narrow awareness – Grow Mindfulness

Exploring Awareness Without Boundaries

In a previous post, I explored Diana Winston’s discussion of the three dimensions of awareness – narrow, broad and choiceless. In this post, I want to explore “boundaryless awareness” which is often called “choiceless awareness“. I will be drawing on a guided meditation for resting in boundaryless awareness provided by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

The expansiveness of awareness

Jon reminds us that our awareness can take in an endless array of sensations, thoughts, and emotions as well as conscious awareness of the fact that we are observing, thinking or experiencing. Our awareness is like the unbounded expanse of the sky or the galaxies beyond.

With narrow awareness we hone in on a particular focus such as our breathing, sounds around us or a specific self-story; with broad awareness we open ourselves to all that is going on around us. With boundaryless awareness we progressively open to our total inner and outer reality without constraint – not choosing, entertaining or engaging – just being-in-the-moment. Jon reminds us that we are often extremely narrow in our awareness, just fixated on ourselves – e.g. on our addiction, our pain or our boredom. Boundaryless awareness creates a sense of freedom – moving beyond self-obsession to openness to what is.

A guided meditation on boundaryless awareness

In Jon’s meditation podcast, provided by mindful.org, he takes us through a series of stages that gradually open our consciousness to the expansiveness of our awareness – beyond depth, breadth and width.

In the 30 minute meditation, he begins by having you focus on the “soundscape” – the sounds that surround you and the space in between each sound. He encourages you to “be the hearing” – to rest in the very act of hearing, thus deepening awareness not only of the sounds but also of the fact that you are hearing them.

In the next stage of progressing in awareness, Jon suggests that you now move your awareness to the air that you breathe and the sensation of the air on your skin as well as consciousness of its progress through your body. You could even extend this to breathing with the earth, so that you are attuned to your participation in the “breathing globe”.

Jon points out that while all this is going on your body is experiencing sensations – aches and pains, pressure of the chair on your back and legs, the sense of being grounded with your feet on the floor. [As I participated in this meditation, I even had the sensation of movement in my fingers (which were touching) – lightening the pressure of touch, growing thicker and expanding outwards.] Jon suggests that you let your awareness float across your body sensations as you breathe, sit, hear and feel.

You can extend your awareness to your thoughts, not entertaining them but growing conscious that you are thinking – letting your thoughts come and go as they float away. This awareness simultaneously embraces feelings elicited by your thoughts and accompanying images and memories.

In the final stage of this guided meditation, that Jon calls “one last jump”, you allow your mind and heart to be “boundless, hugely spacious, as big as the sky or space itself” – an awareness that has no bounds like the “boundarylessness” of awareness itself in its uninhibited form.

Stability through narrowing your focus

If you find that you need to stabilise your mind as you experience the unaccustomed sensations of “weightlessness” or unbounded awareness, you can return to a narrower focus – your breath or the sounds around you. In returning to a narrow awareness, you can sense the limits of this focus within the broader field of unbounded awareness. Boundaryless awareness, however, is accessible to you at any time you choose to pursue it.

As we grow in mindfulness by resting in our awareness -narrow, broad or boundaryless – through meditation, we come to realise the expansiveness of awareness and the freedom and calm that lies beyond self-absorption, with all its various manifestations such as addiction, negative self-stories or depression.

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Image by O12 from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness for Self-Regulation

Over the past few months, I have been conducting manager development workshops with my colleague as part of an action learning program for public sector managers. The program, called Confident People Management (CPM), is skill-based and focuses on developing skills to enable managers to build a productive, mentally healthy workplace culture.

In a recent workshop, two of the participating managers identified issues in their approach to management that related to the need to develop self-regulation. I will describe each of these issues in turn and discuss how mindfulness could help each manager to develop self-regulation to deal with their particular managerial issue. The names will be changed to respect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Self-regulation for a racing mind

An integral part of the four-month, manager development program is the workplace practice of skills learned in the monthly workshops. Each workshop begins with a shared reflection on this workplace practice – what was attempted and what outcomes, intended and unintended, were realised.

John reported that he had been practising active listening in the workplace. However, the biggest impediment to his effective listening was his racing mind. Each time someone he was talking to mentioned an issue, John’s mind would automatically start racing, filling his head with ideas and solutions. He found that he could not stop this mental activity and it got in the road of his active listening.

John could learn to still his racing mind by practising a form of narrow awareness such as mindful breathing. There are two key elements of mindful breathing that would help John with self-regulation, the focus on breath and the practice of continuously returning to this focus when thoughts arise.

With mindful breathing, awareness of breath becomes the anchor of the meditation practice. Each time a thought arises, it is allowed to float to the surface like a bubble that eventually bursts. Each thought is noticed but not entertained, and during the meditation the participant develops the discipline of continuously returning to the primary focus of breathing. This anchoring, through focused awareness of breath, builds the capacity for self-regulation for a racing mind.

Self-regulation for the management of triggers

Another participant, Mary, expressed the issue of being constantly triggered in the workplace and finding herself becoming irritated and angry. The management of negative triggers is an important skill for a manager in the workplace because they need to model appropriate behaviour and not become the victim of their uncontrolled impulses.

Mary explained that certain triggers led to physical signs of agitation such as tightness in her chest and shoulders and overall tension in her body. She was able to identify the bodily manifestation of her heightened, negative emotions as well as the inappropriate behaviour that this led to, such as angry words and an aggressive stance.

What would help Mary to manage her response to these negative triggers would be the practice described as S.B.N.R.R. in a previous post. This practice would enable Mary to develop more appropriate responses to the negative triggers. The process involves stopping (delaying a response), breathing deeply (to gain control), noticing tension points in the body (to release the tension), reflecting on any pattern in the triggers (to better understand why she is triggered by particular words and/or actions) and responding in a more appropriate way (to gradually increase her response ability).

As managers grow in mindfulness through appropriate meditation practice (such as narrow awareness and S.B.N.R.R.), they can develop self-regulation to deal with issues that would otherwise derail their management of people and the development of a productive and mentally healthy workplace.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of ernestoeslava on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Developing Choiceless Awareness

In the previous post, I discussed three dimensions of awareness in meditation – the narrow, broad and “choiceless awareness”. In this post, I want to focus on the latter form of awareness that, to some degree, requires foundational skills in narrow awareness or focused awareness.

Choiceless awareness is a recognised form of meditation that has developed over time to increase self-awareness and self-regulation. For example, Tara Brach offers a free, guided meditation on choiceless awareness which incorporates the use of the mantra “OM“.

Choiceless awareness is not directed to a specific focus as in narrow awareness focused on breath or sounds; it is open to whatever enters your inner awareness. You might become aware of bodily sensations – pain, tightness, tingling or warmth – in your arms, legs, back, shoulders, feet or chest.

You could become aware of your thoughts as they enter your mind and notice whether they relate to analysing, planning, critiquing, estimating, organising or summarising. You could ascertain whether your thoughts relate to the past or the future – whether they are concerned with past situations/events or anticipated situations/events. The main thing is not to entertain the thoughts but to let them pass you by, like bubbles floating to the surface and bursting.

You could become aware of your emotions generated by your thoughts or sensations and become conscious of anxiety, fear, joy, peace, disappointment, hope or any other positive or negative emotion. You could name the emotion and acknowledge it, e.g. I am feeling sad, and then move your awareness to what else is happening for you.

With choiceless awareness, the focus shifts constantly, and this can become disorientating. What is recommended if this happens is to turn to focused awareness of your breathing to ground yourself again. This is why it is suggested that even with choiceless awareness, the starting point should be some form of focused/narrow awareness so that you can return to the grounding offered by the narrower form of meditation.

As we grow in mindfulness by engaging in different forms of meditation, including choiceless awareness, we can increase our self-awareness and self-regulation and be better able to manage situations that are stressful.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of MabelAmber on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Three Dimensions of Awareness

In one of her many meditation podcasts, Diana Winston discusses three different dimensions of awareness and leads a meditation that explores each dimension.

Diana suggests that no one dimension is better than the others – each is appropriate for a particular time. It is also possible and desirable to be able to move from one dimension of awareness to another – this may help when you are encountering the obstacle of restlessness or boredom in your meditation. Sometimes, too, when you are tired you might find that an open, less exacting form of awareness is useful to help you to pay attention in the present moment with openness and curiosity.

Narrow awareness – Diana likens this form of awareness to taking a photo with a telephoto lens where minute details are captured. The image for this post by MabelAmber illustrates this focus – providing a close-up view of drops of water on the leaves of a plant. Focusing on our breathing is an example of narrow awareness – and it can be hard work as we keep trying to return to our focus when our mind wanders, and thoughts interrupt the flow of our attention.
Broad awareness – is like taking a panoramic picture of a landscape or seascape with a camera. Here you are not focusing on detail but breadth and impact. Open awareness is a good example of this as you are opening your awareness to multiple senses – sight, sounds, smells, taste and touch. Compared to narrow awareness, this can be a more restful meditation, like coasting on your bike after expending much effort peddling.
Choiceless Awareness – as we are meditating, we can notice things happening in our awareness, e.g. change in our breathing, tension release in our body or strong emotions. The nature of our awareness can shift over a single period of meditation. We could begin with a narrow focus, open up to a broader focus by listening to the sounds that are coming to us from different directions and then attend to the emotions that those sounds elicit in us. This ability to consciously shift the focus of our awareness can enhance our capacity to be present to whatever is occurring in our world.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation practice that employs the different dimensions of awareness we can build the skill to be really present in the moment of practice as well as in future situations involving interactions with others or undertaking a challenging and stressful task. The capacity to be in the moment with openness and curiosity stays with us as we engage in our daily activities at work or at home.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of MabelAmber on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.