The Headspace Guide To … A Mindful Pregnancy (4 page)

Take a moment to imagine a really bright-blue clear sky, stretching into the distance in every direction. Feels pretty nice, right? In many ways, this blue sky is the perfect metaphor for the mind. It’s like a creative blank canvas, on which every thought, feeling and experience appears. If there are just a few clouds in the blue sky, we tend not to be too bothered or distracted by their appearance – especially if they’re the cute little, fluffy variety. This is how our mind appears when it’s relatively calm, when we experience happy thoughts. But sometimes the sky starts to look ominous, and there might be considerably more clouds – the dark and stormy variety. It might even look as though a full-scale hurricane is on the way. When the mind starts to look like this, it can be easy to focus too much on the clouds. Sometimes, we might become so obsessed with the clouds that we can’t even remember what the blue sky looks like. But it’s still there.

If you get in a plane and fly through the clouds, it’s always there. Every time, without fail. It’s just that when we allow ourselves to become caught up in the appearance of thoughts and emotions, entangled in the experiences of life, we forget such clarity exists. To remember this is to train the mind. To remember this is to get some headspace.

Now, that doesn’t mean being free of clouds altogether; rather, it’s the ability to exist in a place where we’re at ease with whatever emotion is present. It induces more of an ‘OK’ than an ‘Uh-oh!’ or ‘Oh no!’ And I’m sure we could all do with feeling more OK-ness.

While mindfulness has long been examined within the field of psychology, it is only in relatively recent years that it has been tested by rigorous science. This research has led to reliable data being available following clinical trials that have monitored everything from gene expression and brain activity to pain management and stress reduction, all using mindfulness as the intervention.

We go into this in much more detail in Chapter 5 but, as a teaser, when we are talking about the science of meditation, we are not talking about something intangible. We are talking about physiological changes in the grey matter between our ears. Several studies have demonstrated that, in response to meditation, the shape and function of our brains alter – a process known as neuroplasticity – as evidenced in the MRI scans of people who have meditated for as little as eight weeks. In one study, researchers from the University of Montreal found that areas of the brain which regulate pain and emotion were significantly thicker in meditators compared to non-meditators. Therefore, if we embrace this practice every day, our frontal lobe is going to be considerably more at ease and used to resting in a healthier mindset, meaning the volume of positive thoughts will ultimately outweigh the negative ones.

There are many different aspects to mindfulness but, overall, a large body of documented evidence now exists to demonstrate that it not only leads to improved psychological wellbeing but also better physical health. For many, these findings can be a motivating factor and, as you delve deeper into this book, you’ll discover more science that I hope will prove inspiring.

Simply reading about mindfulness-based meditation will not change your life, but implementing its techniques absolutely will; transformation can only take place if we carry out the practice itself. With this in mind, it’s well worth pointing out that the heart of this book is to be found at the back, with exercises specifically tailored to help guide you on this journey. But I recommend that you read through all the chapters to first familiarise yourself with what a mindful pregnancy is all about. Then, try out the meditations that will best serve you, whether you’re trying for a baby, already pregnant, or adjusting to life as a parent.

Just make sure you don’t allow the book to gather dust on the shelf. There will come a time, in pregnancy or parenthood, when you are spinning out, led astray by thoughts or overwhelmed by emotions.
A Mindful Pregnancy
provides somewhere for you to return that will remind you to step out of the craziness and press ‘Home’. Keep it close to hand, on the bedside table or in the nursery. That way, instead of getting upset or pressing the panic button, you can pick up these soothing pages instead! And remember, alongside this book is an entire world of Headspace, online and on your phone. So, if you’d like me to join you from time to time and guide you through some simple exercises, you can simply log on online or download the Headspace app.

In reading this book, you’ll notice I use the royal ‘we’ quite a lot, and that’s not going to change just because I’m a man writing a book about pregnancy. So in those places where I’m talking about the female experience and still use ‘we’, please know that it is because I’m approaching this from the perspective of the mind, which is neither male nor female. Furthermore, in the context of mindfulness, this journey is about ‘we’ and ‘us’, not ‘you’ and ‘me’. And ‘we’ are in this – the human condition – very much together.

So, you are a burgeoning meditator, filled with the hope of transforming your mind. Buoyed by what you read, including the stories of other pregnant women who have already walked this path, you pursue the practice with gusto. But then best-laid plans run into roadblocks linked to time management, self-doubt or overall exasperation: ‘Oh, I could never find the time’ or ‘I couldn’t stick with it’ or ‘What’s the point?’

Here comes your first test of mindfulness.

The habit of the mind is caused by conditioning over a lifetime, whether it’s the way we have always thought or the way our parents’ thinking influenced us. Such habitual thinking – the way we react, find excuses or fall hostage to negative thoughts – is not going to shift overnight. Indeed, human nature being such, it’s a confident prediction that there will be the temptation to throw in the towel at some point.

Seeing such thoughts clearly – not buying into them, but allowing them to pass by –
is
the practice of mindfulness. We are led by habitual thoughts, patterns and behaviours, but we are also the creators of them. The mind that so easily wanders is the same mind we have cultivated – it doesn’t know any other way. This might be one explanation as to why people beat themselves up for stumbling into the same situation, entertaining the same worries or having the same emotional reactions. Over and over again.

I, too, struggled with the same play-and-repeat loop – so much so that I aired my frustration with one of my Tibetan teachers at the monastery. In response, he told me: ‘Imagine that you’ve walked the same street, seeing the same houses and people, every day of your life. At the end of this familiar street’, he said, ‘there is a deep hole. Yet, through habit, you don’t deviate and you walk straight into it, only to moan about why you always end up in the same place. The next day, you see the hole, try to take evasive action but still fall in; the force of habit is too strong,’ he explained. ‘Day in, day out, in spite of your best efforts, that hole gets you each time. Until, one day, you see the hole so clearly, with so much time and so much space, that you simply choose to walk around it.’

Once you start training your awareness through meditation, you too can avoid this habit of falling into the same old emotional traps and patterns of negative thinking. Remember, no transformation is ever easy and it can often take a few months to really establish a positive new habit. Why do you think New Year’s resolutions are so hard to maintain? That’s why we launched the Anti-Excuse Project at Headspace because, again, it’s all about perspective. So what if you went three or four days without meditating? You did it once last week; there’s always next week. And if you only manage it twice next week, that still represents progress. Are you really going to dismiss that progression and let it blot your entire outlook? Meditation is about quality of mind, not quantity of sessions, regardless of how long it takes.

Our research at Headspace actually shows that once people get through the first thirty days, they are hooked, meditating six times a week, ten minutes each day. Your task now is to overcome excuses, and defuse them. And here’s another nugget of encouragement to sustain and inspire you: research in 2011 indicated that practising mindfulness over an eight-week period was sufficient to ‘significantly reduce symptoms of insomnia and pre-sleep mental chatter’. Sold?

How anyone chooses to meditate is going to vary from person to person, but I am frequently asked one question by couples: ‘Should we do it together?’ The answer largely depends on the dynamic between you. Some couples who meditate together find a synchronicity that flows brilliantly; for others, it can prove problematic, rendering the practice ineffective. ‘He’s breathing so heavily that it’s distracting me!’ or ‘I can’t focus because I know she’s thinking about me!’ are just some of the things people have said to me. Of course, in both situations, these thoughts are not really about the other person, they are about internal chatter – hence the need to meditate!

As I have said, there is no right or wrong way to meditate – each of us has to be flexible and define our practice’s purpose by deciding how and where to use it. So you have to see what environment is most conducive before you can start working on creating the right environment for your baby, and if you feel that you will be better in your own space, sitting alone, with the door closed, you should honour that, without feeling any pressure to do it with your partner. The beauty of meditation is that you don’t have to be in the same room in order to feel a sense of connection or togetherness.

I remember when Lucinda was pregnant and I was doing a lot of travelling. Every time I sat down, I meditated with the conscious intention that it would benefit my wife and child, closing my eyes and placing my focus on them. Because if we focus more on others, we can take ourselves there, too – that’s how we remain connected in the process.

What follows is a short exercise to start with, so you get a taste of what it means to pause and step outside of your thoughts, while learning how to use the breath as an anchor.

1.
Turn off the TV or any music. Find a quiet spot. Sit upright in a comfortable chair, with your legs and arms uncrossed. Close your eyes, settle in and take three deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Then, allow the body to return to its natural rhythm of breathing.

2.
Place your hand on your stomach and notice the rising and falling sensation that the body creates as it breathes. Simply focus on that feeling. Rise and fall. Rise and fall.

This is the sensation – the anchor – that you can return to each time you realise the mind has wandered off.

3.
Inevitably, your focus will wane and the mind will start generating thoughts, distracting you. Don’t try to stop them. Don’t try to push them away. See them, let them go and return to that feeling of the breath. Count them like waves coming in to the shore. See if you can make it to ten without getting distracted, while feeling the calm and gentleness of the breath easing you back into the body.

Right now, it’s actually not important how your mind behaves. The point of the exercise is to place a toe in the water. So, repeat the exercise a few times and see how long you can tolerate sitting with your thoughts. Initially, you will feel easily distracted and maybe even a little frustrated, but stay with it, even if it feels unpleasant or uncomfortable. After experimenting a few times, once you’ve watched some of your mind’s waywardness, and when you feel ready, add this fourth part:

4.
As you sit there, eyes closed, pay attention to any thoughts that pop up. Let’s say there’s an angry, resentful thought. Note it – ‘Oh, so there’s anger/resentment’ – but don’t indulge it. Return to the breath. Rise and fall. Rise and fall. You’ve just let the thought go. Poof! It’s gone. If it returns, or another thought rushes in, note it – note that you are now thinking. Return to the breath, and so on and so forth.

The moment you realise that you are distracted, in
that
moment, you are already back in the present. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go, other than to gently rest the attention back on the breath each time.

While no two pregnancies are ever the same, there is one thing that comes as standard: a highly active mind with a heightened sense of emotion. It’s somewhat ironic that at this special time in life, when you would most like your mind to relax and unwind, when you would most wish for your emotions to be stable and calm, it can all feel so totally overwhelming. It’s no surprise then that so many mothers feel like they are on the losing end of a battle, as their emotions start to get the upper hand. So, before going any further, it seems this is the right stage to help you – and your other half – better understand the nature of the beast we call the thinking mind.

When I first became a monk, I wasn’t aware of the erratic nature of the mind which, let’s face it, is not unlike a restless monkey, swinging from branch to branch all day long. I had tried to check out of life by heading into the mountains for peace and tranquillity. Of course, I came to realise that thoughts don’t understand geography or the concept of ‘retreat’; they travel with us, wherever we go. In fact, if anything, when we are all alone in the middle of nowhere, free from distraction, they are magnified, appearing even more intense. When the mind has nowhere to go externally, it turns inward and pesters us with thoughts – a bit like a child constantly pulling on our coat-tails, seeking attention. And so it was with me the first time I lived at a monastery.

After a while of meditating, not fully understanding the instructions, I kept being troubled by an overwhelming feeling of sadness. More often than not, this sadness led to frustration and anger because I didn’t seem able to get a grip on my emotions, which is what I mistakenly thought meditation was all about. In the end I went to see my teacher, fearful I may never be happy again.