[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Befriending Stress: Personal Growth ©2023]

In our previous key, we touched on a few elements that lead us now to a practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness, extracted from Buddhism for secular application a few decades ago, has received plenty of attention, even as many may still not fully understand what’s meant by this term.

I like to say: focus and notice, but don’t attach.

Mindfulness is viewed as a form of mental training, within Buddhism as well as without, and as emotional regulation. We don’t aim to control our emotions; rather, we cultivate a state in which our emotions don’t control us. All the while, we engage in deep compassion toward the self as well as others – and an understanding that the self/other separation is false.

So: focus and notice.

Mindfulness invites us to notice all the detail, the nuance of our life, which brings a richness of experience along with time affluence. Having practiced mindfulness for 40 years now, when in late December there are cries of ‘where has the year gone?!?’ I smile to myself; I know my year not to have flown by unnoticed but to have been one of daily engagement, filled with so many moments of beauty and joy, from the smile of a baby to the stranger who wished me a good morning, to the sunbeams on my desk as I write this and the rainbows that dance all around me from the prisms hanging in my windows. Life is very rich and time is endless.

And how does this apply to our quest for making stress our friend?

If you engage no other tool than this, you’ll be well ahead. (I do strongly recommend those previous two tools as well, however.)

Mindfulness is trait, state, and practice. We can be mindful individuals, be in a state of mindfulness, engage in a daily practice such as mindfulness meditation. In building this core of quietude, as we increase our attention and focus alongside emotional intelligence, we are far better prepared when stressful events arrive, or the chronic stressors of daily life.

As a practice, meditation is one aspect; in a quiet space, focusing on our breathing and the present moment, redirecting our focus whenever it drifts, we simply take note of whatever feelings may arise, look beneath them, then let them gently drift away again. This isn’t a suppression of emotion; instead, we look at what we’re feeling quite carefully, seeking its source, yet we then have no need to let it define us but can let it go again.

With practice, this skill becomes refined and strengthened, and increasingly a state in which we live throughout each day. By learning to regulate our emotions in this way, we remain the calm point in any storm. When stressors come, we see them, look at our feelings about them, but are not devastated, and can consider the worth of such instead.

Research shows that just ten minutes a day of mindfulness meditation has marked benefits both psychologically and physically. It’s a very small investment to make, and a far richer life as a result.

One especially well-known mindfulness exercise is the Loving Kindness Meditation, to increase compassion toward the self and others. In a meditative state, again beginning with a focus on our slow and steady breathing, once our mind has downshifted to a quiet state we then focus on surrounding and filling ourself with compassion and love. After a couple of minutes, we extend that compassion to other people whom we love. In the third stage, we allow that compassion to flow further, including those about whom our feelings are neutral; the fourth, toward those whom we actively dislike (the hard part). In the final stage, we let our compassion flow outward into the whole: all of humanity, other species and our planet, the cosmos.

For cultivating a positive mindset regarding stress, and for befriending stress and viewing it as an ally, the benefits of mindfulness are enormous. We learn not to be ruled by our emotions, even as we carefully observe and acknowledge each feeling. We learn to notice the richness of detail in our life, as time stretches out before us; we have lived the moments fully and are all the more affluent for it. We learn to extend compassion to ourselves, others, the planet, and by this we understand that we aren’t separate from any of it.

Thus, in the midst of stress, we can be calm and remain objective. We can notice all the good that is still around us, rather than focusing solely on the stressful event. We can see that the present moment is manageable. We detach from outcome, while allowing for all possibilities. And we rely on our breathing as our constant source of grounding.

This may seem more like stress management, however, and it surely is also that. As to seeing stress and painful events as potentially positive, mindfulness shows us the impermanence of life; what we’re experiencing now, in this present moment, will be in the past just a moment later, while what’s to come is unknowable. This brings us an openness and sense of possibility that allows us to see stress for what it is: the passing emotion of the moment. The painful event occurred in the past; how we respond to it in the present is in our hands, and we let go of our unrealistic need to control the future.

At the same time, we surround ourselves with the protective quality of compassion, and we understand that we’re far more supported than we could possibly know – as we aren’t isolated from others but are fully interconnected with all sentient beings.

It’s also important to note that mindfulness, while mental training, is not a life of the mind. Instead, as Buddhism supports nonduality, there’s also no separation between mind and body; in mindfulness practice, we observe and accept our bodily function as well, whatever its state. We honor our body, and in this, we recognize its ability for self-healing and for rebalancing as needed – which includes its mechanisms for returning to a state of balance in the midst of stress.

Mindfulness. Our third and possibly most significant key.