Jon Kabat-Zinn – Frantic Shanti

Tall Like a Mountain: A Meditative Visualization

In dealing with anxiety, I’ve come to accept that while fearful thoughts come and go, I remain the same.

Visualizations have been helpful in realizing this. One of my favorites, the one made famous by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD — creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program — is the Mountain Meditation, and I value this visualization particularly because it is so meaningful in its description.

For this meditation, you settle into your seat and bring your attention to your body. Scanning your different parts, from your feet to your head. Feeling yourself breathe as you go. No need to change anything; you’re simply noticing sensations.

Imagine your ideal mountain…and then become it.

As you sit with eyes closed, shift your thoughts to a beautiful mountain, tall and stately. Imagine the details about it, it can be whatever kind of mountain you choose. Steep or gently sloping, rocky or carpeted with greenery. Allow the image to form itself: the mountain is stable, majestic and unperturbed regardless of the season or weather.

Then, once you have a clear picture of your mountain…allow yourself to become the mountain, settling into its form and taking on its characteristics. Feel yourself grounded in its stillness.

Sitting as the mountain, imagine the seasonal changes and the different weather that each brings. Through the snow of winter that blankets everything, the spring thaw as nature awakens and buds burst open, the summer teeming with life under the warmth of the sun, and autumn with its changing colors and cooler breezes that move you into a quieter state in preparation for the coming winter again.

All these bring wind, precipitation and occasionally harsh conditions whether they be cold or heat. But the mountain still sits as it always has, unmoving and unbothered.

And so you, as the mountain, also sit in the midst of different conditions. When you take on the garb of the mountain, you link with its strength and stability and unchanging nature from day to month to year. This meditation encourages us to see through the chaos of our everyday lives and find the persistent calm behind it.

This is one of my favorite meditations because it carries so much meaning. Below is a YouTube video of Dr. Kabat-Zinn leading a 20-minute Mountain Meditation:

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mountain Meditation

If you would like to read a version of it, PalouseMindfulness.com has provided their own adapted transcript of Kabat-Zinn’s Mountain Meditation in a pdf file. Alternatively, googling “mountain meditation” will also bring up a nice variety of recordings.

I encourage you to try this when you feel you need extra grounding.

Mindfulness Programs I Love: “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction”

Although I may never be able to prove it, I’m willing to bet that stress played a role in the proliferation of my cancer.

As a result, getting my stress response under control was a high priority, so I started a meditation practice and once the toughest parts of my treatment (chemo, radiation) were done, went searching for a formal class to address anxiety.

My clinical counselor had told me about a book called “Full Catastrophe Living” by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. As it turned out, Kabat-Zinn had been a long-time meditator and, drawing on both Buddhist Dharma and scientific research, developed a stress-reduction program for patients at the UMass Medical School in the 1970s called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

So when I found a Center for Mindfulness at a local university, I jumped at the opportunity to take that same flagship MBSR course.

This is an 8-week class with an additional full-day retreat. The curriculum has been developed to introduce students to mindfulness and help them, over a two month period, develop a practice, both formal and informal to manage stress in their lives.

It is also not cheap! The non-discounted version may cost about $600, depending on where and when you sign up. If I hadn’t had cancer and therefore a powerful reason for needing in-person guidance in mindfulness meditation, I would have considered myself priced out of this course, instead opting for a self-paced, free online version, such as Palouse Mindfulness.

But I used the significant price tag to motivate myself to do each and every homework assignment. The classes themselves were 2.5 hours a week, with daily home practice lasting about 45 minutes to an hour. That’s no small commitment! I had to move around my schedule to be able to fit the practice time in, and even the Center for Mindfulness itself recommended that if you could not accommodate the home practice to wait for a time that you could before signing up for the class.

The teachers were warm and supportive. They genuinely cared about student progress and themselves had a regular practice in addition to having spent time and resources on their own teacher training. As such, the instruction was excellent.

There were a number of resources for the students, including audio and video programs, which are also available to the general public. Currently, as an MBSR alumna, I have access to all the day-long mindfulness retreats for students free of charge. This gives me an opportunity to immerse myself into silent meditation for substantial periods of time in a similarly conducive environment.

The development of a mindfulness practice has more to do with the effort of the student, rather than the expense of a class.

I was struck by how quickly the class registration filled up, and how during the first session, when asked why we were taking the course, so many of us cited the amount of stress and anxiety in our lives. It is a sign of the times that so many people are willing to pay a significant amount of money to take a class to help them get some semblance of control over their inner state.

Actually achieving this was harder than simply paying the cost of admission. This class began with about thirty of us, but fewer than half made it to the very end. A number of people admitted being unable to complete the homework. Some gave up completely. There were others that came for several sessions but then never returned. Everyone was looking for help with stress but not everyone was successful.

As a secular version of Buddhist mindfulness, the course does justice to the tradition. While the expensive registration fee may be off-putting for some (many?), there is tuition assistance available, which I feel is important. As I’ve written before, I don’t feel that it’s appropriate to make mindfulness available only to those rich enough to afford fancy classes.

But in the end, regardless of what type of mindfulness instruction you utilize, what matters is how much effort each student puts into the practice of being mindful.

And that is available to all.

Letting Go in 5…4…3…2…

Several nights ago I woke at 3am, my brain abuzz with images of what had taken place that day. In an effort to divert my attention and fall back to sleep I focused on my breath, but I was so groggy that I couldn’t concentrate effectively.

So instead I imagined a beautiful sunny field with chirping birds and various animals coming by to snuggle with me. It was the epitome of placidity and contentment. A darling fawn nuzzled me. Then a purring lion tenderly rubbed up against me. And attacked me.

Seriously??? This is my self-created fantasy and I can’t manage to keep it positive???

But perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m a few days out from a 3-D mammogram that I’ve managed not to think about because I’ve had such a busy week at work. It will be the first mammogram since completing all my cancer treatments, so it’s kind of a big deal. Somewhere in the back of my mind fears and what-ifs are simmering. It’s scanxiety rearing its ugly head.

People tell me that everything is going to be okay. But how can they say that? This is cancer. There is never a guarantee that everything will be okay. For others to say that to someone who’s been through the full spate of treatments sounds like a brush off. Even when everything is “okay”, it may still not be okay! And sometimes it’s worse.

Sure, Mr. Expectations, you look so cute and peaceful, but if I get too close, you’ll take my head off.

I wrote a letter to myself the evening before my original diagnostic mammogram way back in early 2017, trying to calm myself down because I was an anxious mess. And in that letter I told myself that I’d be able to go back and re-read it after the mammogram and chuckle about how worried I’d been and how everything actually worked out. I tried to reason myself into calm, noting how unlikely it was that I had cancer. That tenuous serenity was blown the next morning by the radiologist who read my scan.

I remember that crushing feeling — it’s what colors my experience right now. I want to believe that everything will be okay, and yet the spectre of possibilities hovers over me ready to potentially ruin my day (and life!). I don’t think that the cancer is back, but I’ve put off making summer travel plan. Just in case.

Gah, is this what the rest of my life will be like? Being fearful of making plans? That’s not a good use of the time I have left on this planet.

Mindfulness as espoused by Jon Kabat-Zinn (drawing heavily on the Buddhist wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh) speaks of non-attachment. Having expectations and being attached to their outcome causes suffering. I can attest to that.

Trying to reason through to an “answer” only increases agony. So I will take deep breaths and stop thinking.