Mindfulness : Two anchor points

One of my readers DonW57 suggested trying 2 anchor points:

"Try 2 Anchor points. Focus on them at the same time and your thoughts will stop. For example, listening to the sounds in the space around you and also focus on colors you see. The 2 anchor points should be from what you sense. Hearing, sight, the feeling of your body (warm? cold? sitting? walking?). One anchor point is not enough to still thoughts, 2 anchor points works wonderfully."


 DonW57 Thanks, I will give it a try.

In the book The Mindful Way Through Depression,  the authors described a method called Breathing With. My understanding is that we can hold the Mindful Breathing in the background awareness, whilst holding the primary focus on the body sensation (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral).

Started Mindful Breathing, Walking and Body Scan

Bought this book: Mindful Way Through Depression
and listened to its audio instruction. Based on the book and the audio, I started practicing the mindful breathing, walking and body scan.

Some useful pointers from the book:

1. being mindful of the anchor of breathing, walking or body means just being, as opposed to
    doing (thinking).

2. objective is not to keep awareness on the anchor points - there is no objective. Objective is an impediment introduced by the thinking mind. The mind thrives on doing and comparing.

3.  Instead, it is more important to catch the wandering mind as soon as it wanders, then, to label it and gently bring awareness back to the anchor point.

4. My mistake when I practiced mindfulness years ago, was that I made it a goal to keep awareness on anchor point. When thinking mind introduces a goal, it becomes a distraction, as thoughts of comparison will arise, eg, "Is my mindfulness improving? Am I going to get better at this, etc" - all doing something which the mind wants to do.

5. Mindfulness is non-doing (aka being)

6. It is normal for awareness to move from anchor point to wandering thoughts and
   from wandering thoughts to anchor point. Remember:  Catch the wandering mind, label, and
   return to anchor, and, repeat again and again...

7. Labelling the wandering thought example:  thinking, comparing, judging, recalling, planning,
anticipating, regretting, worrying, rejecting, etc...  I think labelling is the cognitive shift that eventually frees awareness from suffering - when awareness can just watch and not get drawn into the thoughts.

Started MBCT - Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy

On July 1, I bought this book : Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy For Dummies by Patrizia Collard

I am now trying out MBCT in addition to EFT. At present,  I use EFT to neutralize strong emotions like anger, regret, worry, fear, etc.  And MBCT for the rest - eg, being present instead of getting drawn into thoughts.