Mindfulness, Meditation, Visualization, Imagery… What’s the Difference?
Quarantine gave rise to many things that were previously under appreciated: Zoom stock prices, the patience of school teachers and toilet paper. However, nothing has made more of a meteoric rise than self-care. Since early March 2020, when hysteria around COVID-19 really started to take off, a parallel message has become louder and louder, “self-care is f***ing important!” This new found infatuation with practices like gratitude journaling, healthy eating and unplugging have found popularity among previously skeptical individuals. The need for self-care became glaringly obvious when all of the sudden “normal” was taken away and the warm and comfy sense of control in our lives was stripped in a period of weeks. If one thing is true about humans, it is that we hate it when we’re not in control and have to live in uncertainty. As a result of this uncertain normal, some of the most popular self-care practices that have emerged are mindfulness based, such as meditation, morning rituals and mindful breathing. The popular mindfulness app, Headspace, has been the most prolific in creating partnerships with high profile organizations such as the NBA, Nike, Google and Amazon.
For years mindfulness seemed to be reserved for those who practiced yoga, observed certain eastern religious traditions or had undergone some kind of spiritual enlightenment. It was viewed as “woo-woo” and elicited a certain stigma. Prior to picking up a mindfulness book in 2017 and embarking on a life changing quest, I was on the skeptical side of the equation (maybe even cynical). I knew the relaxing benefits of things like meditation, visualization and deep breathing, but I never thought of adopting mindfulness as a way of life, much less teaching mindfulness to athletes. However, as of late, mindfulness has become a household term, even if it is somewhat misunderstood. Many famous celebrities, influencers and professional athletes tout the benefits of their personal mindfulness practices and include them as essential components of their routines.
Apps like Headspace, Calm and Insight Timer have brought guided meditations, courses and even mindfulness based social networking communities to our fingertips. Self-help gurus, life coaches, mental performance coaches and the like all re-tool the same general mindfulness ideas to create their own brands and put their own unique spin on established concepts. The ever-changing world of self-help has made leaps and bounds over the past few years, particularly in the last few months.
Because of the popularity of self-help concepts, such as mindfulness, information may get distilled and simplified over time. Through articles, media sounds bites, Instagram posts and other sources, important distinctions in popular concepts can start to lose their meaning. Therefore, misunderstandings about the nature of and differences between things like mindfulness, meditation, visualization, imagery and others can actually hold people back from reaching their individual potentials.
Before I go on, I want to make one thing very clear, What works for you is valid and definitions do not matter when it comes to your wellness. If something is making your life better, then I don’t care what you call it. However, keep an open mind about how you could continue to grow as you gain a deeper understanding of the tools you’re using.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the awareness that comes from paying attention to the present-moment, non-judgmentally. I’ve underlined awareness because that is what mindfulness is: awareness. People tend to get bogged down on the idea that mindfulness is being in the moment. Sidenote: for a look into the differences between living in the moment and being present, check out this post I wrote on the subject in my weekly newsletter.
Back to mindfulness. Some look at mindfulness as some kind of discrete state to be attained at different times. A common refrain is that someone will take a few moments out of the day to “be mindful.” Mindfulness is not a thing you do. You don’t say, “I’m going to do mindfulness for a few minutes, then I’m going to come back and be stressed again for the rest of the day.” No, far from it. Being mindful is a choice about how you experience reality.
When practiced, mindfulness becomes a default way of being in the world.
According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, people who choose to practice mindfulness view the world through seven foundations of mindfulness:
1. Non-judgment – not labeling any experience as good, bad, right or wrong, it just is.
2. Patience – being completely open to each moment, allowing it to be as it is.
3. Beginner’s mind – dropping what you think you know to see experiences clearly.
4. Trust – developing a trust in yourself and your feelings.
5. Non-striving – shifting from “doing” to “being."
6. Acceptance – seeing things as they actually are in the present.
7. Letting go – watching experience and letting it be as it is.
One quote I always come back to when thinking about my choice to live mindfully is one from Viktor Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor,
“Between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
When you are in the world mindfully then you’re able to view your experience from a slight distance. This distance is the space Frankl was referring to. Instead of immediately reacting to an emotion, thought or sensation, you are able to observe and watch it, get curious to what it provokes in you, examine your instinctive reaction, and then proceed with a response from a place of calm and knowing.
A mindful way of being helps you move from a state of habitual unconscious to a state of intentional conscious. Most of us function in a state of autopilot, a dream state where our conditioned responses dictate our fate. Mindfulness is waking up.
If mindfulness is a way of being, how does one get there? This is where mediation comes in.
Meditation
There are many different types of meditation, too many to go into. For a full rundown on 16 different meditation techniques, check out this Headspace article. I am going to concentrate on one; mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation is a tool used to practice mindfulness.
1. Bring your attention to a single “anchor” (most use their breath).
2. Focus your attention on the sensations of breath, the sound, the feeling, the texture.
3. Your mind will wander. Acknowledge the wandering without judgment.
4. Bring your attention back to your anchor.
In general, meditation is used as a tool toward some higher state. As you may have read in the Headspace article mentioned above, meditation can be delineated into two categories: calming and insight. Mindfulness meditation falls in the category of calming. However, within that there are many benefits including:
Greater Focus
Less Emotional Reactivity
Greater Poise
More Mental Agility
It is important to recognize that mindfulness is describing a greater state of being and meditation is describing a tool or technique to practice mindfulness. There are, however, other ways to practice mindfulness in your daily life. For that I will use an example from my own life.
Mindfulness ≠ Meditation
I was talking to a friend recently about how we are utterly addicted to our screens, and how we needed to make a change. We lamented the time we wasted and the sleep we missed on a daily basis because of the control these devices had over our lives. I identified that I was spending too much time scrolling Instagram and he responded that YouTube was the tormentor in his life. Instead of wallowing in the self-pity of being bound to my beloved Instagram, I took it as an opportunity to pop off my “resistance” hat and put on my “curiosity” hat. I asked myself: How could we use this as an opportunity to practice mindfulness?
Typically, I scroll Instagram when I am bored or not wanting to engage with my present-moment experience. Instagram is an immediate source of entertainment and therefore quells the discomfort of boredom. The same logical holds true for my friend, YouTube = reduction in discomfort. However, the way for us to practice mindfulness, in regard to our Instagram and YouTube habits, is for us to be in the discomfort caused by withholding our go-to distractions.
Mindfulness is being fully present in the entirety of experience, pleasant and unpleasant.
You can practice mindfulness by paying attention to moments that usually evoke an automatic reaction. When I get bored, I usually reach for my phone. This has become a habit for me. I can practice mindfulness by intentionally not reaching for my phone and experiencing the discomfort caused by that decision. This would be considered being in the present moment entirely, even if it’s unpleasant. If I do reach for my phone in that moment, it’s because I am resistant to the discomfort of boredom. When I give myself some space between experiencing boredom and reaching for my phone, I actually realize that there are other fulfilling things I can be doing with my time, like drinking coffee and chatting with my wife, taking my dogs for a walk, or writing a LinkedIn article...
Here are five other ideas of moments that can usually come automatically:
1. Mindful walking – take a walk and try to experience the entirety of the walk. What does it feel like when you take a step, how does the breeze feel on your face, what do the birds sound like in the trees? We usually walk to get somewhere. Just go on a walk with no destination or timeline in mind. What is it costing you to be mindless in your life?
2. Mindful listening – you can practice mindfulness in the conversations you have with anyone. Use the opportunity to observe what you are feeling and thinking as the conversation progresses. Give yourself space to answer mindfully rather than automatically. What emotions are provoked during the conversation? How do the emotions drive your responses?
3. Mindful drinking – practice drinking your coffee mindfully. Take time to be in the whole experience of drinking your morning coffee. Take in the smell, the taste; feel the warmth of the cup in your hands. How does your mood change from when you started drinking it to after you finish? How do you feel ten minutes later?
4. Mindful eating – slow down. Put your fork down in between bites and take time to taste, smell and feel the texture of the food you are consuming. Do you actually enjoy the food more when you slow down? Perhaps less?
5. Mindful teeth brushing – this is an activity we usually bring no mindful attention to. Practice brushing your teeth with your attention focused on the sensations in your mouth. What movements are you making with your hand? How are you standing? Where is your mind going?
I am not advocating that you do these practices all of the time. However, I am suggesting that you use moments like these in your life to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is like a muscle. It takes a lot of practice for us to recognize when we are not being present in our lives, and these are perfect opportunities to start. The more you practice mindfulness in the typically automatic moments like these, the more you will be able to be present in the joyous and challenging moments as well.
Another common misconception is that visualization and mindfulness are one in the same. Although there are some areas of overlap, visualization is another distinct tool in your mental toolbox.
Visualization
Visualization is creating an image in your mind of an event in the future. Akin to visualization is a technique called Kinesthetic Motor Imagery or KMI, where you create a full vivid experience in your mind, using all five senses. Both visualization and KMI are used by high performance athletes all around the world as a way to hone their skills and prepare for competition. So how it is related to mindfulness?
In mindfulness meditation the use of an “anchor” is common to focus one’s attention. Traditionally, beginner and even advance meditators will use breath to anchor attention. However, in visualization or KMI, one could use their mental experience as the anchor of attention. For instance, a mile runner who is visualizing her race would clearly want to put all of her available attention on the images she is producing in her mind to get the most benefit out of the exercise. Similarly, in KMI, she could anchor her attention on different aspects of the KMI. Perhaps she could start at her feet and work her way up, first attending to how her feet feel hitting the track, to how her hips are positioned in space, to what her arms feel like as they swing and so on. Next, she could move to experiencing the outer environment, the sounds, the smells and the sights.
In these descriptions of visualizations and KMI it’s easy to see the importance of focused attention. Imagine trying to complete these exercises with your mind constantly drifting off to some other thought, getting distracted by the littlest thing and pulling your attention in different directions; the exercises would be meaningless. Therefore, in practice, mindfulness should precede visualization or KMI. In order for athletes to get the most out of these types of exercises it’s imperative that they have some understanding of attention, awareness and non-judgment. These three elements will facilitate a stronger visualization and KMI practice because they encourage greater focus, less emotional reactivity and more mental agility.
Moving Forward
In 1995, Daniel Goleman, psychologist and science journalist, popularized the term “emotional intelligence.” Over the past 25 years, the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace has increased exponentially as people have come to accept the fact that emotions impact everything we do. Early childhood education now revolves around social-emotional learning (SEL) and adult professional development programs are flooded with courses like “Leading with Emotional Intelligence.” Now the wave is shifting once more. Mindfulness is coming into the mainstream, and if you don’t jump on now, you may miss the boat. Distinctions like those talked about herein may seem small and meaningless to some, but as the world trends in this direction, these concepts will become more ubiquitous with high performance in any domain. Now is the time to acquaint yourself. As you move forward in business, athletics or any other industry, I ask of you one thing: be mindful.