September/October 2011 Conscious Media
One-Minute Mindfulness
by Kim Corbin
Donald Altman, author of One-Minute Mindfulness, is known as America’s mindfulness coach. As a Portland-based psychotherapist, he teaches at Lewis and Clark College and Portland State University. The former Buddhist monk shares how to get off autopilot and live fully starting with the next minute.
Q: Why is the next minute so important?
A. It’s because you can’t live in the future, nor can you live in the past — although a lot of us try to do so. The human frontal cortex has developed the ability to plan and worry about things that haven’t yet happened. While it can serve a purpose, it also comes at a great cost. It can keep us from being present.
Q. What happens when you’re not present?
A. For one thing, accidents can happen. Most of the time when you hear about an accident happening it is because someone was distracted. They weren’t paying attention to what they were doing in the moment. New research shows that people are less happy when their minds are wandering away from what they’re doing. Happiness is more about being present than the activity in which you are engaged.
Donald Altman
Q. How can someone be present at home when there’s so much going on just trying to get out of the house each morning?
A. There are a lot of little things that anyone can do to be more present at home. You can experience waking up, stretching, turning on the light switch and noticing how your eyes adjust to the brightness, how the water from the shower cascades over your body, experiencing that first taste of the day. Morning is like a wild carnival ride, but if you get on automatic pilot you numb out and miss the ride.
Q. You have a meditation practice you call “be the pebble.” How does it work?
A. Be the pebble is a metaphor for dropping beneath the surface of our noisy mind and into the stillness below. It only takes a moment to find stillness. Taking a full breath with the body can drop us into the body and into a moment of stillness, calming the chaotic mind. This is refreshing, like taking a drink of cool water on a hot day. It helps us find a moment’s peace and clarity.
Learn more about Donald Altman at www.oneminutemindfulnessbook.com.