Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

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.

Releasing Rigidity

I wanted to revisit the issue of having an important thought pop into my mind in the midst of a meditation session, and how I’ve ultimately allowed myself to deal with it.

For some background: in mindfulness meditation, we are taught to let go of thoughts and focus on the breath. But with all the cancer treatments that I’ve had, memory is collateral damage. During the course of a regular day, I have thoughts go POUF in the ether — and sometimes they’re important things that I really should remember. Ironically, I’ve had them return to me while my mind is still and uncluttered, as during meditation.

I’ve been told that during meditation if a thought that you need to remember comes up, you should make a “mental note” and release it, and then come back to it once your meditation is over.

If an important thought comes up during meditation, you better believe I’m writing it down!

Well, lemme tell ya, that simply no longer works for me since there’s no guarantee that a “mental note” will work. When that thought pops into my head, I’ve decided to pause my session and write it down.

You could say that I’m not supposed to do this, but I know that this is the only thing that works for me — I can record the thought and not spend the rest of the session worrying that I’m going to forget it, which might otherwise consume the remainder of my meditation.

I feel that mindfulness teachers would agree with me that mindfulness should flow out of your situation. It works with what you need, allowing you to appreciate this moment. In the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) classes that I took, we were always told to take care of ourselves, to make sure that we were comfortable and secure.

It became apparent to me that I wasn’t going to look like the meditators that we see when we google an image of one: seated in lotus position, palms up with thumb and forefinger touching. That wouldn’t be conducive to a prolonged session for me.

While I do own a meditation cushion, I prefer to sit in a chair during MBSR workshops, since my joints ache and legs go numb if they’re crossed for too long. And when I’m home, sometimes I’ll lie on my back during meditation with my legs up a wall in the pose called Viparita Karani. This is very soothing for me because, again, I have problems with my feet, and this not only helps with the weird numbness but also lessens the chance that I’ll experience restless leg syndrome.

I believe that mindfulness is not about living up to someone else’s idea of perfection. Nor is it a competition to see who can meditate in the most uncomfortable position. It is staying present, noticing what is happening right now, in this moment. I can do this much better if I’m not fighting pain.

So I don’t focus on the concepts of “right or wrong”. Getting to this point took some doing because I am by nature a perfectionist. But part of my mindfulness journey has been simply releasing that rigidity of what I think I “should” do and finding peace in doing what is best for me.

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I remember as a young child listening to a missionary priest talk about his travels. He spoke of a little boy tending sheep in a field who had come up with his own prayer: he had a handful of pebbles and was talking to God, saying “one for you, one for me, one for you, one for me” as he made two little piles.

That was the way he prayed, and the priest said that it was exactly the way that suited him. He might not have been doing it “right” according to the teachings of the Church, but he was praying sincerely and lovingly, and that was what really mattered.

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.