There is a long list of potential benefits to mindfulness, from helping to alleviate chronic pain and the many physical symptoms of stress, to treating mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Whatever your reason, if you’re thinking about attending mindfulness class, or already signed up for one, and feeling hesitant about what to expect, then read on.
About a month ago I attended my first mindfulness class. Elisa invited me to one of her drop-in classes specifically as a person who’s never experienced mindfulness before and asked me to write a post about my experience. I’ve never been a religious or spiritual person, never gotten into meditation, yoga, or any other ancient or New Age wellness practices. I’ve always found it difficult to understand the concepts of meditation or other self-healing and spiritual practices. I need specific instructions; vague sentiments like “Accept your feelings as they are” will leave me with a niggling “But how?”
I’ve also suffered from moderate to severe anxiety on and off since I was a kid, had therapy for it throughout my life, and been on anti-anxiety medication. My anxious brain has always been very adept at questioning everything and bringing up alternate scenarios (everyone with anxiety is familiar with “But what if…?”) so the idea of mindfulness with its focus on sensing rather than thinking seemed appealing, although I was highly doubtful whether I could actually do it.
In my mind, a mindfulness class falls somewhere between group therapy and Pilates: Serious enough that it’s used in the treatment of a variety of mental and physical problems, such as depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, but light enough to have become extremely popular, no stigma or secrecy attached. In other words, everyone who attends a mindfulness class has their baggage, their reason to attend, but the baggage could be anything from crippling depression to having a stressful week at work.
With this in mind, I was a bit hesitant about what kind of atmosphere I would face. The first thing I noticed when I arrived was that the class had a very low threshold: It felt like even though I’d never been to one of Elisa’s classes before, it was completely natural and even expected that I was there. At the time people were just starting to limit their group activities due to the coronavirus, so there were only two other participants that evening. We took our seats and waited for Elisa to set up, and even though it was the ideal setting for awkward ceiling gazing, the atmosphere in the room was almost serene. No-one was chatting or checking their phones, or in fact, concentrating on others at all. It became increasingly clear that everybody’s here for themselves and themselves only. Yes, it’s a group, you sit in a chair circle, there’s an instructor who guides your practice, but that’s where the “group”-part of it ends. No- one’s put on the spot, there is no introduction rounds and you don’t have to talk about your experience.
The hour-long class was divided into two parts: First part was guided mindful meditation, while the second was more self-paced, with a short break in the middle. To begin, Elisa asked us to sit comfortably, place our hands where they felt natural, and close our eyes or lower our gaze to the floor, whichever felt more comfortable. Keyword seemed to be comfort, and Elisa emphasised that it was OK to switch positions if they got awkward or painful, or stretch a stiff neck or numb legs. As someone who is unable to sit still for long without getting a cramp in my back, it was a relief to hear my shuffling would not disrupt the class.
Elisa has a very calm and kind voice, the kind that allows you to easily follow and digest her instructions without disrupting your meditation. Throughout, the atmosphere in the room was relaxed, but not the kind where you nod off; instead, I felt very comfortable and safe to concentrate on myself. We were first asked to concentrate on the present moment and what we can sense in it. The idea was not to start describing it in your head but to acknowledge whatever sensations or feelings we had and let them be, without the need to explore them further. In other words, if you felt sad, you acknowledged your sadness but didn’t take that further into the whys and hows. Elisa continued, saying that if we noticed ourselves falling into the pattern of explaining things, we should just acknowledge them as stories our brain is making and try to bring our focus back onto the present moment and its contents.
Elisa continued by asking us to pay attention to what we sense in our body; if we felt tightness or numbness anywhere or any other sensations. The key was again to pay attention, but not activate the stream of thoughts. We were encouraged to either concentrate on one area of the body where we might feel a specific sensation or just simply go through our entire body, part by part. Being a first-timer and not entirely sure I was doing this right, I started with my toes and feet, spent a few moments sensing the slight numbness on the soles of my feet, and giving them a little wiggle. Then I moved onto my lower legs, then knees, thighs, and onwards, systematically going through my body. If we found our thoughts running away, Elisa instructed us to gently pull our attention back to the present and our sensations, and emphasised that getting distracted is not a failure, nor will it negate any progress you’ve made. It’s simply an opportunity to refocus and redirect.
Elisa then asked us to focus on our breathing. We could follow every exhale and inhale, or concentrate on specific sensations such as the up-down movement of our bellies, or the slow filling and deflation in our lungs. The key was to feel these sensations, again without putting them into words in your mind. We were guided to let our breathing travel freely within our body, perhaps to the places where we felt tension or even pain, and gently move around those places. I visualised my breathing going to my slightly aching back and moving back and forth around the muscles.
Finally, Elisa instructed us to sense what’s outside our body, such as the chair we sat on, or the floor beneath our feet, and their connection. Not to explain it or describe it, just to sense it. For someone not used to meditation, this was a good way to ground myself after focusing on sensations within my body. Midway through, the class had a free movement break, and Elisa instructed us to stretch or move about the room if we felt like it. I took this time to stretch my neck and move my legs around a bit; others stood up and stretched their feet, and Elisa lay down on her back and propped her feet up on a chair. This was yet another moment where the personal focus of the class was visible: Everyone did whatever felt necessary to them, and no-one paid attention to what the others did.
The second meditation gave us more room to explore what Elisa had taught us at our own pace: The examples she gave were still fresh in my memory so it was easy to pick them up again, and see what I could focus on without guidance. Elisa still gave the occasional suggestion and reminded us that whatever we sensed or felt was enough. At the end of the second meditation, we were invited to share any thoughts that might’ve popped up regarding today’s class, but there was no pressure to say anything, no long awkward pauses. My head was so comfortably empty, for once, from all the usual brain chatter, that it took me a moment to find my bearings.
So what did I get from attending my first mindfulness class? I learned that it is possible to silence the constant stream of thoughts, and it’s not the same as trying NOT to think about something. For example, when you’re worried about something, and you try to push the worry away, to concentrate on something else, how often do you find that the same worry pops up again and again no matter how much you try to distract yourself? Mindfulness instead asks you to acknowledge the worry, and when you start getting carried away with your thoughts, acknowledge them too, but as just something your brain does instead of something you need to follow, or give importance to.
I always thought practices like mindfulness were a bit too abstract for my liking, and that you needed to be a spiritually dedicated person to get something out of them. At first, when listening to Elisa’s instructions, I didn’t quite get how to let my breathing move around my tension spots. Then it dawned on me that I was trying to explain the sensation, instead of just feeling it. I began to visualise exactly what Elisa said, which made it easy to focus on a particular spot or sensation. I was pleasantly surprised to have been proven wrong about mindfulness, and all it took was a teacher who knows her craft. Even though it was my first class, it shook up two of my firmly held beliefs; that I’m an overthinker, and there’s nothing I can do about it and that I will never get meditation. I was left with a sense of relief that I now had a method I could continue practising at my own pace.
- Anna-Mari