AIM is very much more than calm. Allowing, Inquiry and Meta-awareness are a set of capacities that emerge from training.
I (Michael) was once approached by a client who wanted me to do some Mind Time work with a group of their employees. But they also wanted those employees to have an outdoor experience. ‘Could we combine the Mind Time training with mountain-climbing in Scotland?’ they asked. Never one to say no, I thought that would be interesting to try, so I agreed. I wasn’t very fit at that point in my life. So I engaged a trainer at my local gym and told him that his task was to ensure that I got up that mountain without embarrassing myself. My task, he told me in turn, was to turn up at the gym three times a week for three months and get on with the training.
In the end, for their own reasons, the client changed their mind and we did the work elsewhere. But I went out with a friend and climbed the mountain anyway. It was great to see how much my fitness had changed in just three months. Just a bit of exercise, three times a week, had changed things considerably.
It’s the same with AIM. We build it in the same way we build any other kind of fitness. And just as I’d never have been able to climb that mountain in the first few weeks of my fitness training, so you shouldn’t expect the capacities we’re discussing here to turn up very quickly. On the courses we lead, we tend to find that around the fifth or sixth week of practice people have come to experience AIM much more readily. But we’re all different. Our advice is to start, keep going, and check back in a couple of months.
Here are a few of the things the people we have worked with have said about learning to practise at various times during their journey:
‘It’s a bit like being a learner driver – you know you haven’t got it all completely sorted yet, but you just need to trust yourself to go on the journey and get to that point where you have an established practice with really good tools and really sound judgement.’
‘It’s just I don’t feel I have the time. And every time I have that thought I’m like, “That was the whole point of going on this course!”’
‘However hard it felt in the beginning to get into it, it was an incredible place when you got to the end.’
When asked what advice she would give others who were embarking on Mind Time, Sally, an inspirational primary school teacher we know, said:
‘It’d probably be something like: “There will be a point where you’ll hate it, but if you carry on trying different ways, eventually you’ll find something that feels right.” Because Michael and Megan had told me early on that at a certain point I might feel like this, I felt all right about it when I did! [Laughs] I think otherwise I would have said, “All right, forget it.” But in fact, pretty much everyone in my group was going through the same experience at the same time.’
Expect there to be ups and downs. Take a moment now and again to notice how you may be starting to benefit from your practice. It will take time. But if you commit to your practice, and don’t give up, things will start to change. That is what our research and our work with thousands of individuals embarking on Mind Time practice tell us.
Let’s move on to the practices. First some general points.
1. Posture and position
You don’t need to sit cross-legged on the floor, although you can if you want. It’s helpful to be in a comfortable position – but not so comfortable that you fall asleep. Sitting upright in a straight-backed chair is good, and that’s what most people on our courses choose to do. If you choose this, get your knees ever so slightly below your hips – that will help lengthen your back. Keep your feet about hip-width apart and pointing forwards if that’s comfortable. Feel them making a good contact with the floor. Tuck your chin down slightly; the back of your neck then lengthens.
You could also lie down on a rug on the floor if you feel alert enough when you do that. You can even stay standing – and there are two Mind Time practices we’ve provided which need you to move or walk. The main thing is that you give yourself every chance to focus on the practice without being unduly distracted by sleepiness or discomfort.
2. Closing my eyes?
You don’t have to close your eyes in Mind Time, although it might help you to focus if you do. If closing your eyes is uncomfortable, or leads too easily to sleepiness, just leave them open, lowering your gaze to the floor and letting your focus soften.
3. What to focus on
In each practice we’ll suggest a different focus. And we will gently remind you to re-focus, whenever your attention wanders!
In some of the practices we will ask you to move your attention to your breath or parts of your body and keep your attention with the sensations you are experiencing. When we do this we are not asking you to think about the breath or your body. We’re inviting you to sense it – directly. Feeling the sensations that come with each in-breath, the sensations that come with each out-breath. There’s nothing you should be sensing here, there’s just what you are sensing. And there’s no special way of breathing, no right or wrong way of doing that. All you’re doing is allowing your attention to stay, for a time, with the actual experience of breathing as it occurs from moment to moment. Similarly, if we invite you to bring attention to your feet, we are not asking you to think about your feet; we’re inviting you to experience the sensations you feel in your feet right at that moment. Again, there is nothing that you should be sensing – it is fine if you don’t feel anything at all. We are just asking you to be aware of that.
4. How to stay focused
It is likely during Mind Time that the mind will wander. There’s no getting away from that. It’s what minds do and it’s not a mistake or a fault. But whenever you notice that you’ve lost your focus, just see where your attention went. It can help to silently say to yourself, ‘Oh yes, thinking …’, or ‘Uhuh – that’s planning …’, or ‘Oh yes – that’s me worrying …’, and then gently, kindly, return to the focus of attention. It is likely that you will do this over and over and over. And that is the practice.
5. How to stay awake
It is extremely common, especially when you start to practise Mind Time, that you fall asleep. Remember that our minds have spent years and years associating closing eyes with sleep, so it is hardly surprising that it is going to take a while to train ourselves that it doesn’t always mean that!
Coupled with that, many of us are also genuinely lacking in sleep – some of us acutely so. The American Academy of Sleep Science says that the minimum number of hours’ sleep required for a healthy adult is seven. Many of us get fewer than that, and obviously the quality of our sleep is also vital.6
If you fall asleep, don’t beat yourself up about it. You probably just need some sleep. If you can, though, find another time that day when you can do Mind Time again. If you keep falling asleep, perhaps you could try doing Mind Time at a different time in your routine when you are likely to be more alert. Or you could keep your eyes open and just lower your gaze and soften it, rather than closing your eyes.
Most of all, though, don’t give up!
6. How to transition out of Mind Time
When it’s time to end the session, give yourself a little while to adjust. It can take a few moments to reconnect with your day, so don’t just jump up and rush into whatever’s next on your to-do list – that can be a bit of a jolt
