Why isn’t mindfulness working for me?

Sometimes, when something gets heavily commodified or has a sudden surge in popularity – like mindfulness has in recent years – its fundamental purpose can get a little lost in translation. 

Perhaps you’ve seen people raving about ‘zen’ in the media, or heard from your friends or peers about how they’ve tried it and felt immediately soothed. Maybe they’ve told you all about this incredible peace they’ve felt, or perhaps you’ve scrolled past some of the millions of #mindfulliving posts on Instagram.

What all of these external factors can often amount to in us is a feeling of expectation. So we go into mindfulness anticipating a feeling of zen, and having a soothing, calming, liberating experience, but things don’t quite live up to those expectations.

So you grow frustrated with it, you walk away from it, and you don’t try it again.  

If you can relate to that last paragraph, good. I’m writing this for you. Because you’re just as capable as tapping into the health benefits of mindfulness as anyone else is. Let’s reset what we think we know about mindfulness, and leave some of those expectations at the door…

Yes, it can be very useful for anxiety, depression and stress management – but it really is just a mental health tool, and it takes practice to cultivate and develop.

Similar to how you won’t get instantly toned arms from your first 20 push-ups, you won’t tap into all of the benefits of mindfulness in your first session.

But in the same way just doing 20 push-ups can release endorphins, increase blood flow and still have a good short-term positive impact, your early attempts at mindfulness have wide-ranging benefits too – even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.  

If letting go of all of the expectations is the biggest thing you can do to help you on your mindfulness journey, the second biggest is to remember that mindfulness isn’t about focusing on your mind. I think a lot of people can make that mistake, and that’s when those thoughts can come pouring in.

Mindfulness is about focusing on and paying attention to your body: noticing your breath, some tingles in your feet, maybe a nice warm fuzzy feeling, or some discomfort or pain in your body. It’s about noticing that sensation in the body and letting it go. Feel how you occupy space in the world – your height (head to toes), your breadth (side to side) and your depth (front to back). That’s all it is, and that is the gateway to developing awareness to the here and now, to your own presence.

Ultimately, the practice of mindfulness helps you develop your ‘inner witness’. It’s about you recognising yourself, and that you are not your thoughts and emotions, you are not your situation, you are you.

Just being able to name your feelings, notice them, and pay attention to where they’re coming from and where they’re going – that can give you the ability to respond from a place filled with calm and possibility. It can allow you to take back some control. Particularly in our current climate, I think that’s pretty helpful.

Like anyone, I often find myself thinking or feeling things that I don’t necessarily like. But now that I’ve been cultivating and practicing mindfulness for so long, I am better able to catch them, recognise them for what they are, and let them go.

I think Victor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, articulated it best when he said: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

So go on. Be kind to yourself, take it at your own pace, and don’t expect too much. Mindfulness might just work for you after all.