Urban Mindfulness provides pragmatic guidance to help transform an everyday experience into an occasion for reflection, stress relief, and even fulfillment.
The Big Ideas!
- City life is exciting, but stressful. Chronic stress causes physical, mental, and emotional difficulties.
- Practicing mindfulness can help bring balance and calm back into our lives.
- Mindfulness is a special way of paying attention. It involves disengaging from “automatic pilot” and consciously turning your attention to what is happening right now in the present moment.
- You practice mindfulness by noticing what is happening-observing your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations-without evaluating them, clinging to them, criticizing them, or rejecting them.
- Practicing mindfulness helps you become gently curious about your experiences, and that makes you feel more open and accepting towards your life.
- Mindfulness helps you become more aware of the way things really are, instead of getting caught up in the stressful cycle of thinking about how things should or shouldn’t be.
- Traditional texts may talk about practicing mindfulness in peaceful country settings, but the premise of this book is that the normal activities of everyday city life are also opportunities to practice mindfulness.
Neutrino’s Nutshell
When the author, Jonathan Kaplan, a clinical psychologist living in rural Ohio, moved to New York City to accept a job offer, he looked forward to the excitement, variety, and cultural offerings of the city. He found all of those things, but he also started losing his sense of peace and balance and started feeling chronically tired and stressed out. His clients, too, were overwhelmed by the stresses of city life.
Kaplan was a committed meditator but found it hard to continue his practice: “I could not find the right space emotionally, mentally, and even physically in my small studio apartment.” He was also dedicated to practicing mindfulness, but found that hard in the city too. He studied scientific and Buddhist texts about mindfulness. The former advocated practices which were too time-and-energy-consuming for busy city lives. In the latter, he found “tales of sitting in the forest, riding horses, and practicing falconry, which weren’t particularly relevant to urban experiences of eating on the go or driving in traffic.”
Kaplan realized he needed to find a better way to practice mindfulness in the city. He started a blog on the subject, which attracted a community of people with the same interest, which led to this book.
The book contains fifty short chapters, each giving practical suggestions for bringing mindfulness to a specific aspect of city life, such as noisy neighbors, bad smells, and waiting in line. Many of the chapters focus on experiences that are specific to city life, such as riding the subway, but other chapters could be useful for people living anywhere, such as the chapters discussing being mindful while taking a walk, spending time with pets and houseplants, drinking a cup of coffee, working at a desk, and sending text messages.
Quotables
Every day in the city is a new opportunity for practice as we travel down the same noisy, busy, crowded streets together.”
“[By practicing mindfulness], you’ll be well on your way to cultivating peace, presence, and purpose while living in the middle of it all.”
“Practice acceptance and mindful breathing whenever you start feeling angry or stressed around children.”
“Ask yourself what kind of parent … you want to be … Being aware of your actions and demeanor, consider what you want to communicate.”
IMEO (In My Eudaimonian Opinion)
The author does a great job of showing how to bring mindfulness into an environment that seems to work against being mindful in so many ways. The book is written in a clear, engaging style. Keeping with the theme of the book, I read it while riding on the subway, and the time flew by.
Take action, humanoid!
Here’s an exercise that kids might like:
Make mindfulness into a game.
- Become aware of your breathing.
- Count each complete breath (inhalation and exhalation).
- Give yourself one point for each complete breath you count.
- See how many points you can get before you become distracted.
- As soon as your mind wanders away from your breathing, the round is over. Record your score.
- Play again, as often as you like, and try to beat your score.
Meditate on a houseplant, at home or in the office. Starting from the bottom of the pot and working up, examine the colors, textures, reflections, and any stains or drops of water. Notice whether your mind is passing judgment on what you see. Then focus on a single leaf. How many colors can you see besides green? Do you see shades of color, shadows, and areas of brightness? Notice any judgments you are making, and then return your focus to the leaf. Continue slowly moving your gaze up the plant until you reach the open air.
If you’re feeling stressed out because you are stuck in traffic in your car or are packed into a crowded bus, notice the thoughts that are passing through your mind. Do those thoughts make you feel better or worse? Notice whether you are bringing memories of bad experiences in the past or worries about the future into the present moment. Ask yourself whether you are willing to practice accepting what is happening to you now, as distressful as it might be.
Think about what the people around you might be experiencing, and think about what you might have in common with them.
The Deets
Urban Mindfulness
Author: Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D.
Publication:2010 (182 pages)