How to do mindfulness and meditation

For ordinary practitioners, the core of the most practical operation of mindfulness meditation is actually to "put your attention gently on the anchor point of the present moment, pull it back when your mind wanders, and do not criticize yourself during the whole process." There is no need to sit cross-legged for half an hour with an empty mind to achieve success. I ran into a lot of pitfalls when I first started working. I followed online tutorials and forced myself to meditate for 20 minutes every day after work. When I sat down, my mind was filled with unfinished plans and unanswered messages. I scolded myself for being useless when I found that my mind wandered. Why didn't I even have this little concentration? After half a month, I didn't feel relaxed. Instead, I became anxious when I got to the point of meditating. It wasn’t until I went to the hospital for sleep adjustment and talked with a doctor from the psychosomatic department that I realized that the action of “bringing your attention back” is the core training of mindfulness meditation. Just like doing biceps curls repeatedly, it does not count as holding a dumbbell and not moving. The process of repeatedly pulling back is to exercise your control over your attention.

There are actually different opinions in the circle about the practice method. One group believes that there must be a fixed formal practice time, sitting upright, closing eyes, and following the guidance for at least 10-15 minutes a day, in order to form a stable awareness habit. The other group believes that mindfulness can be integrated into all daily fragments, and there is no need to deliberately arrange time. I have tried both methods myself. When I have free time during the project, I wake up and sit on the bedside for 10 minutes every morning. I just stare at my breathing and feel the temperature difference between the air in and out of my nostrils. If my mind wanders and I think of what meeting I have to hold today, I just gently pull my thoughts back without any burden. When I was so busy that I didn’t even have time to drink water, I treated every time I received water, unpacked the takeout, and waited for the elevator as a mini exercise. When I received the water, I felt the vibration of the water falling on the wall of the cup and the heavier and heavier weight of the cup.

Some people also say that practicing mindfulness too much will make people become Buddhist and unmotivated. This statement actually has two sides. According to existing research, long-term mindfulness practice will indeed reduce people's excessive rumination. They will not always be trapped in negative assumptions such as "Did I just say the wrong thing?"； However, there are also clinical cases showing that if people have severe post-traumatic stress disorder or severe depression, they practice blindly without professional guidance. Excessive inward awareness may amplify negative feelings and aggravate symptoms. Therefore, if you have been in a state of low mood and unable to control yourself for a long time, do not just find audio recordings to practice on your own. It is safer to find a professional psychological practitioner or a qualified mindfulness guide for evaluation before starting.

In fact, for ordinary people like us who just want to relieve our daily anxiety, we really don’t need to engage in so many rituals. We don’t need to buy a meditation mat, find a quiet empty room, or pursue an ethereal state where we don’t think about anything. Last time I went to eat hot pot with a friend, and she suddenly laughed when she was scalding her belly. To put it bluntly, this thing is just a small tool to relax your emotions. It can be as comfortable as you like. It can help you not to be stuck in the bad things of the past and the anxieties of the future. That's enough.