How to fail at mindfulness

Jumping into a mindfulness practice can go horribly wrong. Here’s how my first attempts at being more mindful crashed and burned. We’ll talk about how to fail at mindfulness, and how (and why!) to try again.

The first time I tried to meditate using an app I fell flat on my face.

The people leading the meditations start you off by telling you “Focus on your breathing. Focus on your breathing.” So I’m focusing on my breathing, and I’m inhaling, and I’m exhaling, and I’m noticing that my chest feels tight. Well why is that?? Why are my inhales so short? Do I breathe wrong? This is not going to get my dissertation chair to return my emails, that’s what would help me! My breaths come shorter, quicker.

And then the self-criticism starts. What’s wrong with me that I can’t just relax into my own breath? Have I been doing this wrong since childhood? And I’m supposed to be a therapist! I determine that I’m going to find a different video about how to do this properly.

And so it went, on and on. Did I get even a tiny bit closer to the mindful life I’m trying to build? Did I at least slow my heart rate? Absolutely not. And that’s actually okay.

Turns out, even 30 seconds spent in an honest attempt to practice mindfulness, even 30 seconds that ends in the same old self-criticism story I’ve been telling myself since middle school, can still get me closer to my actual goal of true mindfulness.

Reframing the idea of a failure in mindfulness

What was the point of all this? The real reason I downloaded the app in the first place was so that I could have a life that I am more engaged in. I want to stay better engaged in this life I’m trying to build for myself. I am trying to stay present in the moments that make up my life. And the reason why I think mindfulness is going to get me there is because I’ve been told that by the entire 4.3 trillion dollar wellness industry. And I’ve been told the same thing by DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, the kind of therapy I’m devoting my career to. I learned from the foundational training of DBT that mindfulness is what gets you in the door. Mindfulness is what it takes to be more present, to feel more alive, and to be able to hold onto your patience throughout even the worst and most overwhelming struggles of your life.

Mindfulness and DBT

Mindfulness, according to the definition that comes from DBT, is not about a perfect meditation where you clear your mind to a perfect empty blank. The point is to stretch the muscles of mindfulness by trying to get a hold of your focus. It is not about maintaining perfect, clear focus. It is about getting distracted! And it is about coming back when you get distracted, to refocus on what’ s in front of you. And it’s about coming back again and again and again, as many times as you get distracted. So the point is not to be un-distractible; it’s to deal with distraction.

That's what got me to download the app in the first place. I was newly aware of why I wanted to do this and now with DBT I got a better handle on how I wanted to be doing this. And in true perfectionism form, I actually get pretty far on just that. In fact, I made it to day 183. 183 straight days of meditating! We’re talking ten minutes at a time here, not three hours. It’s consistent though and I’m slowing down and even on occasion focusing on my breath without panicking about whether I’m breathing correctly. And then comes day 184.

Now on day 184, I’m swamped with grad school work and I’m feeling depressed because I’m swamped and I’m burnt out because I’m depressed that I’m swamped. And I procrastinate on my mediation time because how could I not, I am swamped! Full disclosure: I have told clients with a straight face that if they don’t have time to do a 10 minute meditation then they should do a 30 minute meditation. I believed it when I said it! And I believe it now! But on day 184, I no longer believed. I went to bed that night without having done my meditation, and by the time I realized that I skipped a day, it was too late. I’ve missed my chance, perfect streak broken.

If you are familiar with perfectionism, you may recognize the emotion when you realize a perfect streak is over. I thought I was back to zero days in a row of mindfulness! Massively discouraged, I wanted to delete the app and never look back. Meditation experience over, never to be repeated. I am a mediation failure.

Moving Past Mindfulness Mistakes

What was I missing? First: that one missed day, one mistake, does not cancel out everything that came before. My practice had lasted months, much longer than I had originally thought, and in aiming for only perfection I was ready to ignore that progress entirely. Second: while it is true that meditation is mindfulness, and so is the practice of calling myself back when I got distracted, it is also true that each time during my day when I redrew my attention to what I wanted to focus on I was practicing mindfulness. In seeing meditation as the only path to mindfulness, I had set myself up with unrealistic expectations. This is how perfectionism robs us of motivation.

So let’s get into mindfulness options that have nothing to do with a perfect streak on an app, or with listening to the sound of your breath. Dance class, when I’m tuning out the people around me so I can focus on the pressure between the palm of my hand and the palm of my partner’s hand. Or hanging a picture, when I step back and tilt my head this way and that to see if if brings me pleasure to see it hung there. Or building a window seat and making sure I have the screwdriver pointed away from my face before I squeeze the trigger. Each of these moments requires my concentration, and the more I can hold that focus, the more I add to my practice of mindfulness. Because in the end, I don’t want a mindfulness practice on its own, really. I just want my life, and to be more mindful of the moments that make it mine.

If you are curious to find out more about how DBT teaches mindfulness skills, click here to find out about the DBT services we offer at Full Focus Therapy. Or learn about how queer-friendly therapy like DBT can make an impact on your life.