Insight Meditation: Mindful Attention Exercise

The theory of mindsight (“smart vision”) is a new concept in neuroscience, which was developed by the American neuroscientist and psychiatrist Daniel Siegel. Mindsight is the ability to look inside yourself, observe the work of your mind and reflect on your own experience. This skill helps us to develop brain abilities, achieve mental well-being and build harmonious relationships with other people. In other words, thanks to mindsight, we can control and manage our inner world.

Compare two phrases: «I’m tired» and «I feel tired.» It seems that they are absolutely identical, but the first one is usually pronounced by people who do not own the main site. When you say, «I’m tired,» you are admitting that you cannot change things. And when you use the expression: “I feel tired,” you declare to your inner world that you can control this feeling and can even deal with it if necessary. Mindsight helps you get rid of these mental traps and live a fuller and more meaningful life.

In the book «Mindsight. The New Science of Personal Transformation Daniel Siegel talks about how you can improve your mindsight with specific training. One of the exercises that develop the ability to look at your consciousness from the outside is insight meditation. It is based on the dispersal of attention to surrounding objects and immersion in the world of spontaneously arising internal images.

7 steps to look inside yourself

1. Take a comfortable position and prepare for the practice

Try to sit with a straight back, without crossing your legs and placing your feet on the floor. Lying on the floor is also a good option. First, without closing your eyes, direct your attention to the center of the room, and then watch how it moves to the far wall. Keep watching as it returns to the middle of the room, and then let it get very close to you — at the distance at which you usually hold a book. Notice that attention can move to different places.

2. Close your eyes and turn your attention inward

Try to feel from the inside how your body is located in space, and then listen to the sounds around you. This will fill your field of awareness. After a short pause, direct your conscious attention to the breath where you feel it most clearly: at the level of the nostrils where the air enters and exits, the chest descending and rising, or the belly retracting and expanding. It is possible that you will even feel how your whole body breathes.

Where it seems most natural, hold your attention. Take a short break. If you notice that thoughts or memories are distracting you (this happens quite often), just notice it and gently return your attention to the breath, wherever you feel it. Take a short break.

3. Keep Watching Your Breath

When you understand the activity of your consciousness, you will understand that it does not define your personality at all. You are more than your thoughts and feelings, they are only part of what is happening in the mind. For some, it helps to name them—for example, “feelings,” “thoughts,” “memories,” or “anxiety”—and see them as events coming and going. Let them slowly float out of the field of awareness. Take a short break again.

4. Imagine consciousness as a wheel of awareness

You have a wheel in front of you: everything that enters the field of awareness becomes one of the infinite points on its rim. In one quadrant is what we perceive through the five senses. These are touches, tastes, smells, sounds and sights. Another sector of the rim is the internal perception of the body, sensations in the limbs, muscles of the face and in the visceral organs: in the lungs, heart and intestines. This bodily sensation — the sixth sense, if you like — is another element to which we can direct awareness.

The rest of the points on the rim of the wheel are what consciousness produces directly, such as thoughts, feelings, memories, hopes, dreams. This segment is also available for awareness. The seventh sense is the ability to see one’s own consciousness and the consciousness of other people. Having established a connection with others, we comprehend relationships with the outside world, probably representing another dimension — the eighth sense.

5. Choose a point and direct attention to it

You can focus on one of the five senses and lay a “knitting needle” there. Or, concentrate on the memory, and the new “spoke” will connect to the point of the rim where the seventh sense is located. All spokes come from the depth of consciousness, which in our diagram is represented by the axis of the wheel of awareness. By focusing on the breath, we will realize that the axis expands. As it spreads, we become more receptive to everything on the rim.

6. Feel the state of inner peace

Like the serene depths of the inland sea, the axle of the wheel of awareness is a place of calm, security, openness, and curiosity. It is from here that we will set off to explore the nature of consciousness while maintaining energy and concentration. The center of our consciousness is available to us right now and always. From it we come into connection with ourselves and can feel compassion for others.

7. Concentrate on your breath for a few more seconds.

Take a short break. When you are ready, take a conscious and deep breath and open your eyes.

How did you feel while meditating? Some find it difficult to master this skill, while others come naturally. If, after a few sessions, you find that it is difficult for you to focus on your breath, then find another object for conscious attention. You may be more comfortable starting with yoga, tai chi, or moving meditation.

Just a couple of minutes of mindfulness practice a day has a big impact: mindsight helps you get rid of excessive anxiety, feel safer and feel more satisfied with your life.