Mindfulness Skill 4: Clarity

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer:

On the morning show right now we have on the other end of the line, Dr. Patrick Jones, founder of Perth Psychologists who over the past two weeks has been coming on air to discuss a different facet of mindfulness. Patrick, the topic this week is clarity. So specifically, what are we focusing on when we talk about clarity within the scope of mindfulness?

Patrick:

Well, clarity is a critical part of mindfulness, because, you know, like, if we're a mystery to ourselves, then it doesn't matter how sort of present you might be, or neutral or nonjudgmental, you might be if you're not able to identify what's going on inside of you, you're quite sort of hampered. So really clarity is where there's enough mental space to be able to see what the thoughts and feelings are that are occurring within us, that would be the first part. But then also, it's that includes the ability to identify, you know, what your beliefs might be because often we might have all kinds of beliefs that are running our response in a certain situation.

And some of them are like inherited, you know, like, we've got them from our parents, and we've gotten from friends and we haven't necessarily gone well, why is that the case? Because everyone has a whole mixed bag of beliefs. And I think when we have that objectivity, which mindfulness often gives us that chance to be able to step back, we can almost do a bit of a bit like, like a software update.

Are these wanting to what I call old fuddy-duddy ways of thinking that, you know, really a bit out of date? So clarity gives us that choice to be able to see what's there and then be able to go does that fit this situation? Or does that fit me still or have I kind of moved on from that way of being?

Interviewer:

And it seems that when we're stuck to one particular belief, there's also a way, there's also a little bit of an emotional attachment that may make it difficult to distance ourselves from that and a lot of in my reading of clarity and mindfulness, there's a bit to do with distinguishing those two things. And it seems to be very clear cut when you say it expositionally like, you know, these are beliefs. And these are emotions. But specifically like thinking about it, how and why is it that those two things can be confused?

Patrick:

Well, often people might just say, you know, look, you know, I'm angry about such and such. And, you know, what they've, what we say conflated or brought together are two things, they've had a belief about something, it hasn't gone well. And then they've had an emotional reaction. And so what they're left with is, you know, I'm just angry about such and such, I'm angry with such and such.

So, clarity here can help where you get a chance to be able to see past that emotion, that's the first thing that's, you know, in your, in your awareness, and perhaps even then go well, what's the, what's the, what's the underlying emotion underneath that? And, you know, why did I get angry, it might be that something happened, and I initially felt, so for example, let down.

And so then you can go Alright, so it's not just angry, I'm kind of a little bit hurt a little bit gypped, you know, like, I didn't kind of work away, I didn't feel bad. So then we've got some clarity about that. We're not just left with that, the angry bit. So really, it's having emotional and mental awareness of what's happening within you, so you can be able to go, these are my beliefs.

And because I've had these beliefs, and something didn't go too well, I now have these emotions. And that sounds a little bit objective, or perhaps even clinical. But, you know, as I said, you can't be mysteries to yourself, you've got to be able to know what's going on, so that you can work with it and potentially change it.

Interviewer:

And you've mentioned it briefly there. But you know, there's almost an easy, easily perceivable way about how those two things when you have your beliefs and emotions become confused can then impact you negatively. But could you possibly expand on what the effects of that confusion are?

Patrick:

Yeah, well, I mean, the people can polarize a little bit. One, they can not be able to find the feelings on one end of the scale with people. So for example, people might be almost so emotionally repressed, if you like that they can't identify what feelings they're having. And you know, they might just get that the easy ones to grab, which, you know, angry or annoyed. But there are a range. And sometimes people just can't get anything. They can almost feel numb emotionally assaulted or blank. So that one's not great because that means you're just sort of stuck in, in thinking that's one type of person or one type of situation. The other is the other extreme where someone's so caught up in their emotions that they can't actually identify all those beliefs that I've said, have caused them

So, again, being able to almost like imagine, you know, like a backpack, you know, you take everything out, you put it on the table and go, Okay, so what's happening here? And what do I need? What can I check out? And, you know, and then how do I kind of respond more clearly and cleanly? So clarity gives you that opportunity to be able to do that.

Interviewer:

It's almost like it brings to mind that idea of stripping back that, you know, that body of emotions and seeing what's at the base of it and sort of trying to get to the core, almost like, you know, that whole, you know, treating it like an onion with a set of layers. And at the center is actually what the problem is that needs addressing.

Patrick:

Yeah, and it sounds sounds super simple at one level. But really, if someone's really good at this, that they can become a great, a great communicator, because they can because they know what's going on inside themselves and they give room in the other person, then work out what's going on for them. So yeah, super helpful,

Interviewer:

Patrick, we've been discussing clarity as an important facet of our mindset. What is your mindfulness technique for achieving it?

Patrick:

Yeah, well, there are a couple of I think, a simple one is to be able to do an exercise to identify the fact that we do have beliefs, and to have a neutral, impartial relationship to them, so that we have kind of room to move around them. So one simple one is just to take some random topics. And just to notice that we do have an opinion, as they say, human beings, opinion machines, you know, we can't help ourselves. So for example, if I just say the word and I don't know, like, physiotherapist, pretty neutral term, like, what's my, what's my first response to them? You know, what's my belief or thought about them? Like, it might be, you know, don't really care to go to them occasionally, you know, probably hard to get into something. But we'll have some response, right? We'll have some beliefs.

And so you can kind of just choose random words, you can even do this with friends. Like, I just realized that their beliefs are different from mine about the same. Exactly the same topics, which is another one, say, like, I'd know the education system or school or whatever else. No, like, what am I belief in? Say, I don't know, teachers? And I think, okay, where are they? Is that? And then, okay, so then how about what are my beliefs about students? And we'll have a certain view as well. So like, just choosing random topics? And then the next bit is to go, what if say that my role in all of those topics was reversed? So instead of say, me being a student, I was a teacher? What would my beliefs be about students? You know, I probably wouldn't be the same as I've got if I was a student.

You know, if I'm a student, what are my beliefs about heaters? So the point is, is that by using some little process like this, what we're trying to always do is get objectivity of our stand back and go, you know, I really do have a set of beliefs about, you know, almost everything. And do I have a choice around that and where it becomes super relevant, is in terms of, you could almost say, arguments or conversations, where those beliefs are not matching what's going on, or completely different from the other person's?

Interviewer:

Yeah, and I suppose it's like, you're right in saying that, it's that it's hard to interrogate those. It's also uncomfortable to do that occasionally, if you've got a predisposed idea towards something like, you know, sort of, sort of cutting right down to your core and your being is to say, Okay, what do I think about this? Why do I think about it is what I'm thinking about it wrong. But so yeah, it's interesting to say this is a technique, but it also requires, it seems like it requires a degree of time, and introspection, and a lot of these things around beliefs and emotions can arise when communicating, particularly in instances around high stakes problems. Have you got any advice for articulating and maintaining clarity while we're communicating, particularly if we're having a disagreement with somebody or another party?

Patrick:

Yeah, for sure. One of the other things that I would teach is, I call it the ABA or the event, belief attachment triangle. And really, what it means is that when an event happens, and we have a belief rule or expectation that that event will be different, and we're attached to our belief, then that's the formula to suffer. And so, you know, like a two-year-old, you know, we walk past, you know, in the sandpit and they say, squared or something like that. You like, we may not have a personal reaction to it other than I'm sure he's bringing them up and what they're saying but it doesn't like affect us, but it's the You know, but then let's just take that same event, but we'll add 20 years to that person. Now there are 22 people walking past them, and they say the same thing to us, we'll have a completely different reaction. And so what it is, is that an event has occurred. But we have a belief rule expectation that it should be different.

And if we're not attached to it, like, we're not really attached to the fact that you know, the two-year-old said, you know, they said that it doesn't really affect us. We don't take it personally and whatever else, but the 22-year-old, you know, 20 years later, we probably may be attached. And I think this is the difference is that if you can manage to step back and say, Well, what am I my beliefs about something, and if it doesn't go too well, if I'm not attached to that, like, I can still have it as a value, it's still important to me, but my whole well being, isn't found in that belief having to be, you know, that person having to have acted that way towards me. And if they don't, then my well-being goes down.

And the big thing and mindfulness always is to try and pull back your well-being to within you versus what I call a vent-based well-being versus inner well-being, that's the kind of the central tenet of the mindfulness work. And so here, stepping back and going, alright, so I've got a belief about this event didn't go so well. But I'm just not going to have, I'm not gonna be so attached to that belief that my well-being kind of goes down the drain. So that's the main thing I would say. But also, just to be aware that our beliefs, so they so much that shape our lives, you know, for example, just purely like to say our money topic, you know, they talk about abundance mentality versus a poverty mentality, same amount of money.

One person's like, Oh, my God, I got so much more than I used to have a poverty mentality person won't go up, it's still not quite enough, you know, the same amount of money, same event, two different beliefs. So I think it's a little quiz almost, but I love doing I guess, it's just, you know, you can get a piece of paper or whatever else, and map out the infrastructure of my beliefs according to different topics, you know, relationships, or work or money or health, and just go those beliefs and sort of watch running my life and going to be almost predicting my future.

And do I want those beliefs? And if not, could I look at some, you know, again, computer software, you know, install installation, or uninstall, uninstall a program, and look at an alternative? And if we don't have clarity, with the beliefs, we can't, but if we can step back and see them all, then again, we have a choice. And as they say, with choice comes, you know, comes power. I think that's the power of all of this.

Interviewer:

What's interesting for me in having these conversations with you each week is seeing how a lot of these topics sort of interrelated and that idea that you're talking about, this week around sort of stepping back quite clearly leads into what we talked about two weeks ago with present moment awareness. So it's good to have these together as a collected series for people to refer back to and, you know, sort of cross-pollinate ideas with so thanks for getting in touch with us this week, Patrick, and look forward to speaking to you again next week.

Patrick:

Yep, that sounds good.

Interviewer:

Excellent. All right.

Patrick:

Take care.