I believe that mindfulness helps to rebuild an authentic relationship with both the inner and outer worlds
I believe that mindfulness helps rebuild an authentic relationship with both the inner and outer world,” says Krystyna Rybinska.
– At a certain point, I had the impression that I was moving away from fully experiencing life and conscious, authentic contact with reality, and more and more my existence was closing within the framework outlined by the thinking mind – its stories, past, conditions or concepts,” explains Krystyna Rybinska from Gdansk, a philosopher, teacher of yoga and mindfulness courses. – I believe mindfulness helps rebuild a deep, authentic relationship with both the inner and outer worlds,” he adds.
Mindfulness, or attentiveness in Polish
The concept of mindfulness, or in Polish mindfulness, is nothing new for people who reach for texts related to human development in the broadest sense, but does that mean they have knowledge about it? Usually superficial. So let’s start the conversation with a definition of mindfulness.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the pioneering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, defines mindfulness as a special kind of awareness that emerges from intentionally directing attention in the present moment, in a non-judgmental way, to current experience. This awareness seems to be something natural that we have lost, however. Research indicates that nearly 50 percent of the time we are distracted in uncontrolled, compulsive thinking, which means that half of our lives we are absent, drifting in the virtual reality of the mind. Probably this wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that it’s most often associated with feeling increasing stress, anxiety or sadness, since our minds are evolutionarily oriented to anticipate danger and survive. Certain areas of it are constantly working in the background to solve old problems or anticipate new ones. The term “mindfulness training” is also used to refer to mindfulness practice, since working with the habit requires patience and persistence.
What is mindfulness?
So, in a sense, it is a practice that restores the true mind, or “fullness of mind” – its embodied nature and wisdom, which hides under a layer of distraction controlled by habitual, reactive thought patterns. We learn to direct our attention to the primary aspects of our experience: the body and emotions. They are the ones that tell what is happening at the moment. An important part of training is to develop a non-judgmental, open, sympathetic attitude toward our experience. The Balinese word “sati” translates as mindfulness, but also heartfulness, or fullness of heart. Mindfulness practice devoid of these qualities would only be an exercise in attention, concentration, not allowing for deeper work with feelings, aversions and difficulties.
What did you find about this approach that made you want to learn more about it?
At a certain point, I had the feeling that I was moving away from fully experiencing life and conscious, authentic contact with reality, and more and more my existence was closing within the framework outlined by the thinking mind – its stories, past, conditions or concepts. For me, mindfulness has become a path back to the beginning, the original contact with the world, and with myself. My first love was philosophy, i.e. the search for wisdom, which, however, turned out to be at some stage something dead, artificial, very far from life. The practice of mindfulness has become for me a true search for truth and wisdom, here and now. To awaken and live in depth, as Thoreau (American writer, poet and philosopher ) wrote. It is not at all about seeking the intensity of life, chasing experiences. Paradoxically, such searches can be a sign of moving away from life. To paraphrase the eminent Sufi poet Rumi, at one point I felt the need to make a pilgrimage, so I sat down and sat motionless for three days.
And what happened next? What gives a person a conscious return to self?
I could cite a number of serious scientific studies that prove the benefits of regular mindfulness practice for mental health. However, I prefer to first recall the reflections of people who have participated in mindfulness courses. They usually talk about increased self-awareness, feelings of inner peace and acceptance, a greater sense of satisfaction. Those who participate in the MBCT-D Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy program, which aims to prevent depression and reduce anxiety, emphasize acquiring the ability to relate less reactively to difficult thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, we know from research that not only the quality of life changes, but also the brain itself. There is plenty of research on the changes that occur after just an 8-week mindfulness course, including. in the brain centers responsible for stress resistance.
How effective is mindfulness?
Due to the effectiveness of the practice, you can also find courses dedicated to children and adolescents or people with post-traumatic stress syndrome. At my recent training at the Ox-ford Mindfulness Center, I learned that clinically specialized MBCT courses are in the pipeline, dedicated to people suffering from schizophrenia, for example. As you can see, a mindfulness course can give a great deal, but it is not a method for everything and everyone. In some situations, psychotherapy may be more appropriate. It is important to consult with your teacher and with your specialist in charge, such as a psychotherapist or psychiatrist.
But let’s say we hit the course and learn mindfulness. Who is a mindfulness teacher and what will he or she teach us?
What does mindfulness teach?
Perhaps I can start by saying that a mindfulness teacher is not a therapist or coach, nor is a meditation teacher. A mindfulness teacher usually specializes in running a mindfulness-based intervention program or programs, such as:
- MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction ),
- MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy),
- MBLC (Mindfulness Based Living Course),
- MSC (Mindful Self Compassion)
and regularly teaches courses in this method. He should be certified by a recognizable certification body, which means that he is not only well versed in the curriculum of the course he teaches, but is also subject to the requirements of regular in-service training, working under supervision, and attending teacher retreats. He regularly practices the methods he teaches and updates his knowledge and workshop. This is important, because the method is developing all the time. One example is the topic of working with trauma in mindfulness-based interventions (trauma sensitive mindfulness). In the past, there have been cases of poor response to mindfulness techniques, which could lead to the erroneous conclusion that the practice is harmful. Nowadays, many practices have been updated and sensitized to support people with post-traumatic stress syndrome, and mindfulness teachers are sensitized to signals that such a problem is present. During the course itself, the teacher is, on the one hand, a signpost, as he introduces the topic of the session and keeps an eye on its framework, and on the other hand, a fellow participant in the process, as he experiences it together with the group. He leads the practices and the enquiry that follows, a kind of dialogue with the participants to help them discover the next layers of experience. This is because a mindfulness course is essentially a practical, experiential process, not a theoretical one. Unlike psychotherapy, the focus is not on examining the past, but on exploring the depth of experience and the emerging architecture of the mind in the moment. With MBCT, on the other hand, there is also an important element of prevention, i.e. developing strategies to deal with negative states of mind in the future and with signals of declining mood.
Is it possible to brush up on mindfulness like this?
Mindfulness with apps
You can start with short practices with recordings using publicly available tools, such as the recently popular Headspace app.
Mindfulness with apps
Sometimes, however, such a flicker of attentiveness through an app or reading can attract us, and sometimes discourage us. That’s why I encourage you to learn about mindfulness on an accredited mindfulness course. It’s no coincidence that most of the research on the beneficial effects of mindfulness practice on mental health has been on 8-week courses. During such programs led by qualified teachers, practices are introduced gradually. It’s a deep process in which we work with our minds and the sometimes very dried-up shell of habitual thought patterns.
We are overrun, attacked by news of disasters, and this is unlikely to change. In people who are sensitive by nature, mood is affected, and mood determines decision-making. Does mindfulness help you keep your distance while maintaining your own vulnerability?
Paradoxically, the practice of mindfulness allows us to see that we are even more painfully under attack by our own mind. French philosopher Jean Baudrilard described the modern Western world with a term – hyperreality. He noted that we experience things no longer directly, but through a layer of accumulated meanings that simulate reality. Just like in the great Disneyland. The chaotic influx of fragmented information, catastrophic narratives echoes this. The same is true of our inner reality, in which we are bombarded with automatic thoughts, often negative, critical, which affect our mood and at the same time our perception of the world and ourselves.
Truthfulness in mindfulness
While the truthfulness of things in the world can still be verified, it is difficult to verify the truthfulness of the discourses and monologues our minds often barely perceive in the light of consciousness. In particular, those that treat about ourselves. Although such thoughts are most often not true, they have a destructive effect on our mood, emotions and actions. They secretly determine our lives. Mindfulness helps us see them and free ourselves from their power. Through practice, we learn to notice and observe thoughts as transient mental phenomena while getting in touch with the other more primal aspects of our experience, i.e. With feelings and sensations from the body. In a sense, mindfulness practice is a search for true reality. We come into conscious contact with the deeper layers of our being and with the wisdom of the mind. So back to the question. Yes, mindfulness helps to respond to the influx of information and stimuli in a non-reactive way, that is, to remain in a close and sensitive relationship with oneself and the world.
And how does it help in dealing with difficult emotions and stress?
By getting into more genuine, unmediated and sympathetic contact with emotions and what triggers the stress response in us. We use specific contemplative practices and cognitive exercises for this purpose. The brain is a remarkable predictive machine. This function makes us able to successfully develop and survive, but it also causes us suffering. When, based on our past experiences, including events that never happened, but which we “lived through” as if they did, the mind reads some element of the external or internal landscape: some trivial event or sometimes subtle emotion such as sadness, shame or anxiety as a threat of the size of a saber-toothed tiger. Instead of letting it show and pass, it sets off a whole avalanche of reactions at the psychological and biological level, which, like a spiral, pull us deeper and deeper into a negative state of mind.
The coronavirus pandemic and quite a bit of anxiety associated with it (whether about health, professional matters or the economic crisis) has exacerbated symptoms of depression and anxiety. And as I understand it, mindfulness practice can help us learn to deal with them.
Researchers are straightforward about the fact that the negative, long-term effects of the pandemic will be felt primarily in the area of mental health, which is already painfully evident in the exponential growth of depressive disorders and suicide in children. However, this process began earlier and has its origin somewhere in the fabric of pre-pandemic reality. I think that the pandemic brought a huge crisis involving many aspects of our social and private life and thus externalized and exacerbated problems that were less apparent during a time of relative prosperity, stability. Crisis is a preternatural, oppressive state in which it is no longer possible not to know the problem, you have to confront it, because this one grows into a scream. In this sense, this difficult time actually carries the potential for real, not superficial, change. The practice of mindfulness is precisely about seeing what is really there and what it is, as opposed to the illusion the mind creates.
So by practicing mindfulness, we learn to confront difficult feelings and problems. It doesn’t have much to do with practicing positive thinking, does it?
Although mindfulness courses usually include kindness and gratitude practices in their curriculum, mindfulness is not a positive thinking training in which we push away what is difficult. On the contrary. We learn to work with difficulties in a kind and open way to get out of the reactive, evasive way of relating to them, which is what causes suffering, and to awaken our innate creativity and wisdom of mind. One of the most researched mindfulness training programs is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. This is a program that was originally developed to prevent recurrence of depression. He demonstrated research-proven efficacy in this area, which quickly expanded to other affective disorders and anxiety as well. Now, due to the great value and effectiveness of this program, it is also being made available in a slightly modified version, outside the clinical context.
Mindfulness as a way to deal with stress
Similarly, the first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program was developed in the context of working with chronic pain sufferers. This therapeutic context of working with negative states of mind points to a very important feature of mindfulness practice, which takes on particular importance in the face of difficulties and mental suffering caused by pandemonium. Interestingly, in Poland mindfulness is mainly associated with personal development courses and business, while in the UK mindfulness courses are taught in schools, prisons, hospitals, and a doctor can prescribe such a course under the health fund.
You are also a yoga teacher. Are yoga and mindfulness complementary?
For me, yoga, or conscious body work, was the path to mindfulness practice and meditation. In mindfulness, in a sense, we work with the mind from the level of the body, which may sound mysterious now, but becomes clear once you enter the process that is a mindfulness course. For us, the body is, on the one hand, a support for attention, on the other hand, a barometer signaling the flow of thoughts, emotions, moods. In other words, a source of important information about what goes on in the mind and a place from which we can safely explore its nooks and crannies. Conversely, mindfulness has helped me re-sensitize in my yoga practice and get out of the automatic execution of positions, movements, achieving shapes, ranges. I don’t have to do very difficult positions or practice intensively to feel the impact of the practice. Sometimes all it takes is one item or a small movement. One of my teachers Judith Hanson Lasater says that the effect of a given yoga position on the body is measured not by the intensity or extent of its performance, but by the mark it leaves on the nervous system.
Where do you teach these practices?
Mainly in the Tri-City. I teach regular mindfulness courses as part of our mindfulness and yoga school Yoga Compass. Sometimes I am invited to teach a course at another center or online, which has proven particularly valuable and also effective during the pandemic.
You’ve been a mom for over a year now. Is it possible to practice mindfulness on a daily basis with such a toddler? Or maybe that’s what helps you experience motherhood more deeply?
Not long ago, I would have said that I couldn’t imagine a day without a formal practice of mindfulness and yoga, that is, a time when I intentionally sit on a cushion or stand on a mat. However, since I became a mother, the first months of caring for a child have completely turned my arranged world upside down. There was no room to sleep or eat, let alone practice yoga or meditation for hours. Interestingly, this was a time (and still is!) when I experienced the impact of the practice even when there seemed to be no time for it. Mindfulness permeates what you do and how you do it. Hugging a child, drinking warm tea becomes a practice – a moment to stop and fully immerse yourself in. Similarly, getting up at night or arguing with my husband can become a practice where I can intentionally stop and notice the thoughts flowing, the difficult emotions, the patterns emerging, layer by layer, moment by moment, and slowly let them go.
Thank you for the interview
about her
Krystyna Rybinska, a philosopher by training (University of Gdansk). He believes that mindfulness helps rebuild a deep, authentic relationship with both the inner and outer world.
- Privately, she has been involved for more than twelve years with the Center for Christian Meditation at the Benedictine Monastery in Lubin, where she develops her practice under the guidance of Father Maximilian Nawara OSB.
- Teacher of Oxford courses: MBCT-D Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression and MBCT-L Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Life, as well as the introductory courses FPFW Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World certified by the University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre (The Trained Teacher Certificate). MBLC – Mindfulness Based Living Course teacher, certified by the Mindfulness Association.
- Yoga instructor (E-RYT®, YACEP®) with over fourteen years of extensive teaching experience and over a thousand hours of teacher training with outstanding teachers in Poland, India, USA, London and Spain. Co-founder of the Gdansk-based mind-fulness and yoga school Yoga Compass.
Source: https://dziennikbaltycki.pl/rozmowa-wierze-ze-uwaznosc-pomaga-odbudowac-autentyczna-relacje-zarowno-ze-swiatem-wewnetrznym-jak-i-zewnetrznym-mowi-krystyna/ar/c11-15969833