the next month?”, or “How can I create a workflow solution that will utilize my department’s resources most effectively?” Honest reflection is helpful for processing and learning from situations in the past, for example: “Looking back, I can see that if I had approached my partner with less blame in my tone, things might have gone more smoothly,” or “What I think bothers me most about that doctor isn’t that I have to wait in the waiting room so long each time, but that he seems too preoccupied to really attend to my pregnancy concerns. I think I’ll change doctors.”
Unfortunately, though, the internal commentary can get pretty loud. It can take center stage in your experience, relegating everything else—body sensations, your feelings, your environment, sounds and sights, even the person right in front of you—into the background. Your experiences are all filtered through your thinking mind, and your mind can begin to seem a little bit like the guest who won’t leave and takes up residence in the living room.
It can become as though your own personal CNN announcer is speaking through a bullhorn. Thinking begins to run the show completely, and rather than engaging directly with what is happening, you are primarily engaged with your story about what is happening. Rather than being engaged with the present moment as it is, you are caught up in the past, in the future, in your evaluations, or in problem solving. Your mind can be like a runaway train from which it’s hard to jump off. You can even feel like you are your thoughts. I think, therefore I am, right?
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Excerpt from: MINDFUL MOTHERHOOD: Practical Tools for Staying Sane in Pregnancy
and Your Child's First Year (New Harbinger Publications)
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, research psychologist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, codirector of the Mind Body Medicine Research Group at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, and vice president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology. Her research has focused on mindfulness-based approaches to cultivating emotional balance, the involvement of biology, psychology, and emotion in addiction and recovery, the role of compassionate intent and belief in healing, and the factors, experiences, and practices involved in psychospiritual transformation to a more altruistic, compassionate, and service-oriented way of life. She has published several academic articles and chapters and has conducted numerous presentations at international scientific conferences.
Foreword writer Sylvia Boorstein, Ph.D., is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a psychotherapist, wife, mother, and grandmother. She is author of several books including It’s Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness; Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There: A Mindfulness Retreat; That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist; Pay Attention for Goodness' Sake: The Buddhist Path of Kindness; and Happiness Is an Inside Job.