Don’t turn being mindful into another bullet point on your resume
Mindfulness continues to have a moment. Recent headlines claim it lowers anxiety, improves cardiovascular health, and lessens the allure of social media. It’s being taught in public elementary schools, even in rural America. A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at an academic conference and was followed by a self-described “corporate shaman” who used “spiritual and metaphysical tools” like mindfulness to help “companies stay grounded and strong in today’s fast-paced environment.”
With all this flying around it’s important to remember what produces mindfulness: meditation. Otherwise, the ability to pay more attention becomes yet another credential to add to your resume, a requirement from an anonymous authority on high — a way to control rather than free yourself.
Hmm…I wonder why corporations like Google and Target offer mindfulness programs to their employees?
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Without regular meditation practice, trying to be mindful adds to the weight of our other fantasies, of getting in shape, becoming rich, making our boss happy, finally relaxing, being loved for who we are. It’s becomes a big deal that really just allows you to avoid doing the real hard work of relaxing into the present moment with no expectations.
Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa called the beginning meditator a “heavily loaded pack donkey trying to struggle across a highly polished stream of ice. You can’t grip it with your hooves, and you have a heavy load on your back.” This is probably why some people are turned off by meditation on the first try. They figure that something is supposed to happen quickly, and if it doesn’t, they give up, saying things like, “My mind doesn’t stop.” Of course they give up — they’ve turned it into a job. They’re doing it for someone else, to fulfill an image of a mindful person.
The thing is, beyond those suffering from neurological issues, being mindful is actually our natural state. It’s conditioning that makes us neurotic. Our parents passed on their own neuroses when they cared for us. Because of the way our economy is designed, American culture leans into the future to ignore the pain of the present. The American Dream is neurotic AF. Some live in fear because of their skin color or the way their body looks.
Outside forces have conditioned how you relate with the relentless waves of thoughts and experiences that make up your life. You’ve learned to protect yourself and survive by bending in certain ways, by guarding your vulnerabilities. You’ve learned to close down and present a certain image or play a certain role instead of open as the messy but perfect human being you really are.
Meditation just helps you get back to yourself, the human being underneath all the conditioning, who you were when your mother asked what you wanted to be when you grew up and you told her your hopes and dreams. It’s you giving yourself time and space to watch your habitual patterns of thinking and blaming and telling stories and tightening parts of your body. When you notice the pattern, you come back to watching your breath — again and again.
It’s work, but it shouldn’t be a job. Don’t do it for anyone else — otherwise you’ll run out of steam and give it up, which would be disappointing.
