If I were to ask you, what is the biggest problem, the biggest issue in your life? I can claim with certainty that you would mention one of these four problems, or perhaps even all four of them. What are these four problems? First, distractibility. Distractibility means if I ask you, were you completely conscious for the last 15 minutes? Were you aware of the work you were doing? Did you drift into mental stories or imagination, or were you fully focused on what you were doing? This is what we call distractibility. Meaning getting distracted in between, not being able to maintain focus on any task for a long time. It's even possible that while you are listening to me right now , you might drift into your own story. Go off into your imagination. The second problem is loneliness. Loneliness means we are unable to feel a connection even while being with real people. That is when loneliness sets in , meaning a loss of connection. Negative self-talk, meaning we keep telling ourselves negative things automatically. We build belief systems about ourselves that stop us from moving forward. They act as a barrier. And the last problem, that we don't know the purpose of our lives. We don't have a specific meaning to which we can dedicate our lives. We are just living. We don't know why we are living. But when we go to find a solution for these four problems, what do books tell us? They say to increase awareness to remove distraction. They say to build connections to remove loneliness. They say to develop insight to remove negative self-talk, or to find purpose to know the meaning of life. But the biggest question is how? What is the process? I understood that to remove loneliness, I need to build connections . But before building connections, what about the mental barriers, the thoughts that stop me, saying it's not necessary or what will I say? How will I do it? How to work on that fear and anxiety? Basically, what is the process to get there? We know the solution, but what is the process to achieve that solution ? Mindfulness provides the answer. This is where the mindfulness approach is introduced. See, to understand all of this, we have to understand things from a very basic micro level. First of all, we have to understand things from the level of a thought. We have to look at how an event occurs, or a thought comes into the mind, it can come from anywhere, or an external event occurs. An event occurring means, for example, suppose you work somewhere or you are studying in a class. You can visualize either of these two situations. The authority figure there, meaning a teacher or a boss, either one of them stares at you and walks out. They walk out giving you a look. Now, an event has occurred. Now, this event is interpreted. Interpretation means you now use your old belief systems, your old convictions, your past experiences, or whatever things people have put into your head, or things you have picked up from somewhere, to interpret it. There are many mental connections in our brain. Mental connections mean our brain has the capability to easily link two things together, two mental objects together. It has the ability to connect them. Two experiences, multiple experiences, multiple beliefs. And when connections are formed this way, schemas are formed. Schema means a large web of connections which can contain many belief systems or a specific belief. A specific belief system could be there. Anyway, that is a different matter. You can also understand interpretation as, basically , what did your brain do? Whatever data we just talked about, whatever relates most to your experience, your belief systems, or your convictions—the data that relates most to your event, through your experience or your belief systems—will connect, and as soon as it connects, an emotional charge will be created in that thought. Suppose in the past, you had an experience where your teacher stared at you like that in the second or third grade. Then they came back and scolded you. So that emotional feeling, that charge, will now attach itself to this thought. As soon as that charge attaches to the thought, a threat will enter your mind that something bad might happen. Meaning, the amygdala will start its work of creating a threat. There is a part of the brain called the amygdala that detects threats, so it will detect that something bad might happen. As soon as the interpretation happens, an emotional fuse occurs. An emotional fuse means that an emotional charge has stuck to the thought. Now an urge will be created. An urge could mean a physical sensation, or you could call it heaviness. Sometimes the urge is to do a certain task. It became an urge to avoid it. It became an urge to run away from there. After the urge, physical sensations—either this happens simultaneously or afterwards—will be created at the physical level. For example, there could be heaviness in the chest, a burning sensation on the skin, or sweating. Once these physical sensations are created, an action will be generated. Either you will leave that class or you will start getting anxious at your job. It will then start showing in your behavior. But basically , look, this interpretation, this emotional fusion, the urge that gets created, the matters reaching physical sensations—all of this If you don't pay attention, it gets missed. Meaning, it is basically happening subconsciously, it is not happening at a conscious level. So, what do we feel? With most people, what we feel is that an event occurred directly and we reacted directly; we directly avoided the event, ran away, or jumped to a reaction. You can connect this to any instance in your life, any thought-level instance, or micro-instance. You can connect this with distraction. An event occurred; the event occurring means the sound of a phone notification arrived. As soon as the notification sound arrived, interpretation happened. The sound, the perception—meaning there is one thing , which is the sound, and another is understanding it. That understanding part is the interpretation, meaning perception. Now, how is that perception happening? As soon as the sound comes, old thoughts and the old emotions associated with it—that yes, the last time I used the phone, it was fun—all this data gathers together, connects, and what it does is emotionally fuse. With this thought as well, that yes, yes, it will be fun, it will be fun, an emotion got attached. As soon as the emotion attached, an urge to use the phone was born. As soon as the urge was born, a physical sensation was created in the chest, heaviness, other sensations, and after that, the behavior where you picked up the phone and started using it. You can try connecting it with any instance, but all these things are running on autopilot mode. Running in an unconscious state. We jump directly from here to there. Mindfulness suggests, why not observe them like an observer? Right now, we are so lost in it that we have just become a part of it. We haven't been able to become the observer yet. So basically, mindfulness has three principles or three pillars. First, whatever you want to practice mindfulness on, be mindful on purpose. On purpose means you should know what your goal is. If you are practicing mindful breathing, then your purpose is the sensation of breath. Observing the sensations related to the breath. So that purpose must be clear. The anchor or the point where you want to practice mindfulness should be related to the present moment. For example, if you are practicing heart mindfulness, your heartbeat is also part of the present moment because it's happening right now . It is an ongoing process. And the most important pillar is a non-judgmental approach. Whenever you observe something, you should not form a judgment at that moment. Whenever you form a judgment, you move away from being an observer. You no longer remain in the observer category. Because of judgment, you get pulled back into the flow. Let's basically understand metacognitive mindfulness or metacognitive observation. What are we basically doing? We are observing this entire process from thought to interpretation, emotional fusion, urges , physical sensations, and behavior. And especially from here, from the raw thought to emotional fusion, we are observing. In what? In metacognitive mindfulness. But observing means stepping out of this flow. You saw that an event occurred, and after the event occurred, a thought came to mind. At first, you were a part of that thought. But now, what have you done? You stepped away from that thought and moved into the observer category. You are able to establish a gap in between. As soon as you established that gap, what are you basically doing? You are also able to observe the incoming interpretation, like, "Oh, this thought is linking to a past experience or an old thought." A thought from an old memory has arrived here. Its impulse, you are now able to observe those thought series that actually start to create an urge or emotional fuse— emotions start to fuse with our neutral thoughts. Initially, whatever thought arrives, it arrives in a neutral form. The process from neutral form to emotional fuse is now being observed by you as an observer. But it is easy to say, "Observe as an observer." It is not that easy to do. For this, we need to develop a certain kind of skill. If I tell you to sit and observe your thoughts, it is possible that as soon as an angry thought comes, along with experiencing that anger, you might become part of that thought and start thinking. You start building the series . Then, basically, what did you do? You started as an observer. But as soon as a judgment came regarding that thought —how did the judgment come? A thought of a person you hate came, thinking, " Oh yes, he is such a bad person.""He did this to me." This is a judgment. As soon as the judgment came, you became part of that thought. Now that series is flowing with you. Then you realized, "Oh, I was observing," and that moment of realization is very important, which we will talk about now. So, this metacognitive skill of observation... ...does not come from this practice alone. This is where our anchor-based mindfulness helps. Anchor-based mindfulness means you have taken an anchor, an object connected to the present, connected to the present moment, and started observing it in a non-judgmental way. For example, the anchor can be breathing. Sensations related to breathing. When you breathe, you are able to observe the flow of your breath. You are able to observe the touch of the breath in your nostril area. You have taken that as an anchor. Now what happens? You started focusing on your breath. You sat with your back straight. You started focusing on the breath. Now the mind will run towards thoughts. As soon as the mind runs towards thoughts, various kinds of thoughts will arise. And especially such thoughts will come that interpret and emotionally fuse with that thought, because of which a story keeps building and building; or anxiety starts to arise in the mind, or fantasy thoughts, and those fantasy thoughts are also showing you some pleasure-like feeling. That is also a pleasurable emotional fuse because of which the story will keep going on. As soon as that story keeps going, you get lost. You drift away into a completely different world. What we call the default mode network. The default mode network means that stories are running in your brain in a way. Stories related to the "I" are running. Stories related to that thought are running. But as soon as you remember, "Oh, I was doing breathing mindfulness." You pulled your mind back and focused it on your breath. That is where the switch happens. That is where that cognitive skill is born. Just like you practice your muscles in the gym, this is a practice where as soon as you remember, you bring your mind back to the breath. So now, what are you doing? You are not giving attention to emotionally fused thoughts. When you stop giving attention to those thoughts . So now, what are you doing? By coming back repeatedly, you are creating a gap . A gap of observation between those emotionally fused thoughts and yourself . How is it an observation? You aren't stopping to observe it. Realizing that my mind has wandered and I am coming back to my breath. This is a very big practice. It is a huge symbol that you have observed that the mind wandered and I am coming back. The thought is not that important. I am coming back. This is where the observation gap starts to be created. And this is where a skill is born that, as you gradually keep practicing, you notice that point A is where I start to get lost. I am doing breathing mindfulness. From here, I started to disappear. Went into thoughts. This point B is for realization. Gradually, the gap between point A and B starts to disappear. And this is where your distractibility problem starts to be addressed in real life. Why? Because now you are training your brain to stay focused. And secondly, you are working on your reactivity. Working on reactivity means with the help of this skill, your metacognitive skill, meaning the observation skill. The skill to observe this entire process from a distance. Earlier, I used to be a part of this process, so a shortcut was formed where a thought would come or an event would occur, and I would immediately go into reaction. But now I am able to observe the entire process with the help of breathing mindfulness and by practicing this observation, because I have started creating a gap in breathing mindfulness. If I do it directly right now, I won't understand what the gap is . In the same way, this is where the role of urge mindfulness comes in. Just like breathing mindfulness practice helps us. Urge mindfulness helps even better because those fused emotional thoughts are directly creating an urge. So, the behavior that you are actually exhibiting is coming from that urge. The reason you are getting distracted is because of an urge; there is an urge to be distracted. If you start observing that urge, and the intensity of the urge goes in such a way that once you observe it, its intensity will suddenly rise and then go down. Then it will go away completely. But when you observe your urge in a non-judgmental way, what are you doing now? You are eliminating the effectiveness of that urge. You are eliminating the reactivity related to that urge. Now you are observing that urge. You are not becoming a part of that urge. You are observing it with a non-judgmental approach while creating a gap. Due to which, that urge's control over you will end. You can understand it like this. Up to this point, the urge and emotional fusion make you work based on your limbic system. It makes you act. It makes you react. At that moment, the control of the prefrontal cortex remains somewhat low. But when you come to observation, when you use the prefrontal cortex—which has a major function of observing and analyzing things—when you come to that and observe things through it, its control ends here. You can understand it from a biological level like this. Similarly, present mindfulness. Present-based mindfulness means that whatever you are doing in the present moment, you do it mindfully. Even if you are eating, you are able to observe your entire meal, the touch of holding the food, and the taste. You are doing nothing other than that. When we do something where there is an external stimulus or external event, it feels as if we are concentrating on our own, focused on that task, but actually, we are not being focused. Suppose you're using your phone or watching a movie, and you feel, "I'm so focused." But actually, the stimulus related to the movie, which is why you are able to watch it, is of such high intensity. It is so excitement-inducing. It provides so much novelty. It offers such newness that your mind doesn't wander away from it even if you try. It's just like, let's say you're doing bicep exercises. You're doing curls with dumbbells, but your trainer is doing all the work, holding your arm, while you're just moving your hand. So, let's come to our problems. If you understand this whole concept, then being distracted— meaning the mind not being focused— connects perfectly with mindfulness; when you practice mindfulness, you create awareness of the present moment and the cognitive activities happening within you. When you start observing those cognitive activities non-judgmentally, you realize that this isn't actually the truth. These thoughts are not real. They are based on past experiences, which doesn't necessarily mean the same experiences will happen in your future life. It means you start creating a difference between fact and belief, which you couldn't do while you were unconscious. You see how your belief system manipulates your actions, and then you look at every experience and every event with a fresh perspective. Looking with a fresh perspective doesn't mean you ignore threats, which are facts. The fact is, if fire burns, it will definitely burn. But if it's a belief system that fire burns, then it needs to be observed. Then it isn't a belief system at all. So, this brings clarity about what a belief is. How beliefs manipulate your actions and what the facts really are. In the same way, when you go out to connect with people, your mind stays in the present moment. While connecting, you don't have your own internal story running. Secondly, you build a completely fresh connection. You set aside your old belief systems. Currently, we don't build fresh connections. If we think about going out and talking to some kids in our class, the first things that come up are those old beliefs. Even by just seeing the behavior or the faces of those people, I will relate them to old things. Everything will keep happening at a subconscious level, which will somehow create a barrier or stop me from opening up completely. You will be able to catch your self-talk, what you say to yourself, and how valid it is. You will be able to observe it. Nothing is really valid or invalid. When you observe it, a gap will be created, and the whole talk of valid or invalid will end. That negative self-talk creates an urge to feel inferior, it creates an urge. To feel down; through that gap, it will start to fade away on its own. Its reactivity will start to diminish on its own. And most importantly, what do we do about our purpose right now? And look, according to the whole psychology, what are we doing right now ? The purposes we have created for ourselves, like wanting to earn a lot of money, wanting fame, or any other purpose. Basically, they are mostly formed because of our childhood inferiorities, childhood belief systems , current belief systems, or things imposed by society. But is this within the scope of observation? It is not, which is why we are trying to fulfill them unconsciously. We think that earning more money will end the incompleteness within us because that is what we have learned from society. Watching the drama others created, that is what we learned by observing. But will that incompleteness end? No. Through observation, you will realize what that incompleteness is actually about. How will it end? Then it will be understood that the purpose is in every moment. It is in establishing every moment. And even if we look at purpose career-wise, then we will understand what I actually feel good at, in reality, rather than due to internal pressure or subconscious conditioning imposed by society. By observing, all those schemas, all that conditioning, and all those old stuck thoughts, beliefs, and notions will start to break down. And most importantly, even more important than breaking, they will come into the scope of observation. And yes, there is some good news for you all. From the next to next Monday, that is October 5th, we are starting a six-day mindfulness challenge. But this time with a minimal fee. How much is the minimal fee? Less than what you would even spend on a movie ticket. For ₹ 200, we will hold a six-day breathing mindfulness challenge where you will practice breathing mindfulness with me for 15 to 20 minutes. Basically , we will hold a 20-minute session. But we will start with 10 minutes and gradually increase it. And that session won't just be 20 minutes; we can also include question and answer sessions along with it. Which could stretch to approximately 30 to 40 minutes. So, consider it approximately a 30-minute session that will run for six consecutive days. You will receive the time frame soon through our WhatsApp channel. It will also be available via YouTube posts. So, if you are interested, you can join. And yes, this is an online challenge that we will conduct entirely on Google Meet.