What is body-based mindfulness?
I’ll start by defining meditation, which is a practice where a person uses a particular method of ‘mental training’ to increase their awareness or attention. Mindfulness is one form of meditation. Other ways include focusing on e.g. an object or thought or activity.
Neuroscientist Sam Harris’s definition of mindfulness is my favourite: “Mindfulness is simply a state of clear, nonjudgmental, and non-discursive attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant.”
Yet, this definition - and most definitions - are focused on the mind. The way I teach mindfulness is to ground it in the body, to notice what’s going on in the body as well as what’s going on in the mind. It’s been my experience that our minds can become clearer through noticing the body, enabling us to arrive in the present moment. This is body-based mindfulness.
It could be noticing the breath, which is always with us as long as we are alive, and indeed the individual breath we can notice is always and only happening *right now* (and then it is gone and the next one is happening *right now*). It might be noticing sensation right now, such as pressure or temperature or movement across the skin. This is where massage comes in. By inviting clients to notice pressure, or the feel of a kneading stroke, or the tension in a quadraceps stretch, they are not only being welcomed to notice if the bodywork feels as good as it can, they are also being invited into the present moment, because what is available to be noticed now is only taking place now. Not last week. Not yesterday. Not even a minute ago.
Just as it is possible to eat a meal without really noticing, and soon feel hungry again, so too it is possible to experience bodywork with a distracted mind and come away from it feeling as though it’s had little impact.
Inviting moments of mindfulness during massage can:
Enhance the benefits of massage through noticing it and being ‘in’ the experience, rather than lost in other thoughts.
Increase body awareness to then ask for an adjustment e.g. “Can you go slightly firmer there?” or “Will you work under my shoulder blade a bit longer?”
Give a taster of the practice of mindfulness, which can be tried later if the client feels the benefit and wants to keep giving it a go.