Mindfulness is a Good Thing: A Mental Health Resource Christians Often Overlook

A few years ago, I was asked to take an eight-week course in mindfulness by my employer. I was told this would require daily homework and an eight-hour silent retreat on the weekend, at the end of the course. Since I was already working 60-70 hours a week and since I had a negative impression of mindfulness, I was not enthusiastic about taking this course.

Well, I took the course, and it honestly changed my life. I have to say, it was the most impactful course I have ever taken. I would like to share some of the ways it improved my life and relationships and how it did so. Perhaps it will cause you to think differently about mindfulness, and maybe it will benefit you, as it did me.

Part of my lack of enthusiasm stemmed from my Christian upbringing. Buddhism, which is often associated with mindfulness, was not seen in a positive light in the churches I attended. While I’ve not become a Buddhist and still believe that Christ is the only way to salvation, I came to see that mindfulness was associated with many principles in the Bible.

In some cases, I replaced ideas. For instance, I didn’t tune in to the wisdom within me, but rather to God’s spirit, Who gives wisdom and guidance. In the end, I noticed the things I learned, and a daily practice of mindfulness helped me in my relationships, helped me manage stress and anxiety better, and helped me get through tough times with less angst.

So, what is mindfulness anyway? There are numerous definitions, depending on who you talk to, but most include ideas of paying attention purposefully to the present moment without judgment. Sometimes the ideas of doing this as a means of improving self-understanding or wisdom are added.

Initially, doing this in practice felt silly and like a waste of time to me. After all, the time I was spending paying attention to the present moment could have been used to get something done. It took a while for me to get the point.

Living in the Present

If you think about it, we live in time. We only ever exist in this moment. It’s ironic to me that we who exist in time seem to hardly ever be present in the moment. Meanwhile, God, who dwells outside of time, is fully present in every moment. For us humans, we often “dwell” in the future.

We think about what we need to get done, what might happen if we don’t get it done, what might transpire if things don’t work out as we would like. I came to see living in the future almost constantly as a good definition of anxiety. It’s especially debilitating for those who have experienced traumatic events and become hypervigilant about what might happen next.

On the other hand, we sometimes live in the past. We hang on to losses, regrets over things we did, or the things that didn’t work out as we had hoped. This often leads to depression. Depression can be the result of getting stuck in the past.

Over the course of my mindfulness training, I began to reflect on moments when I felt most happy and most at peace. I realized those were moments when I was fully in the present – running with a football in my hand, aware of all the subtle movements and Jersey colors of all the players around me or tracking the course of a baseball while in full stride and diving to trap it in my glove just before it hit the ground.

I recalled the moment my daughter was born and holding her for the first time without thinking of the tasks I needed to complete at work. I remembered how time slowed down during a serious car accident and how the minute details of the moment stood out. I remembered losing track of time, looking into the eyes of my first girlfriend, and feeling like I was exactly where I was meant to be. Some people refer to these as “peak moments.”

They occur when we give our attention completely to what is happening right now. They often involve a strange distortion of time and a feeling of complete peace or awareness. Though not necessarily intentional, these moments are a form of mindfulness. Mindfulness practices simply improve the ability to experience moments like this by helping us get good at being fully present.

So, how do you intentionally do mindfulness? Why would you do it, and how can it possibly benefit you?

Mindfulness practices vary, but they generally involve choosing something to give your attention to. Common objects of attention are our bodies (through body scans), our breath, sounds, smells, or tastes.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Why would you waste time paying attention to your breath or something else? I was surprised by the benefits. First, I began noticing that periods of mindfulness were moments of rest from an otherwise almost constant activity in my brain. I experienced greater calm – less anxiety in the moments I wasn’t practicing mindfulness. I felt refreshed.

Secondly, I began noticing things I had never noticed. I recently heard that we receive 1.1 million bits of information through our senses per second, but our brain is only able to process three or four pieces of information per second. Where does the rest go? The answer is that our brains filter it out. This isn’t done randomly. We filter based on what we judge to be important.

Usually, this has something to do with our past experiences, our beliefs, and our values. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Our brains would overload if they tried to process all the information they receive each second. On the other hand, we can end up missing a lot.

Good choices are usually made when you consider as much information as possible. Mindfulness helped me consider a wider range of possibilities for what was going on and how I might react. This helped me make better decisions in relationships and when problems arose in life.

How can mindfulness benefit you? My experience has been that it has given me greater peace, I experience more joy and enjoyment, my relationships have improved, I solve problems more effectively, and I overcome hardships with greater ease. I’ve even been able to face health concerns without as much stress by not letting my mind go down rabbit holes of endless “what-ifs.”

Many people who attempt to practice mindfulness realize that it’s hard to simply “be” in the moment. I quickly realized I was a better “human doing” than a “human being.” Often people give up, saying, “I tried, but I couldn’t do that.” I think I would have given up too if I hadn’t been introduced to the nine attitudes of mindfulness by Jon Kabat Zinn.

Habits of Thought and Attitude

These are habits of thought and attitude we can try to cultivate while practicing being in the moment. They help us stay in the moment and get a better understanding of what is happening, rather than what we think is happening. Some of my favorites include:

Beginner’s Mind This reminds me of Jesus’ teaching that we need to become like little children. It involves treating each situation as if we don’t understand it fully. It involves asking, “What am I not seeing?” Often, we treat situations as if we are experts. For instance, “I know what she’s going to say next” or ‘here we go again.” The truth is, no two experiences are the same.

Our brains try to predict, by drawing on past experiences, but this can lead us to make assumptions. In mindfulness circles, it is often said, “In the mind of an expert there is nothing to learn, but in the beginner’s mind there are endless possibilities.” Cultivating a beginner’s mind involves humility and curiosity. It improves relationships, decision-making, and a sense of calmness.

Nonjudgment This doesn’t mean we don’t discern right from wrong or that we don’t think. Nonjudgment is a way of addressing our almost constant tendency to attach good or bad to things. “I shouldn’t feel this way,” or “This is a bad situation.”

Nonjudgment refers to the skill of observing what’s happening in our own minds and around us without jumping to the conclusion that they are good or bad. Instead, we simply experience them. When we judge things, we tend to have strong reactions. When we observe and experience things, we tend to have more measured responses.

Gratitude Of course, this is an attitude we can easily see as Christian. After all, we are instructed to “give thanks in all things.” Gratitude in the context of mindfulness involves a recognition that if we are fully aware of the moment, we would see that there are many more good things happening than negative things at any given moment.

We can get focused on the things we think are negative, but we are instructed to think on the things that are “just, pure, lovely…etc.” (Phil 4:8)

Trust This is another attitude that easily translates to Christian thought. It involves the idea that everything is unfolding as it should or that God is in control. So often, I become distressed because things are not unfolding as I believe they should. Taking a moment to “be still and know that I am God” is what the attitude of trust entails. As Christians, we can forget to just sit in that trust and meditate on it.

Admittedly, this is only an introduction to mindfulness. I hope that it has caused you to consider if some form of formal mindfulness practice might enhance your Christian walk and improve your mental health, the challenges you face, and that it might improve your relationships. I was surprised to find those things to be true for me. You would too.