Being Mindful and the Power of Just Noticing
The power of “just” noticing something is often surprising for people. Take losing weight as an example. People often sign up for diet programs that are full of rules as to what can and cannot be eaten. Where there is such a strict regime, it’s no wonder that so few people lose weight and keep it off. The problem lies in the method.
Human beings have incredible capacity to gain and lose weight. That ability is literally in our genetic make-up. What has changed is our environment. For most of us, food is continuously available.
Noticing what we eat, can lead to enduring behavior changes more often than the imposition of any diet program. The more consciously we observe our eating, the more our eating will change.
Awareness changes things. Our behavior is influenced in both subtle and obvious ways when we highlight attention on something that is happening in the present moment. Mindfulness focuses our attention on the here and now. Eating works the same way. When we notice what, when, where and how we are eating, our eating changes. Mindless eating, while driving a car or watching television, is a recipe for overeating. Mindful eating is a recipe for self-control and gives us the ability to say no to our instant self contentment.
As we reach for a handful of high-caloric cookies, or put our spoon in the ice cream container and carefully even out what is left in the ½ gallon container, it’s easier to be mindless (absence of thought) than to notice what we are actually doing. Our usual, self-critical and self-deprecating inner voice, that becomes the ticker tape in our head becomes the only thing we notice. Unfortunately, these self- evaluations are not part of the observations themselves- they come after the fact.
The more we can notice our behavior the more we have the ability for changing behavior. How much ice cream is left; is it a flavor I even like; are the cookies to sugary; am I even hungry?
How can we change something just by watching? How can we lose weight just by noticing our eating? How can we improve our golf swing just by paying attention to what we are doing?
How can we not? There is no other way to change. Being told what to do is ineffective. If that were the case, no one would be overweight.
There’s no shortage of advice when it comes to any topic of interest! But advice fails to produce change. The more advice we receive, in many cases the more resistant we become.
Advice is cheap – especially now, free on the internet, however, it is ineffective unless we request and seek advice. Awareness, on the other hand, is the key to change. By noticing what is going on, we can change ourselves and sustain new desired behaviors.
Awareness is Curative.
Coaching Conversation: What areas of your life do you need to practice mindfulness? What would you like to change?