Wearing an orange robe, inhaling incense smoke, we sit on a pillow on the floor. Bald-headed monks around us, muttering together their “ommmmm…”, reciting their mantras, assuming breakneck yoga asanas … many people have such a picture in their head after hearing the word “meditation”.
Contemplation, zen, mindfulness, what are they?
Mindfulness as a certain concept of perceiving reality comes from ancient times. It may be associated with religious or esoteric practices. This connotation is somewhat legitimate, because the experience of mindfulness is the foundation of almost all contemplative experiences of every major religion. In itself, however, it is much simpler and inherently “overreligious”. It is the way of experiencing the world and reality. A fuller life that does not pass between our fingers, conscious experience of us in each given second. Here and now. Mindfulness as such was first defined by an American professor of medical science Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the model of mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy (MBSR). According to his definition, mindfulness is “a special kind of attention: conscious, non-judgmental and directed at the present moment”. In other words, we observe what is going on right now. Now. And now. Always now. Without giving any labels to the thoughts. Pure immersion in the most mundane everyday life with all its assortment. Sometimes pleasant, often unpleasant.
As people, we are mostly conditioned and trained in many ways, including in clinging to our desires. It seems to us that worrying about something is the same as the fact that we care about it a lot. Often, we think that we have to keep our guard high, and be constantly goal-oriented while going through life. Mindfulness meditation is a way to break out of this orientation. It is based only on observing what is happening with us and in our environment. No rating. Regardless of the feelings. The results should bring less reactivity. For stress, pain or suffering. Appreciating the road below our feet, instead of desiring the goal.
Participants of numerous courses based on mindfulness, as well as practitioners on their own, declare perceptible improvement of the quality of life, change of habitual behavior, improvement of concentration, increase of self-confidence, better understanding of themselves and increased level of responsibility for their own lives.
Research and sad practice show that the level of stress, anxiety and depression is enormous for women having problems getting pregnant. For women (also for their partners) fertility problems and powerful stress go hand in hand. Experts often cite a study in which the mental state of women struggling with various health problems was compared. It turned out that women with diagnosed problems with fertility experienced similar stress and anxiety as women with a diagnosis of cancer or a serious heart disease. Functioning in such a terrible suffering must be unimaginable and cannot be described in words. This suffering - which many contemporary psychologists (including parts of the so-called third wave of cognitive-behavioral therapy) recognize as opposed to objective pain - can be reduced, as a state of mind. The level of stress and tension effectively relaxed, and all of that thanks to letting ourselves discover a slightly different view of reality. You can experience terrible pain and not suffer, and unfortunately the opposite — terribly suffer without experiencing direct pain.
In 2016, the results of a study conducted on a group of women undergoing in-vitro fertilization procedure were published in the scientific journal “Behavior Research and Therapy.” A group of women was divided into a control group and a group on which the effectiveness of so-called MBI (mindfulness-based intervention) was examined. The standardized inter-group tests were compared, among others, with the level of mindfulness, compassion, problems with emotion regulation, mental strategies for coping with infertility, and pregnancy indicators six months after the intervention and the in-vitro procedure. They discovered a significant differences in the level of all indicators after interventions in the group of women who used MBI. There was an increase in mindfulness, compassion or using of better coping strategies. At the same time, there was a clear decrease in problems with the regulation of emotions. And what’s more important — clearly higher rate of succesful pregnancies in the group subjected to MBI compared to the control group.
Many women (often unknowingly) are afraid that loosening, resulting from mindfulness, may cause some passivity in their desire to have a baby. Nothing more wrong. This desire will remain sensitive and active. It may turn out, however, that our happiness depends not only on our desire. Relaxing a clinging grip can allow our mind to look more broadly at reality. Let him enjoy, explore, be creative. Paradoxically, there is a very high probability that in such a state of mind, answers to our difficult questions and solutions for our situations will arise. Just because we’ve grown enough to let our guard go. The path to parenthood will still be a huge challenge, but it will no longer define us. Maybe it will also be possible to find a little joy on this demanding way instead of constant suffering.