Mindfulness academics and packages usually level to what Jon Kabat-Zinn referred to as the 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness: qualities like non-judging, endurance, newbie’s thoughts, belief, non-striving, acceptance, letting go, gratitude, and generosity.
Whereas extremely helpful, these attitudes have been by no means meant as commandments. They have been meant as reminders, useful reference factors to assist conscious consciousness and compassionate residing. However as mindfulness has been repackaged for the office, apps, and secular packages, one thing has gotten misplaced in translation.
As a substitute of versatile steerage, the 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness have, for a lot of, turn out to be inflexible beliefs. What begins as an invite to stay extra mindfully can in the end distort observe, resulting in confusion, passivity, and even hurt.
Right here’s the onerous fact: misunderstanding or over-applying the 9 Attitudes can create actual issues—issues I’ve skilled myself.
I’ve seen it occur firsthand. At Conscious Chief, we educate these attitudes in our MBSR and Licensed Office Mindfulness Facilitator (CWMF) packages. And but, right here’s the onerous fact: misunderstanding or over-applying them can create actual issues—issues I’ve skilled myself.
In the direction of a Balanced Utility of the 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness
After I first encountered the 9 Attitudes, they made good sense on paper. However residing and main by them left me tied in knots. Ought to I at all times be affected person, even when urgency issues? Ought to I by no means choose, even when judgment is important? What was meant to assist me navigate life began doing the alternative.
That have helped form Open MBSR, a framework I developed to reimagine mindfulness education for actual life: sensible, nuanced, and free from dogma. One key shift is studying to carry every mindfulness angle dialectically, not simply understanding its intention, however recognizing its limits and pure counterbalance.
Earlier than I clarify what that appears like in observe, let’s take a more in-depth take a look at the place these attitudes can go mistaken, and the way we would method them in a different way.
When Good Intentions Aren’t Sufficient: Misinterpreting the 9 Attitudes
Non-judging
- Intention: Observing ideas and experiences with out labeling them good or dangerous.
- Misapplication: Dismissing essential thought; accepting dangerous conduct with out wholesome self-protection.
- Instance: Excusing repeated disrespect in a relationship underneath the guise of “not judging.”
Endurance
- Intention: Recognizing issues unfold in their very own time.
- Misapplication: Mistaking endurance for countless ready.
- Instance: Staying in a poisonous job or relationship far longer than is wholesome, believing “endurance” will sort things.
Newbie’s Thoughts
- Intention: Assembly every second with openness and curiosity.
- Misapplication: Ignoring hard-won life expertise.
- Instance: Discarding helpful expertise within the title of a “recent perspective,” making issues more durable than crucial.
Belief
- Intention: Trusting your instinct and emotions.
- Misapplication: Blind belief in quick emotions with out discernment.
- Instance: Making impulsive life choices as a result of “it felt proper,” resulting in remorse.
Non-striving
- Intention: Letting go of fixating on outcomes.
- Misapplication: Abandoning ambition or path altogether.
- Instance: Neglecting schooling or profession planning, mistaking apathy for peace.
Acceptance
- Intention: Acknowledging actuality as it’s.
- Misapplication: Resignation or passivity.
- Instance: Ignoring a severe well being problem as a result of “I ought to simply settle for it.”
Letting Go
- Intention: Releasing attachment.
- Misapplication: Avoiding crucial emotional work.
- Instance: Suppressing anger as a substitute of processing it.
Gratitude
- Intention: Cultivating appreciation.
- Misapplication: Invalidating real misery.
- Instance: Over-focusing on “small joys” whereas ignoring main life dissatisfaction.
Generosity
- Intention: Giving from a spot of kindness.
- Misapplication: Giving with out boundaries, resulting in burnout.
- Instance: All the time placing others first till private well being and stability endure.
A New Method: Dialectical Pondering and the Steadiness of Opposites
In Open MBSR, we use a dialectical method, holding two seemingly reverse concepts directly to discover a extra balanced, sensible balanced path.
This reveals up clearly in Taoist philosophy via the idea of Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang signify stillness and exercise, receptivity and initiative, opposites that don’t cancel one another out however assist and rely on each other.
Mindfulness works the identical method. Every angle wants its counterpart to remain balanced.
How That Seems in Apply
- Non-judging AND Important Engagement
- Endurance AND Proactive Change
- Newbie’s Thoughts AND Leveraging Expertise
- Belief AND Discernment
- Non-striving AND Aim Orientation
- Acceptance AND Advocacy for Change
- Letting Go AND Emotional Engagement
- Gratitude AND Acknowledgment of Challenges
- Generosity AND Boundaries
Once we maintain these attitudes dialectically, mindfulness turns into one thing we will really stay…not simply one thing we carry out in a meditation room.
What to Do When the Educating Itself Is the Downside
After I first shared these observations, I encountered pushback. One response caught with me: the suggestion that these points stem from folks merely not understanding the ideas appropriately. If folks simply grasped what these attitudes actually imply, the misapplications wouldn’t occur.
When a instructing is constantly misunderstood, when practitioners throughout totally different backgrounds fall into the identical predictable traps, it could be time to look at how we’re instructing relatively than blaming college students.
This troubled me. When a instructing is constantly misunderstood, when practitioners throughout totally different backgrounds fall into the identical predictable traps, it could be time to look at how we’re instructing relatively than blaming college students.
The patterns we’ve explored aren’t random. When “non-judging” is constantly interpreted as abandoning essential considering, when “acceptance” repeatedly turns into passive resignation, and when “letting go” predictably turns into emotional avoidance, these are systemic instructing points, not particular person comprehension failures.
We’ve been presenting these 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness in isolation, stripped from their unique Buddhist context that supplied pure stability and steerage. Once we extract these highly effective ideas with out equal frameworks, we create situations the place practitioners predictably swing towards unhelpful extremes.
Revitalizing How We Suppose About & Educate the 9 Attitudes
It’s time to take possession. One thing is damaged in how we’re instructing these attitudes, and we’ve the chance to repair it.
That’s why I wrote Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness. It’s not nearly fixing how we educate the 9 Attitudes; it’s about redesigning the complete system to be open, sensible, and constructed for at this time’s world.
This isn’t a minor tweak to present packages. It’s a elementary transformation. The 9 Attitudes can do hurt when misapplied, however add dialectical considering and so they turn out to be one thing actually transformative, genuine, and sensible.
A model of this text was first revealed March 5, 2024
