Circumstances for learning this attention exercise
recognizing that you’re overthinking
feeling under the weather
interested in developing perceptual clarity
Brains aren’t primarily for thinking. They keep us alive by regulating a complex, dynamic metabolic budget. Imagine if you had to micromanage every breath, the digestive process, and the circulation of nutrients through the bloodstream. I'd never get out of bed if I had to coordinate the physiological details required to start each day.
The efficient mechanism operating outside our conscious awareness helps us navigate life smoothly, but it also means we overlook the rich tapestry of experiences happening in and around us.
It can be profoundly enlivening to peel back the layers of ordinary perceptions that often become muted in the hectic automaticity of daily life. Noticing that we’re alive by tuning into our ordinary perceptions—more often than never—leads to feeling more alive.
Practicing mindfulness can be an attempt to avoid life by trying to be perpetually relaxed and numb unpleasant feelings, but it’s a doomed strategy. It can never exempt you from the inevitable challenges of life. Eventually, you’ll either decide that mindfulness doesn’t work or realize it’s not intended to be a sedative.
Although mindfulness is straightforward, the practice itself is anything but easy. For instance, while it may seem simple to focus on the sensations of your hands, your brain imposes an “idea of hand” over the raw sensations. While incredibly useful most of the time, this cognitive filtering obscures a deeper experience of touch, making it challenging to connect with what’s actually there to be felt.
Interestingly, raw physical sensations can be easier to access when they're stronger. Pain can be easier to detect when it's intense. Deep relaxation tends to be easier to detect and savor than moderately comfortable or neutral sensations.
One effective way to sharpen our ability to detect a wider variety of perceptions is to occasionally abandon the familiar categories we use to navigate our daily routines.
Artists sometimes use this perspective by flipping a reference image upside down to develop their ability to see it more objectively.
To apply this to mindfulness practice, instead of experiencing the body as a collection of namable parts, we can explore dividing it up in alternative ways to observe it from different angles.
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