William Kuyjen, PhD
Hiking in the Lake District of England, I stopped for lunch in a cemetery. There was a headstone with a name and this simple inscription: “A Life Well Lived.” What does a life well lived look like? It’s a question that we’ve all asked in one form or another. It’s been a question that has been asked for millennia by artists, from musicians, painters, dancers, sculptors to rappers, philosophers, contemplatives, and poets. What does mindfulness have to do with this?
Mindfulness: Three Keys to Living Well
Mindfulness offers three keys that can help unlock a life well lived (Feldman & Kuyken, 2019).
Key 1: Befriending Your Mind
“My mind can be my worst enemy or best friend," said Raheem Sterling, a young English soccer player. Sterling is known for inspiring others through his work ethic, for his family values, and for raising awareness of important social issues. He meditates because it helps him befriend his mind, which in turn helps him with his sport, mental health, and wider work.
What does friendship mean to you? What words or phrases best describe your friendships? What does a good friend do for you—now and over years, through the good and the bad patches of your life?
I’ve posed these questions to hundreds of people in workshops around the world, and here is what people said most often.
“Mindfulness is about our mind being and becoming our best friend.”
Does your idea of a good friend describe how you feel about your own mind? Maybe you already talk to yourself in affirming ways, with messages like “You’ve got this,” Steady,” “Take a breath,” “I’ve got your back; it will be okay.” Or maybe the voice you use with yourself is critical--“I can’t do that”--or demanding: “I don’t have time.” If you already have a sense of your mind as a friend, you can always develop that friendship further. You can choose to befriend your mind, so it becomes as practiced and natural as putting on your shoes before you go out. If you don’t feel like your mind is your friend, you’ll learn in the following pages how to change that, whatever challenges it throws up and amid whatever life circumstances you’re in.
Key 2: Using Your Values as Your Compass
Certain ideas and values have become mainstream:
· I measure myself by how much I get done, what I'm bringing in, whether it's on a personal level or for the greater good, sort of like my "Gross Domestic Product.”
· I put myself first because it is a dog-eat-dog world.
· I've got to always be on point – you know, look amazing, stay youthful, stay in shape, be attractive, and show that I'm making it in life.
· If I let my guard down, I’ll get taken advantage of.
· Busyness is good.
· Being tough is good; being kind is soft.
· Being in the spotlight, that's what gives my life meaning. I'm this close to striking it rich, if only I can score the perfect job, hit that jackpot, blow up as an influencer, or just start hanging with the right crowd.
From an early age, we feel pressure to have an opinion--about who we are, other people, what we like and don’t like, our favorite this or that, what we want to do when we grow up. We may claim certain “values” just to avoid uncertainty or to avoid feeling ashamed of not knowing what our values are. With all the pressure on us to do well, be better, achieve, prove we deserve our place in the world, or look a certain way, we may simply adopt prevalent ideas without question. When we do, we may end up pursuing someone else’s vision for our life. Of course productivity is necessary, but few people at the end of their lives look back and say, “I had a good life because I was productive and successful in this dog-eat-dog, getting-ahead world.” And if they do, did it make them and the people around them happy? Ask yourself right now what makes you happy. What or whom do you care most about? What are you passionate about? No need to overthink, just note what comes up, then let it go and see what else comes up. And don’t worry if not much arises; that’s fine too.
Your answers to these questions of what matters most point to your values. We’re all different, and an important part of living well is knowing what’s meaningful to us.
Here are some of the values that people often mention.
Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, your values, like a compass, point you in the right direction.
Values are at the root of mindfulness; they guide how we are in the world and what we say and do. And just as important, they guide what we don’t say or do. If family is a foundational value, this shapes choices and even lives. Faith provides a set of values that can provide a sense of belonging and meaning. Everyone’s story involves learning a set of values. My father has a strong work and family ethic, developed in very difficult circumstances when he found himself the “man of the family” as a young boy interned in a concentration camp with his mother and younger sisters and brother. Throughout his life he provided selflessly for his family through hard work. I know he regarded the savings he left behind to provide for my mother and my sisters and me a key part of his life work.
These three keys of mindfulness together bring to life how your values can be your sense of direction, your compass, the route map on your phone. Your role is to explore your values and how they can guide you. To embrace your values and be courageous enough to value what is truly important. The landscape of our lives, our family, our school, workplace, community, planet is created by human minds and hearts. It can be tempting to retreat to routine, to where we feel safe, to what we know. But try asking, “Is this enlarging and in line with my values or reassuring but ultimately diminishing?” Enlarge your mind, your relationships, your life, your sense of what is possible in the world. Seek out what enlarges you, whatever that is. It may be people in your life, sport, art, a favorite phrase, or an idea. Who and what enlarges you? Can they be what protects you, vitalizes you, and gives you a sense of purpose?
Key 3: Waking Up and Paying Attention
There are a lot of pulls on our attention, and this can give us a sense of being fragmented. With all the demands on us, it’s easy to react by checking out and sleepwalking through life. Zoning out can be comfortable, but there are many good reasons to live with a sense of being fully awake.
Leading the life we want means waking up and paying attention.
Attention is one of your most important resources (McGilchrist, 2023). What you focus on shapes what you think, your decisions, what you feel, and ultimately, your reality. It's like the spotlight that illuminates certain conversations, people, successes, problems, feelings, while leaving others in the shadows (Jha et al., 2007). How much of today have you been awake? I don’t mean awake literally; I mean awake in the sense of feeling alive. Twenty-five percent, 50 percent, most of the day? In the pages ahead you’ll find ways you can learn to pay attention to how you spend your days - and the moments of each day. Every moment is already here, waiting for you to pay attention to it. In a sense you don’t need to do anything differently. It is more of an adjustment in how you approach your day, choosing to pay attention, on purpose, with attitudes of curiosity and friendliness.
When you’re guided by your values, you befriend your mind, and you live with awareness, you focus on what matters, and your deepest values and daily life come together in a way that feels whole. Vulnerability can align with strength, kindness can be a force for positive change, compassion can be tough, and love can seep into and out from the people in your life.
Extracted from my 2024 book Mindfulness for Life (Kuyken, 2024).
The Mindfulness for Life curriculum (Kuyken, 2024), is based on ancient wisdom, modern psychology (Feldman & Kuyken, 2019)and the essential structure of mindfulness-based stress reduction (Kabat-Zinn, 1990)and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Segal et al., 2013; Teasdale et al., 2003)
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References
Feldman, C., & Kuyken, W. (2019). Mindfulness: Ancient wisdom meets modern psychology. Guilford.
Jha, A. P., Krompinger, J., & Baime, M. J. (2007). Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention [Article]. Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7(2), 109-119. https://doi.org/10.3758/cabn.7.2.109
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: how to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation. Delacorte.
Kuyken, W. (2024). Mindfulness for Life. Guilford Press.
McGilchrist, I. (2023). The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. Perspectiva.
Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G., & Teasdale, J. D. (2013). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression. (Second edition ed.). Guilford Press.
Teasdale, J. D., Segal, Z. V., & Williams, J. M. G. (2003). Mindfulness training and problem formulation. Clinical Psychology-Science and Practice, 10(2), 157-160. https://doi.org/Doi 10.1093/Clipsy/Bpg017
