February 10, 2021 • 47 mins
Life is hectic. Everywhere you look, there is a battle for your attention; from your partner, kids, work, smartphone and so on. We tend not to think much about our it - we just go along. Nevertheless, mindfulness is about stopping to notice where your attention wanders off to and choosing where you actually want it to go. Over and over again.
Michael Chaskalson has a master's degree in the clinical applications of mindfulness. He has more than 40 years of experience with the discipline and has authored several books on the subject. Listen along, as we dive into mindfulness, and how you can use mindfulness to calm your life and focus on the present.
MICHAEL TALKS ABOUT
- Why you should treat yourself with greater kindness and forgiveness.
- The evidence of mindfulness. By example, it has proven to be a powerful tool to reduce depression – actually as effective as antidepressants, only cheaper, and with much fewer side effects.
- Mindfulness is rooted in Buddhism and Stoicism. Let’s find out, what we can learn from the two.
- How to get started on mindfulness
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Morten Andersen (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My
name is Morten Kamp Andersen.
And this is a podcast about whatit takes to make a change and
make it stick.
Some topics creep up everywhere,they become so popular that most
(00:25):
people hear about them, and itbecomes mainstream. Mindfulness
is one of those things. Peopletell me that mindfulness create
a change in itself. But alsothat if you want to make a
change in your life, mindfulnesscan actually help you make that
happen. But what is mindfulness?
What can it do? How does itwork? Well, let's find out in
this episode of What Monkeys Do.
(00:48):
Four years ago, I attended aprogram for executives at London
Business School, the program wascalled professional service
program, it was essentiallyabout how could you become a
better consultant. And we were aclass of professionals from all
over the world. And I expectedto learn both hard and soft
skills. But I did not expectthat most challenging assignment
(01:12):
that I would get would involve arace. And I think it was on the
third day that my guest todayentered the room. He said that
high performance and excellentdecision making is not about
adding pressure to a work day.
Instead, it is about payingattention to the here and now,
he said, just paying attentionto your breath, and nothing else
is really hard. And I rememberthinking, How hard can that be?
(01:36):
And then he said, let's do anexercise. And he gave us all a
raison And for the next 10minutes, we spent looking,
smelling, feeling touching,biting a single raison. And it
sounds easy. And it's not. Iasked him afterwards, after the
exercise, which app I should useif I wanted to try it at home,
(01:58):
and he gave me the name of oneparticular Good one. And I went
home and I tried it. And nowI've actually been practicing
mindfulness ever since. So Itake my daily 15 minutes
mindfulness, and I love it. Myguest today has taught
mindfulness to 10s of 1000s ofpeople across the world. He has
(02:19):
a master's degree in theclinical applications of
mindfulness. And he has morethan 40 years of personal
practice of mindfulness. He isbased in Cambridge, UK, where he
is the founding director of theconsultancy company, Mindfulness
Works. He is a professor at HultAshridge executive education,
and an associate at the MillerInstitute, Churchill college at
(02:43):
the University of Cambridge. Heis the author of the Mindful
Workplace, and my favorite, andalso the best selling Mindful in
8 Weeks. And in addition, he hasco authored Mindfulness for
Coaches. Welcome to you, MichaelChaskalson
Michael Chaskalson (03:01):
Hello, Morten. It's great to be here.
Thank you very much for invitingme. I'm really looking forward
to this.
Morten Andersen (03:07):
Yeah, yeah. So am I. This is an episode about
mindfulness. Let's just startthere. What is mindfulness?
Michael Chaskalson (03:14):
well, we could speak about it.
Classically, we speak about itas a way of paying attention on
purpose in the present moment,and non judgmental, it's a
quality of a wellness or qualityof awareness that comes when you
do these things, pay attentionon purpose in the present
moment, and non judgmental. Andwhen I say that, it sounds kind
of simple, and in a way, issimple. The thing is, it's not
(03:38):
easy. And the reason it's noteasy is because we've spent all
of us 20, 30, 40, 50 years doingsomething different. So learning
to pay attention on purpose. Andin the present moment. You know,
much of the time our attentionwanders, even as people
listening to this podcast rightnow, attention is wandering,
(03:59):
there may be people listening tothis podcast while also doing
email, while playing games on aphone while scrolling through
social media, walking. But thenour attention is also so
massively contested. Everybodywants a piece of our attention.
All the time, our attention isbeing called on drawn here drawn
(04:21):
there. You're trying to listento this podcast and at the same
time, kids may be calling foryour attention, you may be
having a sense in the back ofyour mind that there are clients
and customers and the farm orthe company you work for needs
your attention, your partnerneeds your attention. And at the
same time, there are reallypowerful social media companies
(04:45):
using AI driven apps whose solepurpose is to get hold of your
attention so that other peoplecan monetize it. So all the time
our attention is this hugelycontested area. It's probably
the most valuable piece of RealEstate that we have; our
attention, when you think aboutit, everything we do, every act
(05:06):
we engage in, is preceded by anact of attention. Your attention
goes here, you behave like this,your attention is pulled there,
you start to incline in thatdirection, your attention goes
there, and your behaviorswitches and you start to move
off in that direction,everything we do is preceded by
an act of attention, which iswhy it's so valuable for social
(05:29):
media companies, for example, toget hold of our attention,
because when they get hold ofour attention, they can begin to
shape our behavior in ways thatsuit their own ads, just for
example. So our attention ishugely contested. And yet, when
we get some choice around whereour attention goes, then we can
get a little moment of freedomfrom this battle. The kids wants
(05:52):
your attention, the dog wantsyour attention. Social media
wants your attention.
Advertisers want your attention,your boss wants your attention,
the people who report to you,once you everybody wants your
attention, you're struggling tochoose. Mainly, we don't choose
mainly you just go. But when welearn to pay attention on
purpose, we place our attentionwhere we want it to be.
Morten Andersen (06:14):
So mindfulness is to take control over our
attention, so to speak. Soeverybody else who's trying to
get our attention. So we controlit. Many times, it's about
focusing on breathing instead,why breathing,
Michael Chaskalson (06:28):
I tend not to talk about trying to control
our attention, I'd prefer totalk about choosing where your
attention goes. If we thinkabout controlling it's it can be
kind of willful, it can be kindof tight, it can kind of give a
sense that we're just, you know,forcing our attention. And we're
not doing that here, we're justchoosing. So one of the methods
(06:50):
we use, one of the methods weuse to do this is mindfulness
meditation. It used to buildthis capacity to choose
mindfulness meditation. Now, aclassic mindfulness meditation.
And there are many differentapproaches to mindfulness
meditation, but classic is yousimply pay attention to the
breath, you create a quietspace, 5-10 minutes, and you
(07:13):
allow your attention to restwith your breath. And what
people discover very quickly,when they start to do this, is
your attention bounces off withthe breath, or one breath for
two breaths, and then a thoughtwanders into your mind, you get
interested in the thought, youstart to think, and in no time
at all, you're off thinking,thinking thinking one thought
(07:34):
leads to another thought, thatleads to another thought that
leads to some feelings thatleads to some impulses, and
you're all over the place andyou're lost. You're lost. You're
not just doing thisautomatically. choicelessly just
doing it, just doing it, justdoing it habitually thinking,
thinking, thinking, feeling,feeling, feeling. And then you
notice, oh, wow, I'm thinking,I'm not meant to be thinking I
(07:57):
meant to be meditating, I wantedto be paying attention to my
breath. So in that moment ofwaking up, you get the
opportunity to choose, oh, yeah,I'm doing that. I didn't mean to
be doing that. I meant to bedoing this. So you choose, you
bring your attention back to thebreath. And you're with the
breath for one breath, twobreaths for three breaths,
another thought pops into yourmind, that leads to another
(08:19):
thought that leads to anotherthought. And again, you get lost
in trains of thoughts. Thenagain, somehow you notice. And
the moment you notice, you seewhat you're up to, you can bring
your attention back to thebreath. So this is what's going
on here. We're having thesemoments of noticing what we're
doing with our minds. And thenchoice following. And then we
(08:42):
see what we're up to. And choicefollows. And we see what we're
up to a choice follows. Andwhat's happening here is we're
building our capacity to noticewhere our attention is going and
where it's gone. And to choosewhere to place it. That's the
exercise, noticing and choosing,noticing and choosing over and
over.
Morten Andersen (09:02):
I have tried it now for three years. I have this
app 15 minutes every day. It'sactually really good. And I
think every time that it isabout the breath, that's
actually the hardest one. Soremember the exercise you tried
on us where you gave us a raisonand we had to spend like 10
minutes just looking at it andfeeling it and tasting it. That
was a little bit easier. Becausethere was an object, the breath
(09:24):
is a harder object to place yourattention to. Yeah,
Michael Chaskalson (09:29):
it's definitely not easy. But look,
you know what this is like, I goto a gym I did before we were in
lockdown. I go to a gymregularly. And I was working
with a personal trainer. And oneof the things he was encouraging
me to do was to move weights soI you know, lift a certain
number of kilograms. Now if Iwas to say to him, I prefer a
much lighter weight, please, itwould be easier. What would be
(09:50):
the point? You know, it's notabout just making it
frictionless. In a way it's kindof the friction. It's where it
bites that matters. It's notnoticing that actually no, my
attention is wandering, that'sthe point. So it's not about
just learning to easily keepyour attention with a raison.
(10:12):
It's about learning to see wherethe attention goes, when it gets
captured by thinking, hmm. Sothe moments of being captured by
thinking, open up thepossibility that we can actually
come to a greater understandingof the mind that we actually
have, and greater possibility ofexercising choice with the mind
(10:37):
that we actually have. So thisfact of being captured by
thinking isn't a mistake. It'snot wrong. It's the opportunity,
the crucial learning opportunityto see what you're up to.
Morten Andersen (10:54):
And one of the things you say is that it has to
be about the present moment, thepresent seem to be a key element
of mindfulness as well. Whycould it not been a happy memory
from my childhood or something?
Why in the present?
Michael Chaskalson (11:07):
Now, look, there's two ways of attending to
a happy memory from yourchildhood was simply being lost
in it, and wanting to recur toit over and over and kind of
bathing in it in a way. And youknow, that's not a bad thing,
it's got some real benefit.
Another way of paying attentionto that is to know that you're
enjoying a memory while you'reenjoying a memory. Now, that
(11:32):
would be the mindful way ofdoing it. Okay. So the mindful
aspect always has thismetacognitive dimension. We know
what we're up to when we'redoing it. Oh, yeah, that was a
lovely memory. And I'm enjoyingthat. And I can feel that, I'm
enjoying that. And I know thatit's a memory. And I'm able to
let go of it and move myattention somewhere else if I
(11:54):
choose to. Hmm, that's lovely.
But being as it were hooked onthat memory, and needing to go
back to it for reassurance andfor comfort, that's a different
way of being with it. Yes, forexample, right now, we're in the
midst of this pandemic. Now, youcould be thinking about the
(12:16):
pandemic over and over and overagain, when will it and how long
is this going to go on? Will webe okay? Will my job continue?
Will the family be okay? Will webe safe? Will the politicians
sort this out? When will thepolitician so blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah. You can be thinking that
stuff over and over and over andover again. And there are people
(12:37):
right now doing that. I mean,and it's very sad people getting
lost in these ruminations aboutthe pandemic and driving anxiety
and fear. So unhappiness.
Another thing to do is to go,Oh, yeah, I've been ruminating.
That's what that was. That wasrumination. These are just
thoughts. I don't need to bewith them. I can move my
(12:57):
attention somewhere else. Soit's this capacity to be with
something differently to see itfor what it actually is that
makes the difference. When I seethat ruminations are just
ruminations that just thoughts,and that I don't have to be with
them. It's that lack ofcompulsion around the thinking
(13:19):
around the memory, thatchoicefulness. Again, I can
notice what I'm doing, and Icould choose to go somewhere
else.
Morten Andersen (13:29):
I think mindfulness, as I said, in the
beginning, is really become sucha popular thing. It is in many
magazines, it's in many books,and so on. I think it's probably
too simplistic to say that themindfulness revolution started
in the 70s, with Jon Kabat Zinnand his Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction, but it did dosomething. It created a formula,
(13:51):
it created a method and itcreated some evidence, can you
maybe just explain a little bitabout what the Mindfulness Based
Stress Reduction Program is andhow that sort of kicked this
whole thing off?
Michael Chaskalson (14:02):
I mean, one of the great contributions of
Kabat Zinn's Mindfulness BasedStress Reduction Program was
that it really broughtmindfulness into secular life
and into researchable Medicalcontexts. So john was a
microbiologist working at theUniversity of Massachusetts
Medical Center in the 70s. Andhe was really concerned about
(14:24):
what happens to all the patientswho leave here with their
suffering unchanged. You know,there's so many people he saw
coming into the hospital becausethey were suffering, he was
concerned for their suffering.
But he saw that many of themwere leaving, still suffering.
People were living with chronicpain, for example, people were
leaving with continuous anxietyand stress, for example, that
what they were learning whatthey were getting, by way of
(14:46):
treatment wasn't addressingthat. And he spoke to clinicians
and clinicians were agreeingwith him. Yes, there's only a
certain small percentage ofpeople who leave here, no longer
suffering, because only alimited amount we can do here.
He was a meditator, so hethought hang on what's going on
here as a mental matter, part ofit is a mental matter. Yes,
there are physical aspects,especially around chronic pain,
(15:07):
there's a course of pain. Butthere's the way you are with
that pain, or the way you arewith your disease, or the way
you are with the thoughts thatyou have, that's a matter that
we can address with meditation.
So he set up and what eventuallycame to be known as the eight
week Mindfulness Based StressReduction Program, MBSR, it was
(15:29):
an eight week program, peoplecame to the clinic for two and a
half hours at a time, more orless, they learned a number of
processes, meditation processesand other processes, which
enabled them to turn the lens oftheir attention through 180
degrees, they learned to look attheir minds rather than just
through their minds, to learn tosee how the minds that they have
(15:52):
were shaping the experience theywere having. And they'd learned
to get some choice around that.
So through doing a number ofdifferent meditation practices,
people love to do what'ssometimes called decentering.
Stepping ervices, slightly apartfrom your experience, so that
you can observe it in adifferent kind of way.
Sometimes, people speak if thisis a state of intimate
(16:14):
detachment, you're intimate withthe experience really close to
it. And at the same time, ableto get this tiny, tiny, tiny
distance, so you can detach andobserve that this is just
thoughts, or these are justsensations they past, they come,
they go, thoughts, sensations,they come they go, it's okay.
(16:36):
It's okay. I can allow them tobe there. So people found that
this was really quite profoundfor them, many of them. And
because john had been a PhDresearcher, he was inclined to
research. So he researchedoutcomes of the program, they
found the outcomes reallyimpressive, they started to
(16:58):
share them with clinicalcolleagues. And more and more
people started to recommend andrefer people to the clinic, the
Mindfulness Based StressReduction clinic, got quite a
good reputation that was spreadto other hospitals throughout
the states. And so it went,
Morten Andersen (17:15):
hmm. So he's sort of socialized mindfulness
in a sense. And I like whatyou're saying is that
mindfulness is not aboutthinking it is about being
mindful of our thoughts, so tospeak. So it's a meta cognitive
view of our thoughts, so tospeak. But it's interesting
because mindfulness is comingfrom Sati. And that is an
(17:37):
important element of theBuddhist tradition. And I think
it certainly is something thathas deep roots in the Buddhist
tradition. I also know thatHeadspace, which is one of the
popular apps out there, and alsothey've just made a series on on
Netflix, which are they actuallyrecommend their founder, Andy,
he has also been a Buddhistmonk, and many that has is
(17:59):
working within mindfulness has aBuddhist tradition, how closely
is it linked to Buddhism? Andhow circular has it become? Can
you tell us a little bit aboutthat?
Michael Chaskalson (18:10):
It certainly emerges from the Buddhist
tradition. Sati, as you say,it's a Pali word its Pali is an
ancient Indian language, it'sdied out. The word Sati comes
from Pali. It's the language ofthe Buddhist scriptures, or at
least one set of Buddhistscriptures. We believe that the
Buddha was the first person inhistory to discuss this idea of
mindfulness of Sati. But thisisn't about being a Buddhist,
(18:34):
it's about learning to work withthe mind directly. This is about
universal truths of the mind.
It's not about beliefs. It'sabout empirically understanding
the mind itself, the mind atwork, first person observation
of the mind at work. That's whatit's all about. So it doesn't
matter what tradition, religioustradition, you come from any
(18:56):
tradition, no tradition, itdoesn't matter. The mindfulness
approach that we use in the Westtoday, is rooted in the Buddhist
tradition. But increasingly,we're hearing people talking
about the stoical intersectionwith the Greek stoics have some
kind of intersection withmindfulness and I, I've not yet
(19:19):
taken the time to investigatethis fully myself. But more and
more people right now aretalking about that. And I think
that's really, reallyinteresting. I mean, obviously,
you know, all we're talkingabout here is an understanding
of the mind and the way it worksand minds a universal all humans
have a mind the human mind hascertain characteristics. And
(19:40):
it's about really learning tounderstand the characteristics
of the human mind from a firstperson perspective and to learn
to make choices with them.
Morten Andersen (19:59):
It's interesting because When I
studied psychology, mindfulnesswas not on the agenda. It wasn't
in any subjects, we couldn'tchoose it. But now I just looked
on the subjects that was taughtat University at the same
Institute and mindfulness playedactually a big part. So it has
come into the universities isnot something that people choose
(20:20):
and can specialize in. Andconsequently, it's also been
researched a lot. I just wonderif you could maybe shed a little
bit of information about howmuch research what do we know
how much do we know what what'sbeen researched so far, and what
has been found?
Michael Chaskalson (20:34):
Well, there's been a huge amount of
research in I've spoken aboutKabat Zinn and his research, but
really, the big body of researchwas kicked off by a couple of
large scale randomized controltrials that were conducted In
the UK and Canada in the stateswith people who are subject to
relapsing depression.
depressions epidemic in ourculture, one in 10 of us, is
(20:56):
likely to have a significantepisode of depression at some
point in our lives, two or moreepisodes of depression, it's
likely to become relapsing. Andso relapsing depression is a
major public health issue. So agroup of psychologists are asked
to find a group basedintervention to help relapse in
depression to help people whoare subject to relapse in
(21:19):
depression. They looked aroundfor different things. And one of
them John Teasdale, came uponsome talks that he'd heard from
a Buddhist teacher which talksabout meditation, providing this
opportunity to stand back andobserve your thoughts as
thoughts. That's exactly what hewas looking for. So he did some
more. Looking around. He cameupon Jon Kabat Zinn's eight week
(21:42):
mindfulness programs reallyexcited because he was the
secularized tested program, theymade a tweak to the program,
which enabled them to buildsomething called Mindfulness
Based cognitive therapy, aneight week program, they rolled
that out to a number of peoplein large scale randomized
controlled trials, and foundthat people who learnt
(22:04):
mindfulness based cognitivetherapy over time over eight
weeks or so it's half the rateof relapse into depression for
those who are subject to relapsein depression. And at that time
back in, I think, 2003, that wasmore or less equivalent to the
other treatment as usual, whichwas maintenance doses of
antidepressants. So of course,in mindfulness was at least as
(22:28):
effective as maintenance dosesof antidepressants, and that
with fewer side effects, lowercosts, um, you know, some people
don't want to take drugs. So itcreated a lot of excitement in
the psychological community.
Yeah. And particularly thecognitive science community,
cognitive behavioral therapists,started to get very, very
(22:52):
interested because they began tosee the overlaps between the
cognitive behavioral approach,standing back from your
thoughts, seeing them as thoughand mindfulness. What is the
difference, I think is thecognitive approach tends to
focus or at least in its earlierphases, tended to focus on
thought. Whereas I'd say thatmindfulness pays attention not
(23:15):
only to thought, but also tofeelings, to body sensations,
and to impulses. I tend to speakabout meta awareness rather than
metacognition mainly because Iwant to draw attention to this
fact that it's not justthinking, but all parts of
experience.
Morten Andersen (23:33):
And I think, typically, one, many things
about the cognitive revolutioncoming in three generations, the
first one probably being theclassic conditioning, the second
one being Beck and his sort oftraditional CBT, or cognitive
behavioral therapy in the 80s.
And up until now, and the thirdgeneration, many of them,
including some kind ofmindfulness practice, as well,
(23:55):
that's probably how it isbecoming a bit of mainstream.
And obviously, it makes sensethat it is part of the cognitive
Institute's on psychology, so tospeak, because it is all about
your thinking. And the idea isthat you're the root to your
suffering is really based onyour thinking and how you're
thinking and what you'refocusing on. And I guess that's
(24:17):
a general criticism, I supposealso of the, of the cognitive
approach is that it is tooreliant on the thinking, What
does mindfulness think in termsof, of the root of our
suffering? Is it primarily inour head or is it down in our
relations or is it body mind orwhat where does it think in
terms of our sufferingsGenerally,
Michael Chaskalson (24:39):
the suggestion is that most of our
suffering comes from ourunwillingness to allow what is
the case to be the case, wedon't want things to be like
this. We want them to be otherthan this. Well, however, they,
we don't want this. We alwayswant other than this. So if only
it wasn't like this, everythingwould be okay. If We weren't in
(25:00):
a pandemic, everything would beokay. If only I had a bigger
apartment, everything would beokay. If I had a different boss,
everything would be okay. If Ihad a different team. If that
person wasn't on my team,everything would be okay. If
only I had whatever, everythingwould be okay if only if only if
only, but it is what it is. Weare where we are. So the
(25:24):
mindfulness approach is toallow, what is the case to be
the case? It's like this, okay?
Now, when you can allow, what isthe case to be the case, that
choice opens up? It's like this.
Now, what am I going to do aboutit? It's like this Now, what's
next? What should I do? Whatwould be best? What would be
(25:46):
best for me? What would be bestfor others? What would be best
for the context I'm in for thesituation. If you can't allow
what is the case to be the case,it's much harder to make that
choice. You're kind of stuckwith if only is if only if only,
I don't want I don't want I wantI don't want. But when you go,
(26:08):
yeah, it's like this right now,what would be best, here a
different position. So that'sthe suggestion. But really,
there's something profoundlyreality oriented around
mindfulness.
Morten Andersen (26:20):
I think what I find really reassuring. And what
I like about mindfulness is thatthere is so much evidence that
just points in one singledirection, which is that this is
actually good for you. I mean,there'll be things where it is
much harder, if you're sufferingfrom a personality disorder,
that's probably not the firstthing you would do. But in terms
of specially anxiety, andespecially in terms of
(26:40):
depression, it has a measurableimpact. It's also interesting
that we know so much more fromneuroscience now that we have a
plastic brain that it isn't justhardwired, that you can actually
create new networks in yourbrain. Can you tell us a little
bit about what we know in termsof how mindfulness can impact
our ability to create newnetworks,
Michael Chaskalson (27:03):
there's some evidence there's quite quite a
lot of emerging evidence. That'seight weeks of mindfulness
training makes some realdifferences. One of the things
that's emerged recently is theidea that eight weeks of
mindfulness training seems toincrease the activation and
wiring patterns of activation ofwiring between the prefrontal
(27:25):
parts of the brain, the frontpart of the brain, and the
amygdala, the brainstem, themore primitive parts of the
brain where some of our moreprimitive emotional processing
happens. It's as if the analogyis that the front part more
executive, the more developedpart of your brain can talk back
to the less developed part ofyour brain, it's okay, it's not
a threat, calm down, don'tworry, as if that were
(27:49):
happening, there's observablechanges in the wiring and the
patterns of activation aftereight weeks of mindfulness
training.
Morten Andersen (27:57):
And that's actually really useful because
in the last episode, we talkedabout neuroscience and we talked
about the amygdala hijack, thatthe amygdala can hijack the rest
of the brain if we're notcareful, and what the outcome of
that can be is that we becometoo emotional and we make rash
decisions or, or rash behavior.
And if we can use our prefrontalcortex to calm down the
(28:23):
amygdala, so to speak, then wewill avoid those situations.
Michael Chaskalson (28:29):
Absolutely.
Fewer emotional hijacks feweramygdala hijacks, for sure, that
was something we would expect.
Another thing we would expect asa quieter ego, the part of our
mind that is constantlychattering to us telling
ourselves the story of ourlives. I'm having a great
experience. This is a goodexperience. I think a really
good experience. God this isgood, good i would love
(28:50):
experience. I wish my partnerwas here know, she'd really love
this shoot. So enjoyed thisexperience and be so great if
she was here. This is so good.
This experience If only she wasYeah, I should take a
photograph. I should put it upon Instagram. She really enjoyed
that. I need to do that. Where'smy phone? Where's my phone?
That's okay. I left my phone inthe car. That was a smart thing
to do. Leave the phone in thecar. Yeah, yeah. When the car
keys, that's okay. I've got thecar key. It's fine. Oh, yeah,
(29:12):
this is a great experiencegreat. And at the same time as
doing all that this part of thebrain is also talking about
things that have to happen nextweek and things that happened
last week and stuff going on inthe family and stuff going on in
the office, blah, blah, we couldtalk about that way of
experiencing is the default modenetwork set of related brain
systems that deliver thisconstant inner chatter, that
(29:34):
experience. Another way oftalking about it is the
narrative network, the tellingourselves the story of who we
are and what we're doing all thetime, keeping us safe. Now
opposed to that is a differentnetwork, which we speak of as
the experiential network, a setof related brain systems that
are just producing presentmoment experience. Oh, yeah,
(29:56):
that's great. That view Andyou're just sitting there,
enjoying the colors, enjoyingthe sounds, feeling your feet on
the floor, feeling the breeze onyour skin, hearing the sound of
the goals hearing the wavescrashing on the shore. And
you're just there, just enjoyingit, you're thinking about it as
simply present, experiencing it.
(30:20):
So you're fully alive, vital,present. Yeah. So that's the
experiential network. Now, oneinteresting study tells us that
after eight weeks of mindfulnesstraining, people are better able
to notice which of thesenetworks is active in them at
any one time. And they're betterable to switch between, they're
(30:42):
better able to move from thenarrative network into the
experiential network. And wherethat interests me in particular
is I think the narrative networkis connected with egocentricity,
it's connected with our egoidentity. It's connected with us
telling ourselves the story ofour lives. And where I get very
interested in this is where Italk about quiet ego leadership,
(31:06):
leaders are able to come awayfrom the inner chatter, and from
the self story, and from beingso self preoccupied and self
concerned, into their immediatepresent moment experiencing,
noticing what's here, noticingwhat's around them, reading the
signals, reading other peoplereading the environment, simply
(31:29):
experiencing being present,rather than constantly me
oriented. chatter, chatter,chatter, chatter, chatter.
Morten Andersen (31:37):
So when I am practicing mindfulness each
morning for 15 minutes, I'mreally doing two things. I'm one
having an experience of being inthe present. But I'm also
practicing, being able to dothat when I'm watching a sunset,
then I can activate thatexperience network.
Michael Chaskalson (31:57):
Exactly that exactly that. And not only when
you're having a nice sunset, butalso when you're with your
partner with your wife, you'reable to stay there and be
present with her, give her yourfull attention. appreciate her.
If your kids, if you have them,you're able to really give them
your full attention and bepresent with them and enjoy
them. Whatever you're doing,you're able to fully do it. So
(32:19):
you are where you are. Yeah,you're alive in the moment.
Morten Andersen (32:23):
Yes. Okay. So that's actually a practice to be
able to do it in real life. Sothe reason why 15 minutes is
good is not so much for the 15minutes, but actually for
building up the capacity to dothat when you want to or need
to.
Michael Chaskalson (32:39):
Exactly that exactly that. Here's the thing.
I didn't go to the gym, becauseI love gyms, I go to the gym in
order to be fit. MindfulnessMeditation stands to mindfulness
in the same way that exercisestands to fit this,
Morten Andersen (32:54):
huh, yeah, that's a good metaphor.
Michael Chaskalson (32:56):
Yeah. And I don't try to do my fitness
exercise when I'm out of breath.
Because I've run up the stairs.
I do my fitness so that when Irun up the stairs, I don't get
breathless.
Morten Andersen (33:08):
What do we not know yet about mindfulness? What
would you like see, researchedor to get some more information
about?
Michael Chaskalson (33:16):
Well, you know, my real interest is in
leadership. So I'm reallyinterested in looking at this
business of quiet egoleadership. I'm interested in
seeing whether a course thatincludes things like
mindfulness, compassion, anunderstanding of
interconnectedness, andfoundation and values. changes
(33:38):
the way in which people are ableto lead in conditions of
uncertainty and complexity. thatinterests me a lot.
Morten Andersen (33:55):
So What Monkeys Do is a podcast about how to
make a change and make it stick.
And one of the things we know,that are necessary to change
something in your life is thatyou have some kind of mental
energy, you have a surplus ofenergy that you can spend on
this change that you want. So ifyou're too stressed at work, if
you're too worried about thefuture, feeling shame about
something or regret aboutsomething in your past, then
(34:17):
you're unlikely to have thefocus and the desire to stick to
a new behavior. Can you maybetalk a little bit about how
mindfulness can help free upthat space and, and make it
easier to make a change.
Michael Chaskalson (34:33):
So particularly with experiences
like anxiety, or or shame and soon, being able to see what it is
that you are doing for yourselfin the moment, to recognize, for
example, that your feelings ofshame, are universal. We all
experience these to some extentor other. And it's not that
(34:54):
we're necessarily a bad person,that we may have done some
things in the past which weregret. But that's okay. And
some of what our shame is is isnot rational. But that we can
treat ourselves with morekindness, and more forgiveness,
the capacity to do that requiresan ability to address your inner
(35:16):
mechanisms, your mind itself, toobserve your mind at work, to
see shame, as shame, to see whatit is and what it does in the
moment to be able to go, it'sokay, these are just feelings of
shame. It's all right. And I cantreat myself with more kindness
(35:38):
with more compassion, with moreforgiveness, that capacity in
the first of all, to see whatyou're doing. And then to be
able to make choices around thatto go, I don't need to do it
like that I can have a differentrelationship to this capacity is
powerful. So it's the same withanxious thoughts, to see anxious
(36:01):
thoughts simply as a habit ofanxious thinking. And not
realities are just thoughts,you've learned to see them and
to move your attentionelsewhere. So you find yourself
driving a set of anxiousthoughts, it's making you
anxious, to move attention,perhaps to your breath, or to
some other part of your body, oryou think about something else,
(36:25):
and you come away from thosethoughts, you're not trying to
suppress them, get rid of them,you're simply moving your
attention somewhere else movingaway from so it's this kind of
agility or, or nimbleness withyour own inner processes that
emerges. When we spend a littlebit of time each day training
(36:47):
our minds with mindfulnesspractice, we gain that kind of
flexibility, that meta awarenessand that nimbleness as well as
this ability to treat ourselveswith kindness. Yes. You know,
people often ask me when I loveit, especially when I'm teaching
(37:07):
on MBA programs, how would Iknow what I'm getting better at
this? Look for kindness, if youfind yourself treating yourself
especially with a bit morekindness, if you find that
spilling over into yourrelations with others, that
you're treating them with a bitmore kindness, then you're
definitely on target. Now you'redoing ninja level mindfulness,
(37:27):
when you're actually kinder toyourself, and kinder to others.
That's what it's about.
Morten Andersen (37:33):
So if an MBA student is listening, that's a
KPI for you, yes, you look forthe level of kindness towards
yourself. And exactly. So welaugh at this is actually a
really good way of thinkingabout it that actually, a result
of this is that you will treatyourself better and kinda. So
one of the things that you canuse mindfulness for is that if
(37:54):
you do actually want to changefeelings about yourself, or
thoughts about yourself, thatcan actually be a way to do
exactly that. So that willcreate a change over time. But a
second way that we can usemindfulness is also to create
the space and the kindness andthe acceptance that would permit
(38:15):
us to make other changes inlife.
Michael Chaskalson (38:17):
I think that's absolutely, absolutely
right. It's beautifully put,it's a kind of meta skill in
that way, we apply to every partof our lives, when we've got
this capacity we can apply toevery part of our lives. And
look, here's the thing, with nota lot of athletes with just say
10 15 20 minutes, a day, more orless, for a couple of months
(38:41):
doing mindfulness practice, youget to be able to build your
capacity to do these things bysay, 10%. Let's say you reduce
your anxiety by 10%, or youincrease your level of self
compassion by say, 10%, or youincrease the amount of presence
(39:01):
you have by, say, 10%. This ismassively life changing. Don't
come away with the sense thatyou've got to master this, that
you've got to perfect it, thatit's even available. That's not
the way to think about this. Butif you can begin to just
increase by just a few percent,your capacity in these various
(39:22):
domains, that's life changing.
It makes you happier, it makesyou more effective. It makes you
kinder, more generous, and itreduces your suffering and you
pass on less suffering, which isall good.
Morten Andersen (39:35):
If I am or a listener wants to try to do
mindfulness, what is required isit that you take one time 15 or
20 minutes out each day and thensit for yourself and do this or
can you do this while being in acar or while you're driving. How
do I get started on this?
Michael Chaskalson (39:55):
My recommendation is that you find
a little bit of space that isquiet enough. And that could be
while commuting, not whiledriving. But certainly if you're
commuting in a train or a plane,or if you're being driven, or on
a bus, that's fine. So it couldbe that, or it could be at home,
or it could be at yourworkplace, just a little bit of
(40:16):
space that's quiet enough, whereyou're not going to be
interrupted, for say, 10minutes, we did some research.
One of the business schoolswhere we found that people who
came on our program who did themeditation practices, we set
them for around about 10 minutesa day began to experience
appreciable change. Over time,after after a couple of months,
(40:39):
they started to experiencereally significant change. 10
minutes a day seems to be thesort of point at which the
change occurred, those who didless than 10 minutes didn't get
the same degree of change. Sopeople who did 10 minutes or
more, and build up to it, takeyour time. And find a place
where you'll be less disturbed,find the time of day that works
(41:02):
best for you people very, to payfor alcohol. Definitely. If
you're going to do it last thingat night, you might find that
you fall asleep, doesn't lookbad in itself, but you don't get
quite the same benefit. So finda time when you can be awake,
where you can be alert, whereyou can be present, where you're
not going to be disturbed. Andjust start to work towards, say
(41:26):
10 minutes, start with 10minutes, get that and then just
keep doing it every day for afew months and see what you get.
Morten Andersen (41:33):
I personally find that if I do it in the
morning, that's easier for methat if I do it midday, because
midday, I have the whole to dolist and everything that I need
to do. But it's probably also alot easier in the morning. So
you know, if we, if we use thegym as an analogy, I'm probably
not pulling my weight in themorning as much as I would do in
the afternoon. But, but Idefinitely find the morning to
(41:54):
be easier for me to do it. Andthat's why I do it there.
Michael Chaskalson (41:58):
That's certainly what we hear from most
people. Not everybody by anymeans. But I can't put a finger
on it at the moment. But themajority of people seem to find
first thing in the morning. Butthere is a decent spread of
people who find other types ofday work for them too. And
Morten Andersen (42:13):
I guess it's also about finding a time when
it's practically possible. So ifyou have small children and you
need to attend them, then that'sprobably not the best time, I
agree to find a time when youdon't need to worry about if
anyone is coming in the door. Orif you need to do something else
that time you can actually setaside and you know, you can set
that aside, that will create acalmness that otherwise you
(42:34):
would not have. So I woulddefinitely recommend to try to
find that time. And that can bedifficult, but even just, you
know, saying to people in theoffice, I need to be by myself
for just 10 minutes, you know,can sometimes work, you know,
whatever works for for theindividual, I think is is the
most appropriate.
Michael Chaskalson (42:51):
Exactly that exactly.
Morten Andersen (42:53):
So it's it's something that you can practice.
But I guess like with anymuscle, if you don't go to the
gym for like a month, then youwill almost need to start all
over again, because your musclesdepleted. And I guess it is the
same with this. So we'repracticing, because we become
better at putting our attentionto what we need to put our
(43:14):
attention to. So when we are ina situation where we are with a
loved one, or we see somethingbeautiful, then we can pay our
attention solely on that. Andthat requires daily practice.
And you say 10 minutes and andsome of the programs, the
cognitive programs or thestressful based programs are
sort of 15 minutes, they say.
But if you can spare 10 or 15minutes, there seems to be the
(43:34):
appropriate amount. Is thatcorrect?
Michael Chaskalson (43:37):
Exactly Any amount will do. But my tiny
piece of research says thechange begins 10 Do what you can
build up to it and try over timeto come away from audio
guidance. Start with audioguidance, it's really, really
helpful makes a big difference.
The gradually start to do a fewsessions a time without God and
mix that in and gradually comeaway from audio guidance.
(44:02):
Something that I hear a lot frompeople is I listen to Headspace.
And I think it's not aboutlistening to Headspace. I know.
And he's a lovely charming guy.
He's nice to hang out with. Butit's not about listening to him.
It's about working yourattention yourself for yourself.
(44:23):
So gradually gradually come awayfrom the audio guy.
Morten Andersen (44:27):
I will take that straightaway. Because I am
definitely using Headspace as mypreferred app. And so
gravitating away from that, Ialso know that would be more
difficult because it is almosteasier to to be guided by
somebody. So guiding yourselfwould be my next step. So I'll,
I'll try to do thisstraightaway. Alright, so thanks
a lot, Michael, for coming inand telling us about what
(44:50):
mindfulness is the effect ofmindfulness and also how we can
use that as a tool if we want tomake a change in our life. So I
really appreciate you coming in.
Thank you very Much
Michael Chaskalson (45:00):
Thank you Morten. It's been great.
Morten Andersen (45:07):
Mindfulness is not new. In fact, it comes from
an ancient tradition, which goesback 1000s of years. But it's
only recently that mindfulnesshas become secular mainstream,
and that we understand it muchbetter. I took three things away
from my talk with Mike. One.
Mindfulness is important if wewant to make a change in our
life. When we practicemindfulness, we pay attention on
(45:30):
purpose in the present moment,in a non judgmental way for
those specific 15 minutes. Butthat's not really the sole
benefit. Those 15 minutes, whatwe're doing is that we're really
practicing the ability to directour attention to what matters in
the moment, the conversationwith our friend or child, the
(45:52):
beautiful scenery around us, theenergy in our body, or whatever
it might be, so that we duringthe day can be present and
mindful. It's a muscle that wepractice so we can use it during
the day, especially if we wantto make a change to there is a
wealth of research supportingthe effect of mindfulness.
(46:13):
Psychology does not have a longhistory of evidence based
practice quite the opposite. Infact, mindfulness in the form of
mbsr, or mbct, has proven thatit can significantly reduce
things such as relapsingdepression, or anxiety. In peer
reviewed articles, the benefitsare here, for all of us to see
(46:36):
10-15 minutes of mindfulnessevery day, it's like going to
the gym, the practice must bedaily, but then the effect is
real. And three, how do you knowif it works? Well look for
kindness towards yourself andothers. We are obsessed with
finding out if something works,what to measure what to look
(46:57):
out. Mindfulness is a softskill, and I even question if we
should try to measure itourselves. But one thing maybe
to look for is if it affects thekindness you show to yourself
and to others that will tell youif mindfulness is working for
you. Michael has written anexcellent book called
Mindfulness in Eight Weeks, Iactually will recommend the
(47:19):
Kindle version because it hasdirect links to audio files, and
that works really, really well.
So try it out. I did, it works.
So enjoy that. Until next time,take care.
Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My
name is Morten Kamp Andersen.
And this is a podcast about whatit takes to make a change and
make it stick.
Some topics creep up everywhere,they become so popular that most
(00:25):
people hear about them, and itbecomes mainstream. Mindfulness
is one of those things. Peopletell me that mindfulness create
a change in itself. But alsothat if you want to make a
change in your life, mindfulnesscan actually help you make that
happen. But what is mindfulness?
What can it do? How does itwork? Well, let's find out in
this episode of What Monkeys Do.
(00:48):
Four years ago, I attended aprogram for executives at London
Business School, the program wascalled professional service
program, it was essentiallyabout how could you become a
better consultant. And we were aclass of professionals from all
over the world. And I expectedto learn both hard and soft
skills. But I did not expectthat most challenging assignment
(01:12):
that I would get would involve arace. And I think it was on the
third day that my guest todayentered the room. He said that
high performance and excellentdecision making is not about
adding pressure to a work day.
Instead, it is about payingattention to the here and now,
he said, just paying attentionto your breath, and nothing else
is really hard. And I rememberthinking, How hard can that be?
(01:36):
And then he said, let's do anexercise. And he gave us all a
raison And for the next 10minutes, we spent looking,
smelling, feeling touching,biting a single raison. And it
sounds easy. And it's not. Iasked him afterwards, after the
exercise, which app I should useif I wanted to try it at home,
(01:58):
and he gave me the name of oneparticular Good one. And I went
home and I tried it. And nowI've actually been practicing
mindfulness ever since. So Itake my daily 15 minutes
mindfulness, and I love it. Myguest today has taught
mindfulness to 10s of 1000s ofpeople across the world. He has
(02:19):
a master's degree in theclinical applications of
mindfulness. And he has morethan 40 years of personal
practice of mindfulness. He isbased in Cambridge, UK, where he
is the founding director of theconsultancy company, Mindfulness
Works. He is a professor at HultAshridge executive education,
and an associate at the MillerInstitute, Churchill college at
(02:43):
the University of Cambridge. Heis the author of the Mindful
Workplace, and my favorite, andalso the best selling Mindful in
8 Weeks. And in addition, he hasco authored Mindfulness for
Coaches. Welcome to you, MichaelChaskalson
Michael Chaskalson (03:01):
Hello, Morten. It's great to be here.
Thank you very much for invitingme. I'm really looking forward
to this.
Morten Andersen (03:07):
Yeah, yeah. So am I. This is an episode about
mindfulness. Let's just startthere. What is mindfulness?
Michael Chaskalson (03:14):
well, we could speak about it.
Classically, we speak about itas a way of paying attention on
purpose in the present moment,and non judgmental, it's a
quality of a wellness or qualityof awareness that comes when you
do these things, pay attentionon purpose in the present
moment, and non judgmental. Andwhen I say that, it sounds kind
of simple, and in a way, issimple. The thing is, it's not
(03:38):
easy. And the reason it's noteasy is because we've spent all
of us 20, 30, 40, 50 years doingsomething different. So learning
to pay attention on purpose. Andin the present moment. You know,
much of the time our attentionwanders, even as people
listening to this podcast rightnow, attention is wandering,
(03:59):
there may be people listening tothis podcast while also doing
email, while playing games on aphone while scrolling through
social media, walking. But thenour attention is also so
massively contested. Everybodywants a piece of our attention.
All the time, our attention isbeing called on drawn here drawn
(04:21):
there. You're trying to listento this podcast and at the same
time, kids may be calling foryour attention, you may be
having a sense in the back ofyour mind that there are clients
and customers and the farm orthe company you work for needs
your attention, your partnerneeds your attention. And at the
same time, there are reallypowerful social media companies
(04:45):
using AI driven apps whose solepurpose is to get hold of your
attention so that other peoplecan monetize it. So all the time
our attention is this hugelycontested area. It's probably
the most valuable piece of RealEstate that we have; our
attention, when you think aboutit, everything we do, every act
(05:06):
we engage in, is preceded by anact of attention. Your attention
goes here, you behave like this,your attention is pulled there,
you start to incline in thatdirection, your attention goes
there, and your behaviorswitches and you start to move
off in that direction,everything we do is preceded by
an act of attention, which iswhy it's so valuable for social
(05:29):
media companies, for example, toget hold of our attention,
because when they get hold ofour attention, they can begin to
shape our behavior in ways thatsuit their own ads, just for
example. So our attention ishugely contested. And yet, when
we get some choice around whereour attention goes, then we can
get a little moment of freedomfrom this battle. The kids wants
(05:52):
your attention, the dog wantsyour attention. Social media
wants your attention.
Advertisers want your attention,your boss wants your attention,
the people who report to you,once you everybody wants your
attention, you're struggling tochoose. Mainly, we don't choose
mainly you just go. But when welearn to pay attention on
purpose, we place our attentionwhere we want it to be.
Morten Andersen (06:14):
So mindfulness is to take control over our
attention, so to speak. Soeverybody else who's trying to
get our attention. So we controlit. Many times, it's about
focusing on breathing instead,why breathing,
Michael Chaskalson (06:28):
I tend not to talk about trying to control
our attention, I'd prefer totalk about choosing where your
attention goes. If we thinkabout controlling it's it can be
kind of willful, it can be kindof tight, it can kind of give a
sense that we're just, you know,forcing our attention. And we're
not doing that here, we're justchoosing. So one of the methods
(06:50):
we use, one of the methods weuse to do this is mindfulness
meditation. It used to buildthis capacity to choose
mindfulness meditation. Now, aclassic mindfulness meditation.
And there are many differentapproaches to mindfulness
meditation, but classic is yousimply pay attention to the
breath, you create a quietspace, 5-10 minutes, and you
(07:13):
allow your attention to restwith your breath. And what
people discover very quickly,when they start to do this, is
your attention bounces off withthe breath, or one breath for
two breaths, and then a thoughtwanders into your mind, you get
interested in the thought, youstart to think, and in no time
at all, you're off thinking,thinking thinking one thought
(07:34):
leads to another thought, thatleads to another thought that
leads to some feelings thatleads to some impulses, and
you're all over the place andyou're lost. You're lost. You're
not just doing thisautomatically. choicelessly just
doing it, just doing it, justdoing it habitually thinking,
thinking, thinking, feeling,feeling, feeling. And then you
notice, oh, wow, I'm thinking,I'm not meant to be thinking I
(07:57):
meant to be meditating, I wantedto be paying attention to my
breath. So in that moment ofwaking up, you get the
opportunity to choose, oh, yeah,I'm doing that. I didn't mean to
be doing that. I meant to bedoing this. So you choose, you
bring your attention back to thebreath. And you're with the
breath for one breath, twobreaths for three breaths,
another thought pops into yourmind, that leads to another
(08:19):
thought that leads to anotherthought. And again, you get lost
in trains of thoughts. Thenagain, somehow you notice. And
the moment you notice, you seewhat you're up to, you can bring
your attention back to thebreath. So this is what's going
on here. We're having thesemoments of noticing what we're
doing with our minds. And thenchoice following. And then we
(08:42):
see what we're up to. And choicefollows. And we see what we're
up to a choice follows. Andwhat's happening here is we're
building our capacity to noticewhere our attention is going and
where it's gone. And to choosewhere to place it. That's the
exercise, noticing and choosing,noticing and choosing over and
over.
Morten Andersen (09:02):
I have tried it now for three years. I have this
app 15 minutes every day. It'sactually really good. And I
think every time that it isabout the breath, that's
actually the hardest one. Soremember the exercise you tried
on us where you gave us a raisonand we had to spend like 10
minutes just looking at it andfeeling it and tasting it. That
was a little bit easier. Becausethere was an object, the breath
(09:24):
is a harder object to place yourattention to. Yeah,
Michael Chaskalson (09:29):
it's definitely not easy. But look,
you know what this is like, I goto a gym I did before we were in
lockdown. I go to a gymregularly. And I was working
with a personal trainer. And oneof the things he was encouraging
me to do was to move weights soI you know, lift a certain
number of kilograms. Now if Iwas to say to him, I prefer a
much lighter weight, please, itwould be easier. What would be
(09:50):
the point? You know, it's notabout just making it
frictionless. In a way it's kindof the friction. It's where it
bites that matters. It's notnoticing that actually no, my
attention is wandering, that'sthe point. So it's not about
just learning to easily keepyour attention with a raison.
(10:12):
It's about learning to see wherethe attention goes, when it gets
captured by thinking, hmm. Sothe moments of being captured by
thinking, open up thepossibility that we can actually
come to a greater understandingof the mind that we actually
have, and greater possibility ofexercising choice with the mind
(10:37):
that we actually have. So thisfact of being captured by
thinking isn't a mistake. It'snot wrong. It's the opportunity,
the crucial learning opportunityto see what you're up to.
Morten Andersen (10:54):
And one of the things you say is that it has to
be about the present moment, thepresent seem to be a key element
of mindfulness as well. Whycould it not been a happy memory
from my childhood or something?
Why in the present?
Michael Chaskalson (11:07):
Now, look, there's two ways of attending to
a happy memory from yourchildhood was simply being lost
in it, and wanting to recur toit over and over and kind of
bathing in it in a way. And youknow, that's not a bad thing,
it's got some real benefit.
Another way of paying attentionto that is to know that you're
enjoying a memory while you'reenjoying a memory. Now, that
(11:32):
would be the mindful way ofdoing it. Okay. So the mindful
aspect always has thismetacognitive dimension. We know
what we're up to when we'redoing it. Oh, yeah, that was a
lovely memory. And I'm enjoyingthat. And I can feel that, I'm
enjoying that. And I know thatit's a memory. And I'm able to
let go of it and move myattention somewhere else if I
(11:54):
choose to. Hmm, that's lovely.
But being as it were hooked onthat memory, and needing to go
back to it for reassurance andfor comfort, that's a different
way of being with it. Yes, forexample, right now, we're in the
midst of this pandemic. Now, youcould be thinking about the
(12:16):
pandemic over and over and overagain, when will it and how long
is this going to go on? Will webe okay? Will my job continue?
Will the family be okay? Will webe safe? Will the politicians
sort this out? When will thepolitician so blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah. You can be thinking that
stuff over and over and over andover again. And there are people
(12:37):
right now doing that. I mean,and it's very sad people getting
lost in these ruminations aboutthe pandemic and driving anxiety
and fear. So unhappiness.
Another thing to do is to go,Oh, yeah, I've been ruminating.
That's what that was. That wasrumination. These are just
thoughts. I don't need to bewith them. I can move my
(12:57):
attention somewhere else. Soit's this capacity to be with
something differently to see itfor what it actually is that
makes the difference. When I seethat ruminations are just
ruminations that just thoughts,and that I don't have to be with
them. It's that lack ofcompulsion around the thinking
(13:19):
around the memory, thatchoicefulness. Again, I can
notice what I'm doing, and Icould choose to go somewhere
else.
Morten Andersen (13:29):
I think mindfulness, as I said, in the
beginning, is really become sucha popular thing. It is in many
magazines, it's in many books,and so on. I think it's probably
too simplistic to say that themindfulness revolution started
in the 70s, with Jon Kabat Zinnand his Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction, but it did dosomething. It created a formula,
(13:51):
it created a method and itcreated some evidence, can you
maybe just explain a little bitabout what the Mindfulness Based
Stress Reduction Program is andhow that sort of kicked this
whole thing off?
Michael Chaskalson (14:02):
I mean, one of the great contributions of
Kabat Zinn's Mindfulness BasedStress Reduction Program was
that it really broughtmindfulness into secular life
and into researchable Medicalcontexts. So john was a
microbiologist working at theUniversity of Massachusetts
Medical Center in the 70s. Andhe was really concerned about
(14:24):
what happens to all the patientswho leave here with their
suffering unchanged. You know,there's so many people he saw
coming into the hospital becausethey were suffering, he was
concerned for their suffering.
But he saw that many of themwere leaving, still suffering.
People were living with chronicpain, for example, people were
leaving with continuous anxietyand stress, for example, that
what they were learning whatthey were getting, by way of
(14:46):
treatment wasn't addressingthat. And he spoke to clinicians
and clinicians were agreeingwith him. Yes, there's only a
certain small percentage ofpeople who leave here, no longer
suffering, because only alimited amount we can do here.
He was a meditator, so hethought hang on what's going on
here as a mental matter, part ofit is a mental matter. Yes,
there are physical aspects,especially around chronic pain,
(15:07):
there's a course of pain. Butthere's the way you are with
that pain, or the way you arewith your disease, or the way
you are with the thoughts thatyou have, that's a matter that
we can address with meditation.
So he set up and what eventuallycame to be known as the eight
week Mindfulness Based StressReduction Program, MBSR, it was
(15:29):
an eight week program, peoplecame to the clinic for two and a
half hours at a time, more orless, they learned a number of
processes, meditation processesand other processes, which
enabled them to turn the lens oftheir attention through 180
degrees, they learned to look attheir minds rather than just
through their minds, to learn tosee how the minds that they have
(15:52):
were shaping the experience theywere having. And they'd learned
to get some choice around that.
So through doing a number ofdifferent meditation practices,
people love to do what'ssometimes called decentering.
Stepping ervices, slightly apartfrom your experience, so that
you can observe it in adifferent kind of way.
Sometimes, people speak if thisis a state of intimate
(16:14):
detachment, you're intimate withthe experience really close to
it. And at the same time, ableto get this tiny, tiny, tiny
distance, so you can detach andobserve that this is just
thoughts, or these are justsensations they past, they come,
they go, thoughts, sensations,they come they go, it's okay.
(16:36):
It's okay. I can allow them tobe there. So people found that
this was really quite profoundfor them, many of them. And
because john had been a PhDresearcher, he was inclined to
research. So he researchedoutcomes of the program, they
found the outcomes reallyimpressive, they started to
(16:58):
share them with clinicalcolleagues. And more and more
people started to recommend andrefer people to the clinic, the
Mindfulness Based StressReduction clinic, got quite a
good reputation that was spreadto other hospitals throughout
the states. And so it went,
Morten Andersen (17:15):
hmm. So he's sort of socialized mindfulness
in a sense. And I like whatyou're saying is that
mindfulness is not aboutthinking it is about being
mindful of our thoughts, so tospeak. So it's a meta cognitive
view of our thoughts, so tospeak. But it's interesting
because mindfulness is comingfrom Sati. And that is an
(17:37):
important element of theBuddhist tradition. And I think
it certainly is something thathas deep roots in the Buddhist
tradition. I also know thatHeadspace, which is one of the
popular apps out there, and alsothey've just made a series on on
Netflix, which are they actuallyrecommend their founder, Andy,
he has also been a Buddhistmonk, and many that has is
(17:59):
working within mindfulness has aBuddhist tradition, how closely
is it linked to Buddhism? Andhow circular has it become? Can
you tell us a little bit aboutthat?
Michael Chaskalson (18:10):
It certainly emerges from the Buddhist
tradition. Sati, as you say,it's a Pali word its Pali is an
ancient Indian language, it'sdied out. The word Sati comes
from Pali. It's the language ofthe Buddhist scriptures, or at
least one set of Buddhistscriptures. We believe that the
Buddha was the first person inhistory to discuss this idea of
mindfulness of Sati. But thisisn't about being a Buddhist,
(18:34):
it's about learning to work withthe mind directly. This is about
universal truths of the mind.
It's not about beliefs. It'sabout empirically understanding
the mind itself, the mind atwork, first person observation
of the mind at work. That's whatit's all about. So it doesn't
matter what tradition, religioustradition, you come from any
(18:56):
tradition, no tradition, itdoesn't matter. The mindfulness
approach that we use in the Westtoday, is rooted in the Buddhist
tradition. But increasingly,we're hearing people talking
about the stoical intersectionwith the Greek stoics have some
kind of intersection withmindfulness and I, I've not yet
(19:19):
taken the time to investigatethis fully myself. But more and
more people right now aretalking about that. And I think
that's really, reallyinteresting. I mean, obviously,
you know, all we're talkingabout here is an understanding
of the mind and the way it worksand minds a universal all humans
have a mind the human mind hascertain characteristics. And
(19:40):
it's about really learning tounderstand the characteristics
of the human mind from a firstperson perspective and to learn
to make choices with them.
Morten Andersen (19:59):
It's interesting because When I
studied psychology, mindfulnesswas not on the agenda. It wasn't
in any subjects, we couldn'tchoose it. But now I just looked
on the subjects that was taughtat University at the same
Institute and mindfulness playedactually a big part. So it has
come into the universities isnot something that people choose
(20:20):
and can specialize in. Andconsequently, it's also been
researched a lot. I just wonderif you could maybe shed a little
bit of information about howmuch research what do we know
how much do we know what what'sbeen researched so far, and what
has been found?
Michael Chaskalson (20:34):
Well, there's been a huge amount of
research in I've spoken aboutKabat Zinn and his research, but
really, the big body of researchwas kicked off by a couple of
large scale randomized controltrials that were conducted In
the UK and Canada in the stateswith people who are subject to
relapsing depression.
depressions epidemic in ourculture, one in 10 of us, is
(20:56):
likely to have a significantepisode of depression at some
point in our lives, two or moreepisodes of depression, it's
likely to become relapsing. Andso relapsing depression is a
major public health issue. So agroup of psychologists are asked
to find a group basedintervention to help relapse in
depression to help people whoare subject to relapse in
(21:19):
depression. They looked aroundfor different things. And one of
them John Teasdale, came uponsome talks that he'd heard from
a Buddhist teacher which talksabout meditation, providing this
opportunity to stand back andobserve your thoughts as
thoughts. That's exactly what hewas looking for. So he did some
more. Looking around. He cameupon Jon Kabat Zinn's eight week
(21:42):
mindfulness programs reallyexcited because he was the
secularized tested program, theymade a tweak to the program,
which enabled them to buildsomething called Mindfulness
Based cognitive therapy, aneight week program, they rolled
that out to a number of peoplein large scale randomized
controlled trials, and foundthat people who learnt
(22:04):
mindfulness based cognitivetherapy over time over eight
weeks or so it's half the rateof relapse into depression for
those who are subject to relapsein depression. And at that time
back in, I think, 2003, that wasmore or less equivalent to the
other treatment as usual, whichwas maintenance doses of
antidepressants. So of course,in mindfulness was at least as
(22:28):
effective as maintenance dosesof antidepressants, and that
with fewer side effects, lowercosts, um, you know, some people
don't want to take drugs. So itcreated a lot of excitement in
the psychological community.
Yeah. And particularly thecognitive science community,
cognitive behavioral therapists,started to get very, very
(22:52):
interested because they began tosee the overlaps between the
cognitive behavioral approach,standing back from your
thoughts, seeing them as thoughand mindfulness. What is the
difference, I think is thecognitive approach tends to
focus or at least in its earlierphases, tended to focus on
thought. Whereas I'd say thatmindfulness pays attention not
(23:15):
only to thought, but also tofeelings, to body sensations,
and to impulses. I tend to speakabout meta awareness rather than
metacognition mainly because Iwant to draw attention to this
fact that it's not justthinking, but all parts of
experience.
Morten Andersen (23:33):
And I think, typically, one, many things
about the cognitive revolutioncoming in three generations, the
first one probably being theclassic conditioning, the second
one being Beck and his sort oftraditional CBT, or cognitive
behavioral therapy in the 80s.
And up until now, and the thirdgeneration, many of them,
including some kind ofmindfulness practice, as well,
(23:55):
that's probably how it isbecoming a bit of mainstream.
And obviously, it makes sensethat it is part of the cognitive
Institute's on psychology, so tospeak, because it is all about
your thinking. And the idea isthat you're the root to your
suffering is really based onyour thinking and how you're
thinking and what you'refocusing on. And I guess that's
(24:17):
a general criticism, I supposealso of the, of the cognitive
approach is that it is tooreliant on the thinking, What
does mindfulness think in termsof, of the root of our
suffering? Is it primarily inour head or is it down in our
relations or is it body mind orwhat where does it think in
terms of our sufferingsGenerally,
Michael Chaskalson (24:39):
the suggestion is that most of our
suffering comes from ourunwillingness to allow what is
the case to be the case, wedon't want things to be like
this. We want them to be otherthan this. Well, however, they,
we don't want this. We alwayswant other than this. So if only
it wasn't like this, everythingwould be okay. If We weren't in
(25:00):
a pandemic, everything would beokay. If only I had a bigger
apartment, everything would beokay. If I had a different boss,
everything would be okay. If Ihad a different team. If that
person wasn't on my team,everything would be okay. If
only I had whatever, everythingwould be okay if only if only if
only, but it is what it is. Weare where we are. So the
(25:24):
mindfulness approach is toallow, what is the case to be
the case? It's like this, okay?
Now, when you can allow, what isthe case to be the case, that
choice opens up? It's like this.
Now, what am I going to do aboutit? It's like this Now, what's
next? What should I do? Whatwould be best? What would be
(25:46):
best for me? What would be bestfor others? What would be best
for the context I'm in for thesituation. If you can't allow
what is the case to be the case,it's much harder to make that
choice. You're kind of stuckwith if only is if only if only,
I don't want I don't want I wantI don't want. But when you go,
(26:08):
yeah, it's like this right now,what would be best, here a
different position. So that'sthe suggestion. But really,
there's something profoundlyreality oriented around
mindfulness.
Morten Andersen (26:20):
I think what I find really reassuring. And what
I like about mindfulness is thatthere is so much evidence that
just points in one singledirection, which is that this is
actually good for you. I mean,there'll be things where it is
much harder, if you're sufferingfrom a personality disorder,
that's probably not the firstthing you would do. But in terms
of specially anxiety, andespecially in terms of
(26:40):
depression, it has a measurableimpact. It's also interesting
that we know so much more fromneuroscience now that we have a
plastic brain that it isn't justhardwired, that you can actually
create new networks in yourbrain. Can you tell us a little
bit about what we know in termsof how mindfulness can impact
our ability to create newnetworks,
Michael Chaskalson (27:03):
there's some evidence there's quite quite a
lot of emerging evidence. That'seight weeks of mindfulness
training makes some realdifferences. One of the things
that's emerged recently is theidea that eight weeks of
mindfulness training seems toincrease the activation and
wiring patterns of activation ofwiring between the prefrontal
(27:25):
parts of the brain, the frontpart of the brain, and the
amygdala, the brainstem, themore primitive parts of the
brain where some of our moreprimitive emotional processing
happens. It's as if the analogyis that the front part more
executive, the more developedpart of your brain can talk back
to the less developed part ofyour brain, it's okay, it's not
a threat, calm down, don'tworry, as if that were
(27:49):
happening, there's observablechanges in the wiring and the
patterns of activation aftereight weeks of mindfulness
training.
Morten Andersen (27:57):
And that's actually really useful because
in the last episode, we talkedabout neuroscience and we talked
about the amygdala hijack, thatthe amygdala can hijack the rest
of the brain if we're notcareful, and what the outcome of
that can be is that we becometoo emotional and we make rash
decisions or, or rash behavior.
And if we can use our prefrontalcortex to calm down the
(28:23):
amygdala, so to speak, then wewill avoid those situations.
Michael Chaskalson (28:29):
Absolutely.
Fewer emotional hijacks feweramygdala hijacks, for sure, that
was something we would expect.
Another thing we would expect asa quieter ego, the part of our
mind that is constantlychattering to us telling
ourselves the story of ourlives. I'm having a great
experience. This is a goodexperience. I think a really
good experience. God this isgood, good i would love
(28:50):
experience. I wish my partnerwas here know, she'd really love
this shoot. So enjoyed thisexperience and be so great if
she was here. This is so good.
This experience If only she wasYeah, I should take a
photograph. I should put it upon Instagram. She really enjoyed
that. I need to do that. Where'smy phone? Where's my phone?
That's okay. I left my phone inthe car. That was a smart thing
to do. Leave the phone in thecar. Yeah, yeah. When the car
keys, that's okay. I've got thecar key. It's fine. Oh, yeah,
(29:12):
this is a great experiencegreat. And at the same time as
doing all that this part of thebrain is also talking about
things that have to happen nextweek and things that happened
last week and stuff going on inthe family and stuff going on in
the office, blah, blah, we couldtalk about that way of
experiencing is the default modenetwork set of related brain
systems that deliver thisconstant inner chatter, that
(29:34):
experience. Another way oftalking about it is the
narrative network, the tellingourselves the story of who we
are and what we're doing all thetime, keeping us safe. Now
opposed to that is a differentnetwork, which we speak of as
the experiential network, a setof related brain systems that
are just producing presentmoment experience. Oh, yeah,
(29:56):
that's great. That view Andyou're just sitting there,
enjoying the colors, enjoyingthe sounds, feeling your feet on
the floor, feeling the breeze onyour skin, hearing the sound of
the goals hearing the wavescrashing on the shore. And
you're just there, just enjoyingit, you're thinking about it as
simply present, experiencing it.
(30:20):
So you're fully alive, vital,present. Yeah. So that's the
experiential network. Now, oneinteresting study tells us that
after eight weeks of mindfulnesstraining, people are better able
to notice which of thesenetworks is active in them at
any one time. And they're betterable to switch between, they're
(30:42):
better able to move from thenarrative network into the
experiential network. And wherethat interests me in particular
is I think the narrative networkis connected with egocentricity,
it's connected with our egoidentity. It's connected with us
telling ourselves the story ofour lives. And where I get very
interested in this is where Italk about quiet ego leadership,
(31:06):
leaders are able to come awayfrom the inner chatter, and from
the self story, and from beingso self preoccupied and self
concerned, into their immediatepresent moment experiencing,
noticing what's here, noticingwhat's around them, reading the
signals, reading other peoplereading the environment, simply
(31:29):
experiencing being present,rather than constantly me
oriented. chatter, chatter,chatter, chatter, chatter.
Morten Andersen (31:37):
So when I am practicing mindfulness each
morning for 15 minutes, I'mreally doing two things. I'm one
having an experience of being inthe present. But I'm also
practicing, being able to dothat when I'm watching a sunset,
then I can activate thatexperience network.
Michael Chaskalson (31:57):
Exactly that exactly that. And not only when
you're having a nice sunset, butalso when you're with your
partner with your wife, you'reable to stay there and be
present with her, give her yourfull attention. appreciate her.
If your kids, if you have them,you're able to really give them
your full attention and bepresent with them and enjoy
them. Whatever you're doing,you're able to fully do it. So
(32:19):
you are where you are. Yeah,you're alive in the moment.
Morten Andersen (32:23):
Yes. Okay. So that's actually a practice to be
able to do it in real life. Sothe reason why 15 minutes is
good is not so much for the 15minutes, but actually for
building up the capacity to dothat when you want to or need
to.
Michael Chaskalson (32:39):
Exactly that exactly that. Here's the thing.
I didn't go to the gym, becauseI love gyms, I go to the gym in
order to be fit. MindfulnessMeditation stands to mindfulness
in the same way that exercisestands to fit this,
Morten Andersen (32:54):
huh, yeah, that's a good metaphor.
Michael Chaskalson (32:56):
Yeah. And I don't try to do my fitness
exercise when I'm out of breath.
Because I've run up the stairs.
I do my fitness so that when Irun up the stairs, I don't get
breathless.
Morten Andersen (33:08):
What do we not know yet about mindfulness? What
would you like see, researchedor to get some more information
about?
Michael Chaskalson (33:16):
Well, you know, my real interest is in
leadership. So I'm reallyinterested in looking at this
business of quiet egoleadership. I'm interested in
seeing whether a course thatincludes things like
mindfulness, compassion, anunderstanding of
interconnectedness, andfoundation and values. changes
(33:38):
the way in which people are ableto lead in conditions of
uncertainty and complexity. thatinterests me a lot.
Morten Andersen (33:55):
So What Monkeys Do is a podcast about how to
make a change and make it stick.
And one of the things we know,that are necessary to change
something in your life is thatyou have some kind of mental
energy, you have a surplus ofenergy that you can spend on
this change that you want. So ifyou're too stressed at work, if
you're too worried about thefuture, feeling shame about
something or regret aboutsomething in your past, then
(34:17):
you're unlikely to have thefocus and the desire to stick to
a new behavior. Can you maybetalk a little bit about how
mindfulness can help free upthat space and, and make it
easier to make a change.
Michael Chaskalson (34:33):
So particularly with experiences
like anxiety, or or shame and soon, being able to see what it is
that you are doing for yourselfin the moment, to recognize, for
example, that your feelings ofshame, are universal. We all
experience these to some extentor other. And it's not that
(34:54):
we're necessarily a bad person,that we may have done some
things in the past which weregret. But that's okay. And
some of what our shame is is isnot rational. But that we can
treat ourselves with morekindness, and more forgiveness,
the capacity to do that requiresan ability to address your inner
(35:16):
mechanisms, your mind itself, toobserve your mind at work, to
see shame, as shame, to see whatit is and what it does in the
moment to be able to go, it'sokay, these are just feelings of
shame. It's all right. And I cantreat myself with more kindness
(35:38):
with more compassion, with moreforgiveness, that capacity in
the first of all, to see whatyou're doing. And then to be
able to make choices around thatto go, I don't need to do it
like that I can have a differentrelationship to this capacity is
powerful. So it's the same withanxious thoughts, to see anxious
(36:01):
thoughts simply as a habit ofanxious thinking. And not
realities are just thoughts,you've learned to see them and
to move your attentionelsewhere. So you find yourself
driving a set of anxiousthoughts, it's making you
anxious, to move attention,perhaps to your breath, or to
some other part of your body, oryou think about something else,
(36:25):
and you come away from thosethoughts, you're not trying to
suppress them, get rid of them,you're simply moving your
attention somewhere else movingaway from so it's this kind of
agility or, or nimbleness withyour own inner processes that
emerges. When we spend a littlebit of time each day training
(36:47):
our minds with mindfulnesspractice, we gain that kind of
flexibility, that meta awarenessand that nimbleness as well as
this ability to treat ourselveswith kindness. Yes. You know,
people often ask me when I loveit, especially when I'm teaching
(37:07):
on MBA programs, how would Iknow what I'm getting better at
this? Look for kindness, if youfind yourself treating yourself
especially with a bit morekindness, if you find that
spilling over into yourrelations with others, that
you're treating them with a bitmore kindness, then you're
definitely on target. Now you'redoing ninja level mindfulness,
(37:27):
when you're actually kinder toyourself, and kinder to others.
That's what it's about.
Morten Andersen (37:33):
So if an MBA student is listening, that's a
KPI for you, yes, you look forthe level of kindness towards
yourself. And exactly. So welaugh at this is actually a
really good way of thinkingabout it that actually, a result
of this is that you will treatyourself better and kinda. So
one of the things that you canuse mindfulness for is that if
(37:54):
you do actually want to changefeelings about yourself, or
thoughts about yourself, thatcan actually be a way to do
exactly that. So that willcreate a change over time. But a
second way that we can usemindfulness is also to create
the space and the kindness andthe acceptance that would permit
(38:15):
us to make other changes inlife.
Michael Chaskalson (38:17):
I think that's absolutely, absolutely
right. It's beautifully put,it's a kind of meta skill in
that way, we apply to every partof our lives, when we've got
this capacity we can apply toevery part of our lives. And
look, here's the thing, with nota lot of athletes with just say
10 15 20 minutes, a day, more orless, for a couple of months
(38:41):
doing mindfulness practice, youget to be able to build your
capacity to do these things bysay, 10%. Let's say you reduce
your anxiety by 10%, or youincrease your level of self
compassion by say, 10%, or youincrease the amount of presence
(39:01):
you have by, say, 10%. This ismassively life changing. Don't
come away with the sense thatyou've got to master this, that
you've got to perfect it, thatit's even available. That's not
the way to think about this. Butif you can begin to just
increase by just a few percent,your capacity in these various
(39:22):
domains, that's life changing.
It makes you happier, it makesyou more effective. It makes you
kinder, more generous, and itreduces your suffering and you
pass on less suffering, which isall good.
Morten Andersen (39:35):
If I am or a listener wants to try to do
mindfulness, what is required isit that you take one time 15 or
20 minutes out each day and thensit for yourself and do this or
can you do this while being in acar or while you're driving. How
do I get started on this?
Michael Chaskalson (39:55):
My recommendation is that you find
a little bit of space that isquiet enough. And that could be
while commuting, not whiledriving. But certainly if you're
commuting in a train or a plane,or if you're being driven, or on
a bus, that's fine. So it couldbe that, or it could be at home,
or it could be at yourworkplace, just a little bit of
(40:16):
space that's quiet enough, whereyou're not going to be
interrupted, for say, 10minutes, we did some research.
One of the business schoolswhere we found that people who
came on our program who did themeditation practices, we set
them for around about 10 minutesa day began to experience
appreciable change. Over time,after after a couple of months,
(40:39):
they started to experiencereally significant change. 10
minutes a day seems to be thesort of point at which the
change occurred, those who didless than 10 minutes didn't get
the same degree of change. Sopeople who did 10 minutes or
more, and build up to it, takeyour time. And find a place
where you'll be less disturbed,find the time of day that works
(41:02):
best for you people very, to payfor alcohol. Definitely. If
you're going to do it last thingat night, you might find that
you fall asleep, doesn't lookbad in itself, but you don't get
quite the same benefit. So finda time when you can be awake,
where you can be alert, whereyou can be present, where you're
not going to be disturbed. Andjust start to work towards, say
(41:26):
10 minutes, start with 10minutes, get that and then just
keep doing it every day for afew months and see what you get.
Morten Andersen (41:33):
I personally find that if I do it in the
morning, that's easier for methat if I do it midday, because
midday, I have the whole to dolist and everything that I need
to do. But it's probably also alot easier in the morning. So
you know, if we, if we use thegym as an analogy, I'm probably
not pulling my weight in themorning as much as I would do in
the afternoon. But, but Idefinitely find the morning to
(41:54):
be easier for me to do it. Andthat's why I do it there.
Michael Chaskalson (41:58):
That's certainly what we hear from most
people. Not everybody by anymeans. But I can't put a finger
on it at the moment. But themajority of people seem to find
first thing in the morning. Butthere is a decent spread of
people who find other types ofday work for them too. And
Morten Andersen (42:13):
I guess it's also about finding a time when
it's practically possible. So ifyou have small children and you
need to attend them, then that'sprobably not the best time, I
agree to find a time when youdon't need to worry about if
anyone is coming in the door. Orif you need to do something else
that time you can actually setaside and you know, you can set
that aside, that will create acalmness that otherwise you
(42:34):
would not have. So I woulddefinitely recommend to try to
find that time. And that can bedifficult, but even just, you
know, saying to people in theoffice, I need to be by myself
for just 10 minutes, you know,can sometimes work, you know,
whatever works for for theindividual, I think is is the
most appropriate.
Michael Chaskalson (42:51):
Exactly that exactly.
Morten Andersen (42:53):
So it's it's something that you can practice.
But I guess like with anymuscle, if you don't go to the
gym for like a month, then youwill almost need to start all
over again, because your musclesdepleted. And I guess it is the
same with this. So we'repracticing, because we become
better at putting our attentionto what we need to put our
(43:14):
attention to. So when we are ina situation where we are with a
loved one, or we see somethingbeautiful, then we can pay our
attention solely on that. Andthat requires daily practice.
And you say 10 minutes and andsome of the programs, the
cognitive programs or thestressful based programs are
sort of 15 minutes, they say.
But if you can spare 10 or 15minutes, there seems to be the
(43:34):
appropriate amount. Is thatcorrect?
Michael Chaskalson (43:37):
Exactly Any amount will do. But my tiny
piece of research says thechange begins 10 Do what you can
build up to it and try over timeto come away from audio
guidance. Start with audioguidance, it's really, really
helpful makes a big difference.
The gradually start to do a fewsessions a time without God and
mix that in and gradually comeaway from audio guidance.
(44:02):
Something that I hear a lot frompeople is I listen to Headspace.
And I think it's not aboutlistening to Headspace. I know.
And he's a lovely charming guy.
He's nice to hang out with. Butit's not about listening to him.
It's about working yourattention yourself for yourself.
(44:23):
So gradually gradually come awayfrom the audio guy.
Morten Andersen (44:27):
I will take that straightaway. Because I am
definitely using Headspace as mypreferred app. And so
gravitating away from that, Ialso know that would be more
difficult because it is almosteasier to to be guided by
somebody. So guiding yourselfwould be my next step. So I'll,
I'll try to do thisstraightaway. Alright, so thanks
a lot, Michael, for coming inand telling us about what
(44:50):
mindfulness is the effect ofmindfulness and also how we can
use that as a tool if we want tomake a change in our life. So I
really appreciate you coming in.
Thank you very Much
Michael Chaskalson (45:00):
Thank you Morten. It's been great.
Morten Andersen (45:07):
Mindfulness is not new. In fact, it comes from
an ancient tradition, which goesback 1000s of years. But it's
only recently that mindfulnesshas become secular mainstream,
and that we understand it muchbetter. I took three things away
from my talk with Mike. One.
Mindfulness is important if wewant to make a change in our
life. When we practicemindfulness, we pay attention on
(45:30):
purpose in the present moment,in a non judgmental way for
those specific 15 minutes. Butthat's not really the sole
benefit. Those 15 minutes, whatwe're doing is that we're really
practicing the ability to directour attention to what matters in
the moment, the conversationwith our friend or child, the
(45:52):
beautiful scenery around us, theenergy in our body, or whatever
it might be, so that we duringthe day can be present and
mindful. It's a muscle that wepractice so we can use it during
the day, especially if we wantto make a change to there is a
wealth of research supportingthe effect of mindfulness.
(46:13):
Psychology does not have a longhistory of evidence based
practice quite the opposite. Infact, mindfulness in the form of
mbsr, or mbct, has proven thatit can significantly reduce
things such as relapsingdepression, or anxiety. In peer
reviewed articles, the benefitsare here, for all of us to see
(46:36):
10-15 minutes of mindfulnessevery day, it's like going to
the gym, the practice must bedaily, but then the effect is
real. And three, how do you knowif it works? Well look for
kindness towards yourself andothers. We are obsessed with
finding out if something works,what to measure what to look
(46:57):
out. Mindfulness is a softskill, and I even question if we
should try to measure itourselves. But one thing maybe
to look for is if it affects thekindness you show to yourself
and to others that will tell youif mindfulness is working for
you. Michael has written anexcellent book called
Mindfulness in Eight Weeks, Iactually will recommend the
(47:19):
Kindle version because it hasdirect links to audio files, and
that works really, really well.
So try it out. I did, it works.
So enjoy that. Until next time,take care.
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