I have been a psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher for decades. But in the back of my mind, I have always wanted to do stand-up comedy. It sounded like it would be a lot of fun. Besides, I had my mindfulness practice in my back pocket to help keep me present. What could go wrong?
So when the opportunity came my way to hit the comedy stage, and showtime was only a few hours off, I was not happy to discover that being present meant that what I was present to was just how completely I was freaking out.
This wasn’t right! Wasn’t my mindfulness practice supposed to stop me from feeling horrible feelings like terror and shame and a sense of impending doom?
Wasn’t my mindfulness practice supposed to stop me from feeling horrible feelings like terror and shame and a sense of impending doom?
Life is hard enough. Companies and organizations I have worked hard to keep going have gone bust anyway. Friends and family members I have cared for have failed the immortality test and died on my watch. Even my own mirror reflects my failings, as it seems to demand to know why I haven’t joined the ranks of the newly thin when weight-loss medications can seem to promise dramatic, visible change.
Don’t get me wrong, medication may be the right choice for some, and its effects can be easy to see. But mindfulness is different. It doesn’t come in pill form, and at first, practicing it might even make your swirling thoughts and emotions feel sharper.
So why practice mindfulness?
The Thing I Do When I Don’t Know What Else to Do
As my time on the comedy stage got closer, my desire to run away got bigger. I could feel myself suffocating on my own fear and negative emotions. Finally, as a desperate act, I decided to do what I had trained myself to do when I don’t know what else to do: practice mindfulness. I practice to give myself room to breathe, even when I might also feel under attack. I practice to give myself another way to manage whatever is trying to overwhelm me.
I might start by taking in the sensory experience of what it feels like to make contact with whatever I am sitting or lying on. By doing this, I’ve stopped giving my attention to the anxious thoughts. Then I bring attention to the gentle movement of breath flowing in and out of the body.
Focusing on my breath rather than my panicky thoughts can give me a tiny bit of space to step back, take the role of the curious observer, and start to walk around in my own head.
Over time, here’s what I’ve noticed, and maybe you have, too: When you practice watching your thoughts rather than simply buying into them, you might notice a familiar, unpleasant script that comes up whenever you are stressed. These thoughts can feel very real and compelling.
Maybe they tell you that you’re a fraud, that you’re going to fail, or that your audience won’t like you. Maybe you imagine falling apart and feeling humiliated. The intensity of these thoughts and emotions is part of what makes them so convincing.
Working With Our ANTS
As a psychotherapist, I might hear my clients relay these worried, distressing thoughts and invite them to notice these as automatic negative thoughts or ANTs. ANTs are the automatic, reactive thoughts that come up when we feel scared, threatened, or stressed. They are often very familiar thoughts, which pop up again and again as a response to stress.
Cultivating awareness might help you notice that thoughts rarely arrive alone. They often come bundled with emotions, which can send out their own distress signals and add to the sense of chaos in the moment. The not-always-joyful part of awareness is that you may also begin to notice how those thoughts and emotions play out in the body. For instance, you might suddenly notice your muscles reflexively shortening and tightening as if preparing you to make a dash for the nearest exit.
When the ANTs start to tear you and your spirit down, practicing mindfulness can help you strengthen the ability to hear the ANTs marching one by one and recognize them as compelling, painful and disempowering habit thoughts. It’s Ok. They will come whether you want them or not. You can give them understanding and space, helping them move along whenever they show up.
Here’s the thing, though: Sometimes, after acknowledging my swarming ANTs, feeling my surging emotions, and experiencing my body get taken over by stress, what I might still notice is that practicing mindfulness didn’t get rid of this nastiness! Sometimes my practice just shows me that fear, anger, exhaustion and whatever else are still present. How disappointing. Clearly, I think my practice has FAILED ME.
Or has it? All that my practice promises me is a way to cultivate awareness. By noticing distressing thoughts, ruffled emotions, and tightening body sensations, I can use the awareness I have gained to remind me to be gentle and kind to myself, which greatly helps calm the inner waters.
All that my practice promises me is a way to cultivate awareness. By noticing distressing thoughts, ruffled emotions, and tightening body sensations, I can use the awareness I have gained to remind me to be gentle and kind to myself, which greatly helps calm the inner waters.
My practice has helped me face the forces that felt like they wanted to tear me down, and by facing them, as can often be the case with any bully, they don’t feel so challenging.
As I walked on the stage, surprisingly my white-knuckle terror had quieted, and I felt like I was in the eye of the storm. There was still a shadow of fear, knowing things could fall apart at any moment, but my practice helped me stay present and ride the wave of the whole wonderful mess— the pleasant and the unpleasant. It seemed that as long as I stayed present and connected to the crowd, it all worked and together, we had a laugh.
The Unexpected Power of Just Showing Up
It reminded me of the effect that we can have on one another when we just show up. I didn’t have to be the best comic. I just needed to be brave enough to stay open to flowing with whatever came next. And, as I learn again and again, that is exactly what my practice helps me cultivate.
I didn’t have to be the best comic. I just needed to be brave enough to stay open to flowing with whatever came next.
Mindfulness does not necessarily make anything feel better, and practicing it doesn’t mean you won’t still lose your cool—which I personally do on the regular when people just won’t do what I want them to do! But mindfulness is about welcoming life’s difficult moments and choosing to stay gently open and curious instead of defaulting to defensive, reactive habits and holding tight. And when we do react or close ourselves off, awareness gives us a chance to notice that and begin again.
A Practice for When Everything Feels Like It’s Falling Apart
The three-minute breathing space from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) offers a concise way to cultivate awareness.
Because it is compact, and only takes three minutes, you could bring it into virtually any situation that feels like it could benefit from using a tool to step back to give yourself some space to breathe, and see things from another angle.
The Three-Minute Breathing Space
- Awareness. For about one minute, notice the thoughts flowing through your mind. Notice and name the emotions that are bubbling up. Notice the different sensations that are showing up in the body, whether they are wanted or unwanted. Just name what is.
- Gather your attention. For the next minute, shift your attention to the rise and fall of your abdomen, or to the hands or the feet—whatever feels most neutral.
- Expand your awareness. Widen your attention to include the breath and the body. Notice the sensations your body is experiencing and the spaces between them. To the best of your ability, bring this more spacious awareness into the next moments of your day.
