There’s more than a little debate over whether or not Christians should practice mindfulness. The questions are many and include:
Is mindfulness rooted in Buddhism?
Is mindfulness a New Age practice?
Isn’t mindfulness a watering down of prayer?
How do I practice it?
Mindfulness is a polarizing topic. Wherever you stand on it, you’ll be judged. If you are for it, people will say that you’ve caved to New Age practices. If you’re against it, people will call you close-minded. This is why it’s so important to discern its usefulness. I suggest this treatment of mindfulness’ roots by Dr. Greg Bottaro.
If you’re really eager, you might also review these resources which have informed my own views on mindfulness:
-Bobby Angel’s interview Dr. Greg Bottaro
-The Mindful Catholic by Dr. Greg Bottaro
-Women of Grace, “What’s Missing from The Mindful Catholic?”
-Divine Intimacy Radio, “The Mindfulness Myth”
Four Benefits
In my view, mindfulness is helpful on a number of levels. I see four practical benefits:
a helpful strategy for everyday life,
it is not necessarily prayer but can help you prepare to pray,
it can decrease your stress and
it ought to be placed within the context of your relationship with God.
Let me give an example of mindfulness that I learned from a religious brother who has since passed away. This occurred about five years ago. It was a rainy weekday and I had parked my car and was walking into church for Mass. Along came Brother Martin from his residence, on his way also into church. We walked for a minute or two on the sidewalk before entering the church.
I immediately complained about the rain. Why? I’m not sure but I think for me (you too?) rain seems immediately off-putting. It gets your shoes wet, fogs your glasses and makes a general mess of things. Brother Martin just shrugged and said calmly, “It’s just rain.”
I’ll never forget that moment. While I wanted the weather to be something else, he simply accepted it. I’ve never looked at rain the same way since. It’s just rain- neither good nor bad.
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.”
That’s mindfulness in a nutshell: a posture and response towards the everyday occurrences of life. No need to sit with your legs crossed and your hands tilted upwards. No incense burning in the background. Just an acceptance of how things are and a peacefulness to keep going.
This is not to say that all things are neutral. Hardly. When someone harms you, you have a right to be angry. When evil is committed, you are naturally shaken. When tragedy strikes, you lose your cool.
What mindfulness does, through all of that, is give you a tool to get back to a sense of “God’s still inside of this. God’s still here. God’s still loving me through this. I’ll be ok.”
Now let us address my four observations about mindfulness that I mentioned earlier:
1). Mindfulness is a helpful strategy for everyday life. We live much of our lives fighting things and wishing they were different. Mindfulness helps you to recognize that much of life is actually outside of our control. We do our best, influence what we can and trust in the “slow work of God”. (Tielhard de Chardin)
2). Mindfulness is not necessarily prayer but can help you prepare to pray. As it is an attitude of acceptance, mindfulness isn’t prayer. Still, it can help you to see God at work through everyday events and as such, can predispose you to pray. In other words, it’s very tough to pray peacefully if you are upset or distracted by something. Mindfulness takes the edge off of life’s tough stuff and helps prepare you to pray.
3). Mindfulness can decrease your stress. If you’re always fighting things, you’re adding to your stress. On the other hand, if you are able to accept things- both small and large- as within God’s mysterious Providence, your stress with go down. This doesn’t take you off the hook from eating well, getting enough rest and exercising but mindfulness can help with stress reduction. I’ve seen this in even small moments. I’m driving in town, someone cuts me off and I can now pause and say, “Ok so he cut me off. Ok... it’s not the end of the world.” That’s mindfulness at work.
4). Mindfulness ought to be placed within the context of your relationship with God. All of the above is true but if all we do is accept things as they come, we can lose sight of the most important context of all- our relationship with God Almighty.
If you’re not sure if you should practice mindfulness, I understand. Some practices, not matter how helpful, are loaded with multiple meanings that keep us at arms’ length. My suggestion would be to try it out, not calling it mindfulness but thinking of it as an attitude of acceptance.
From Personal Experience
Let me share one final personal story related to mindfulness. My family and I recently went through a horrific trauma. Sparing you the details, I can say with confidence that mindfulness was an essential “tool” in our dealing with emotional pain. Without being able to accept, on a deep level, what was happening, we would not have gotten through a very tough patch.
I speak from experience- mindfulness can work. When we seek to see the Lord at work, even when we feel lost and down, we fix our eyes on him and accept what may come. We do our best, work our hardest and seek excellence. Underneath all of that is a profound sense of acceptance in the slow work of God, often unseen and scarcely felt.
