Introduction to Mindfulness_349810_bookemon_ebook.pdf Coaching and Practising Mindfulness | Page 95

- These thoughts are just thoughts. So gently bring your attention
back to your breath and bodily sensations
- Note the changing position, shape and quality of the discomfort
over time. Be interested in feeling it as precisely as you can. Notice
how the shape and intensity changes with the cycle of the breath. Is
it stronger during the in breath or during the out breath?
- You might find your thoughts spontaneously going to other
matters, e.g. Your shopping list, a fight with you partner, a football
game, planning a holiday
- These are still just thoughts. Gently bring your attention back to
your breath and body sensations. They are probably different again.
You have just observed the changing nature and impermanence of
urges. When you notice the physical sensations with interest, you are
directly facing the urges rather than feeding them through fighting
them.
How fighting urges feeds them.
Often people try to eliminate the urges by distraction or talking
themselves out of them. This usually just feeds the urges and creates
the illusion that they are interminable until you give in to them.
Suppressing a thought feeling or sensation, including pain ultimately
increases it. (Clark Ball & Pape 1991, Gold & Wegner 1995, Wegner,
Schneider, Carter & White, 1987, Wegner, Schneider, Knutson &
McMahon 1991, Cioffi & Holloway 1993)
For example Wegner et al (1987) conducted a series of experiments
to assess the effects of thought suppression called the “white bear”
experiments. The bear was chosen because one of the researchers
remembered reading that when Russian author Tolstoy challenged his
brother not to think of a white bear, the brother remained perplexed
for quite a while.
In one of the more sophisticated experiments people were shown a
movie about white bears. These people were then given a sorting task
94