Demystifying Mindfulness: Proactive Mindfulness vs Natural Mindfulness
Being mindful in civilized life, as opposed to the environment we evolved in, essentially requires “gaming the system”. This is why we are making a distinction here between “proactive mindfulness” and “natural mindfulness“.
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Mindfulness is a natural ability that we all have. It was honed by evolution: Our remote ancestors survived because they were actively engaged with their environment. They were alert to both potential opportunities and potential dangers. |
They were alert without being hypervigilant, because that kind of engagement was a normal part of every day life. The key point is: They were mindful because they needed to be mindful.
This quality of engagement differs from the way we might take a walk in the woods today, following a blazed trail in a State Park. Not only are we not threatened by wolves, our survival doesn't depend on finding food or shelter in these woods. We can afford to be distracted, to act mindlessly, as opposed to mindfully. And so we often do. Not just when we take a walk in the woods, but in so many aspects of our lives. Just think about how often we experience ourselves as bored, i.e. disengaged. We are not engaged because we do not absolutely need to be.
So it is not a contradiction to say that: (1) we have a natural ability to be mindful, and (2) our default mode is to be mindless. For efficient functioning, a feature that’s not needed is not activated. For us, as for our remote and ancestors, mindfulness comes in only when it’s needed.
Of course, this begs two questions: Why should we be mindful if we don’t need to? And how can we be mindful?
First, why should we try to be mindful, even when we don’t absolutely need to. A very simple way to address this is by making an analogy with physical exercise. The need for physical exercise is no longer built into the structure of our lives, as it was for our ancestors. We can live without, but at a tremendous cost to our health, ability to perform, and happiness. So we need to actively engage in physical exercise, even though, strictly speaking, we don’t need to. Same goes for mindfulness.
Now, how do we develop our ability to be more mindful? Certainly not by straining to do so. The analogy with physical exercise, in the previous paragraph, can be very misleading if it drives you to “exercise” mindfulness the way you would lift weights or develop your physical endurance by pushing harder. Mindfulness is not a muscle. It is our natural ability to be poised and alert in our interactions, when there is a need for us to be poised and alert. In civilized life, much of the time, this need is well below the threshold that it takes to activate mindfulness. This is why we need to “game the system“: We do not force ourselves to be more attentive. We trigger the natural process of focused attention and mindfulness.
This probably sounds very abstract, so a very simple example will help bring it to life. Let’s say you’re walking in a State Park. Your attention is not very engaged, because there is no real need for it to be. There are a lot of trees, and all trees kind of look the same, so it’s fairly boring. Maybe very pleasantly boring, but fairly boring anyway, in the sense that there is no direct invitation for you to be engaged with where you are. Chances are you let your mind wander, and you’re lost in your thoughts. There’s more action inside your mind then the outside world! Let’s say that, at some point, you realize you’ve been mostly in your head, and you want to try to be more mindful. Trying to force yourself to be more mindful will not work for more than a few moments, because there is nothing to keep your attention engaged. It is different if you actively engage your curiosity. For instance, you start to pay attention to the similarities and differences between the trees.
“Attention“ is not a thing, it is a process. There is no such thing as a pile of “attention” the way there is, say, a pile of sand. A process means there is an action: You pay attention to something. For instance, you pay attention to the trees. To do so, it helps to have a specific quest, such as noticing similarities and differences between trees. Such a quest is a way to enter into relationship with your environment. Then you are actively involved with it, and you are naturally mindful. This relationship will be sustainable if the quest is meaningful. Otherwise, it will default to boring. You may then need to figure out a different way to enter into a meaningful relationship with your environment, if you want to be mindful as opposed to mindless.
So, to come back to the distinction at the beginning of this article: The state of mindfulness is “natural mindfulness”. We get to it by gaming the system, i.e. “proactive mindfulness”.
How do we do that? It takes a pause to notice that you are on autopilot. The pause is what introduces the break, the discontinuity. As you notice that you are on autopilot, you are no longer totally on autopilot. There is at least some of you that is engaged in paying attention to your relationship with environment. Unless you do that, you stay on autopilot.
Once you notice, once you start to be engaged, it is possible to go further. This is when you can start to be curious about what it might be like to be less passive, to have a different relationship with your environment. You have activated the mindfulness process.
Under this general umbrella, there is room for many approaches to mindfulness. This includes, of course, meditation. Mindful processes such as Focusing... Affect regulation... Thoughtfulness... Physical practices such as yoga or martial arts... These are not mutually exclusive; in fact they are complementary.
See more articles about proactive mindfulness & related topics.
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