Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking out new landscapes but in having new eyes.

The first stage of regaining your innate mindfulness involves returning to basics. You need to relearn how to focus your awareness on one thing at a time.

’s very difficult to reverse the process simply by thinking your way out, for this is like opening yet another program on the computer, overlayering it with yet another window. Instead, you need to find a way of stepping outside the cycle almost as soon as you notice it’s begun. This is the first step in learning to deal with life more skillfully. It involves training yourself to notice when your autopilot is taking over, so that you can then make a choice about what you want your mind to be focusing upon

You might try arguing with yourself, telling yourself: I’m stupid for feeling like this. But such thinking about thoughts, feelings and emotions simply makes them worse. Very soon the autopilot can become overloaded with too many thoughts, memories, anxieties and tasks—just like a computer with too many windows left open. Your mind slows down. You may become exhausted, anxious, frantic and chronically dissatisfied with life. And again, just like a computer, you may freeze—or even crash.

As the years pass, this can become a huge problem as you cede more and more control of your life to the autopilot—including much of what you think. Habits trigger thoughts, which trigger more thoughts, which end up triggering yet more habitual thoughts. Fragments of negative thoughts and feelings can form themselves into patterns that amplify your emotions. Before you know it, you can become overwhelmed by deep-seated stresses, anxieties and sadnesses.

’s almost as if our minds are purged of consciousness, leaving the autopilot in full control

Habits are frighteningly subtle, yet can be incredibly powerful. Without warning, they can seize control of your life and drive you in a direction totally different from that you’d intended. It’s almost as if the mind is in one place and the body in another.

Alex isn’t suffering from dementia, nor does he have a particularly poor memory. He’d simply been on “automatic pilot,” his mind having been hijacked by his current concerns

You simply have to do the practices and learn for yourself. If you do, then every now and again, you will have an “Aha” moment—a flicker of insight that is profoundly calming and enlightening.

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