A Solitary Raisin: The Transformative Power of Mindfulness

by Piers McEwan

It will be good for you, they said. It will relax you, they said. It will bring you out of that hole, they said. Perhaps it would, perhaps it wouldn’t, I thought. My judgement was cloudy and non-existent, the numbing effect of the SSRIs the doctor had said. Those minuscule pink pills had infiltrated my bloodstream in a colossal way, leaving me in a permanent haze of nothingness. The downs were gone but so were the ups, and with it my excitement for life. And with that thought invading my headspace, I trudged off, wearily, across town to my first Mindfulness Meditation course.

It was 8 weeks previous that I’d had the consultation call, sitting on my sofa whilst the colours of autumn had begun to appear outside of the pokey window I stared out of. This course was only for those in a current spell of depression or anxiety, they said. We’d like a rundown of your symptoms, they said. See you in November, they said. What the hell was I thinking, I thought, as the realisation of the course dawned on me and almost had me turning around, running back to the comfort of home. Discussion, openness, group exercises and meditation were a few words I had heard mentioned, none of which seemed appealing in the slightest at that moment.

So here I was, after finally persuading myself just to give it a go; an average looking building, an average looking foyer and an average looking set of stairs leading up to the workshop room. Doesn’t look like the sort of place where they’ll be able to cure me, I thought. Still, I’d made it this far, and given some of the testimonials I had read, I knew that I had to give this a shot if I was ever going to quieten my anxious mind. After we were all checked in, introductions were given, pleasantries were exchanged and frank guidance was given on what we might expect to get out of the course. This was all lead by our teacher, who for the sake of anonymity I’ll also call ‘Teacher.’ The truth was, this well-spoken English chap in fact had a name whose provenance was that of a far off land, and one that was completely unpronounceable to myself. As sessions progressed I continued addressing teacher with an “excuse me” or “sorry”, worried that I’d insult him with a feeble attempt at his name.

Following instruction from Teacher, we sat in silence with our eyes closed and one arm outstretched, in preparation for the first exercise. I could hear his footsteps circling round the room towards my chair and, before I knew it, something had been placed in the palm of my hand. I was not to move my hand so had no way of identifying exactly what this was, except from the fact that it held little weight. As my bleary eyes started to open, in unison with everyone else’s, what lay on the palm of my hand was anticlimactic to say the least; a solitary raisin. Examine the raisin, he said. Note the texture of the raisin, he said. Let all of your attention be with this raisin, he said. This, in hindsight, was of course my first lesson in being ‘present’. As we moved from the raisin to focus our gaze and thoughts on the palms of our hands, I was overcome with an enormous sense of awe. This must have been the first time I’d deliberately instructed my mind to be in the present moment instead of being caught up in past failures or future uncertainties. The simple raisin was now so much more than that and the palms of my hands, filled with lines, crevices and stories were now this incredible entity that for years I had taken for granted. It was a humbling experience; I had entered into this parallel universe called the present moment simply by being mindful of the raisin and my hands.

As the weeks started to progress, I was starting to look forward to my weekly Tuesday session, and the accompanying homework that we were set each week which mainly consisted of three minute meditations and body scans. I was still getting to grips with the meditation, though, and was confused with this notion of bringing awareness to my thoughts instead of just emptying my mind of everything, which I presumed was the whole point. It was by about my fifth week, though, that things began to slot into place; I remember the day well and that for the first time it was as if I was able to step out of myself and my thoughts and notice them for what they really were, i.e thoughts and not reality. It had made me realise that if my thoughts could be compared to a rollercoaster then throughout my life I had been getting on for every ride; a ride that was unpredictable, scary, unescapable, but ultimately avoidable. Through mindfulness, and its associated techniques, I learnt that you could just watch that rollercoaster cart approach, be aware of it and then let it pass by without jumping on. Just like a thought, that cart might keep on coming back around but I realised that I didn’t have to welcome it or get involved with it, I had the power to simply acknowledge its existence but ultimately just let it pass. It sounds so simple, but after years of being controlled and dominated by my thoughts, this was perhaps the biggest revelation I had come across as a human being.

With mindfulness, I found that the more I practiced, the easier it was to maintain its effectiveness. After one weekend visiting friends in Paris I caught myself agonising over the pettiest thing on the flight back. I’d been doing it pretty much the whole flight but once I realised, I was able to use mindfulness techniques to take back control. This taught me how difficult it would be to maintain, especially when my classes finished at the end of the month. I knew that consistency was key, so employed a few reminders to keep me on track; IPhone alarms for mini-meditation sessions, an elastic band on my wrist which I would flick when I noticed that I was not being mindful and finally, mindful washing up and showers. Just like my in depth examination of that raisin, I made sure that for those two activities I was fully in the present moment and nothing else. My commutes were now spent listening to the guided meditations of Jon Kabat-Zinn and my mindfulness teacher. My morning runs were now spent practicing mindfulness, noticing my breath and the corresponding strides on the pavement. My monthly paycheck was now spent on mindfulness orientated literature. I was hooked, on what was probably the best thing I could have been hooked on.

It was with a tinge of sadness, then, that we all said our farewells at the final session on a balmy spring day in March. We’d all arrived in this place with our own circumstances and our own problems and challenges, but had left with a collective sense of empowerment, each one of us knowing that we’d all experienced something extraordinary to varying degrees over the duration of the course. To commemorate the end of the course, we sat together for a final thirty minute guided meditation. Before I brought my awareness back to the present, all I could think about was how far I’d come since my first attempt at mindfulness meditation. Afterwards, I went over and thanked Teacher who, on my way out, with his endearing gummy smile simply said, “Just be here, now, and you’ll be OK.”

All of the aforementioned took place in late 2008. Here I am in the year 2014, free of the chronic depression and anxiety which weighed me down for so long. I’ll always be a worrier, though, and at times when I have let my mindfulness practice slip, I’ve found myself in some bad places. I moved job, I moved home, and I broke up with my partner; that year, to my detriment, I don’t think I meditated once and suffered the consequences. These days I can feel the difference when I practice mindfulness, and my family and friends can see it. I understand the need to be disciplined and to be consistent in my practice, just as one would be if they were running a marathon or learning a language. Just like everyone else, I have unwanted thoughts and a chattering mind still, but am able to ease the effects with mindfulness. As I look back at how far I have come in the space of the last six years, I appreciate the insurmountable amount of gratitude I owe to mindfulness; for it showed me the beauty of a raisin and a way out of the rollercoaster ride I so often wanted to go on.

Find Piers’ other work at:

http://www.onethinkingman.com