The core of mindfulness meditation in stress management is to help individuals

The core of mindfulness meditation in stress management is to help individuals escape from the automatic thinking trap of "ruminating the past and worrying about the future", anchoring the real experience of the moment without judgment, and ultimately establishing a flexible coexistence relationship with stress, rather than completely eliminating the stress itself.

I received a visitor last month, Xiao Zhou, who worked in an Internet operation position. He made 996 changes to his plan in a month, and the most he called back was eight times for a one-page event planning. When he took the subway after work, all he could think about was "Is the boss' expression just now particularly dissatisfied with me?" A friend recommended several mindfulness meditation audios to her, and after practicing Qigang Guang for two weeks, she came to me and said it was all a lie, "Should I be anxious or anxious?"

She is not the only one. Many people who are new to mindfulness have this misunderstanding. They think that after practicing it, their mind will be as calm as water, and they can't have any worries. If they still have emotions, they are practicing it wrong. In fact, this is not the case at all. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), originally defined mindfulness as “the purposeful and non-judgmental focus on the current experience.” This method was first used to provide stress intervention for patients with chronic pain. It does not make you feel the pain, but it prevents you from complaining about others while in pain, adding an extra layer of psychological pain to yourself of “why am I the one who suffers?”. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) derived from the cognitive behavioral school focuses more on breaking the chain of rumination, preventing you from sliding down the dead end of "I didn't do one thing well" to "I can't do anything" and then "I'm doomed in my life". It first pulls you back from thoughts that drift into the past or future, and first looks at what you can do now. Many teachers who do physical and mental intervention in China will also combine mindfulness with traditional breathing and standing logic. You are not required to sit cross-legged and listen to the guidance. Even when you are standing on the subway or waiting for the elevator, you can feel the touch of the soles of your feet against the ground and the coolness of the wind blowing on the tips of your ears. This can be regarded as completing a mini mindfulness practice.

I have been practicing mindfulness on and off for five years, and I can’t say I have achieved anything “great”. Last week I was rushing to write a speech for an industry summit. I stayed up two nights and still got stuck. Staring at a blank document still made me feel annoyed and my temples throbbed. In the past, I would have scolded myself, "How dare you eat this bowl of rice even if you can't do this well?" while staying up until three or four o'clock, and I didn't even want to read what I wrote in the end. But that day I was annoyed until the third minute when I realized, oh, my shoulders and neck are now as tight as frozen pork belly, my heartbeat is also fast, I am anxious. Then I held the mug on the table and held it for half a minute, feeling the warmth of the white porcelain against the palm of my hand. I took a sip of the tangerine peel water I had soaked in all afternoon. It was cool and sweet. After I came to my senses, I deleted the messy half of the paragraph and listed the three core points first. Within half an hour, it was smooth. You see, the pressure is still there, and the deadline has not disappeared, but I have not added any additional internal friction to myself.

Having said this, some people must refute that many companies now engage in mindfulness training. To put it bluntly, isn’t it just brainwashing employees? Don’t make trouble even if you are being squeezed, and rely on righteous thoughts to digest your emotions. Isn’t this the capitalist’s new PUA tool? This is not entirely unreasonable. I have seen an Internet company incorporate mindfulness into employee assessments before, requiring meditation to be no less than 10 hours per month. The euphemistic name is "improving employees' ability to withstand stress." The essence is to dump all the stress caused by mismanagement on employees themselves. This alienating usage really deserves to be criticized. But on the other hand, mindfulness itself never teaches you to "accept things". It just allows you to jump out of the emotional whirlpool and see clearly the real situation at the moment: Are you really not capable enough and need to make up for it, or is the leader deliberately looking for trouble? Is it true that the project can be completed in a hurry, or is the company maliciously taking advantage of it? You can choose to calm down and continue working, or you can choose to slap the table and ask for a salary increase, or even turn around and find another job. It is better than either being carried away by emotions and slamming the table with the boss on the spot and later regretting that you can't find a job, or holding back your anger and finally getting over thyroid nodules.

To put it bluntly, stress is like going out when it rains without bringing an umbrella. Mindfulness does not help you bring out an umbrella, nor does it allow you to lie to yourself that "it is not raining." It is to stop you from standing in the rain cursing the sky and crying. You should first find an eaves to hide, or find a convenience store to buy an umbrella. Even if you get a little wet in the end, you will not get soaked and end up with a cold or fever.

A few days ago, Xiao Zhou sent me a message, saying that the sixth plan was changed last week, and the boss finally passed it. It was still a bit boring on the way to get off work, but she had not sat at any station. She touched the cold handrail of the subway and counted the station announcements at three stations. When she got home, she slowly cooked a bowl of tomato and egg noodles and fried a runny egg. When she bit into it, the yellow liquid dripped on the noodles. It was so delicious that she almost forgot about the trouble of changing the plan.

You see, that's enough.