My start with this practice/subject is Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Miracle of Mindfulness.” My original copy, purchased after coming back from France in 1995, is falling apart, filled with dated highlights. At least once a week, I open the office copies (two offices, two copies) for some harried soul who complains of not having time for self. Usually, I show them the defining example of Allen realizing that “all time is my time.”

A couple of observations on this book. One, it starts with the idea that we practice mindfulness all day long, that we should not divide our time into “parts.” Then it lays out the critical importance of having a day of mindfulness every week, no matter how urgent our work. This practice seems much more do-able for someone saving the world than it does for someone like my son and his wife, with four young kids.

Another observation. The Miracle of Mindfulness is a resource, but it is not a manual. While NOT exhausting the field of all possible variations, I am most impressed by Terry Fralich’s new book, “Cultivating Lasting Happiness, a 7-Step Guide to Mindfulness,” as a real how-to book for beginners. I attended Terry’s workshop several years ago and retained two things. The power and importance of the soothing exhale. And Terry saying it took him 12 years to be able to sit daily!There is hope for the rest of us!
Back to Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the things I keep from his book is an awareness that mindfulness is bigger than the version that has filtered to the west, which mostly focuses on sitting. Both Terry and Ron Segal, whose wonderful workshop I recently attended, separate “formal” and “informal” practice. “Formal practice” is sitting while “informal” is what one does throughout the day. Could just be me, but maybe they should separate it into “practice” or “preparation” and “performance” or “real life.”
Four or five years ago I spent several half-days in Monterey with Ron Alexander,PhD, who is about to publish the book he was talking about then. His workshop was experiential and powerful, though he butchered his PowerPoint by trying to combine slides from at least two different presentations. He kept getting lost, which I find validating in my own life-long struggle to defeat and/or accept absent-mindedness.
I also attended another PESI workshop on mindfulness, as well as one on Byron Katies “work” which incorporated and emphasized mindfulness. Heard Eckhart Tolle in Seattle, love his descriptions of mindfulness, though he refuses to use the word. My copy of “the Power of Now” is as marked up as my copy of TNH, though I am somewhat disenchanted, for reasons to be addressed in another blog. Most recently, I attended Terry Real’s two-day workshop on “relational mindfulness.” Dynamite! Probably the best workshop I have ever attended. Terry thinking on his feet in one clinical scenario after another. As my British wife might say, Terry was consistently “spot on.”
We are at 500 words. This gives you some idea of my background in “mindfulness” as such. I have not related it (yet) to my clinical training and experience or to my understanding of the Twelve Steps, which cultivate mindfulness in ways implicit and explicit. One blog at a time!

Dr. O. started with the question for his audience, “Who here has found in recovery that procrastination is a serious problem in your life, not just an occasional headache?” This audience responded as all his previous recovering audiences. About 80%. He then developed the theme that procrastination is mostly about shame. By avoiding a project until there is little or no time, we avoid facing how well we might have done. If we had only used all the time. The lack of time becomes a self-created excuse for not testing our true ability. From my point of view, he could as easily have used terms like “inadequacy” or even “performance anxiety,” which seem to be implied.

Dr. Wilkins started from a surprisingly similar place. He has come to see procrastination as an “over-arching” problem in most of his clients, not just alcoholics. The avoidance is not a personality trait, because it is usually specific to certain issues or situations. Dr. Wilkins is a practitioner of rational-emotive therapy and deliberate optimism. He sees coming to therapy itself as procrastination, waiting for the therapist to “fix” me in order to do what needs to be done. The Twelve Steps can also be used to delay change rather than facilitate it. As for Motivational Interviewing and the Stages of Change, anything less than the “Nike” approach – “Just do it!” – is seen as procrastination. Working with “the voice” that tells us otherwise, Dr. Wallace coaches people, in effect, to stop thinking and start acting. To base action on goal rather than mood, feeling, or motivation. He offers a number of tools and anecdotal evidence of effectiveness. One of the best things I heard, for those of you looking to validate your procrastination, was “The second mouse gets the cheese!”

For my part, I heard some truth in both. Dr. O. seems a bit locked in to one “cause.” Dr. W. seems to gloss over some basic realities, one of them being the need for maintenance even after I “just do it.” The latter, by the way, has a website, is an energetic and entertaining speaker. (Google him yourself!)

I had apparently been discoursing on “wishful thinking” and the rejection of reality.

“What is the difference between ‘wishful thinking’ and ‘denial?’

My answer was, “None.”

I realized later that this may not be tecnically true. As a long-ago client said, “Denial is when you say what is, isn’t.” He might have added that “what ‘is’ is some sort of reality or fact.

What I would now say about wishful thinking is, ” ‘Wishful thinking’ is when you say what isn’t, is.” In other words, they are flip sides of the same coin. The person in denial says “One won’t hurt.” S/he is denying an objective reality, having an addiction that will lead to loss of control and a world of ‘hurt.’ Inseparable from this in-your-face denial is a tacit affirmation that what isn’t, is. Namely, that the person is ‘normal,’ a ‘social drinker/user.’

Now that I think of it, the “wish” is so inseparable from the denial which defends it, I am not going to go back and rewrite my book to clarify which one I am talkiing about at any given moment. In workshops, on the other hand, I may be more precise.

“Sarah” came back a week later and said she had signed up for her long procrastinated sewing class. After what she had expressed the week before, it was just as crucial to identify what enabled her to act THIS time.

We went over the externals – money available, time, intention, opportunity. All of them had been present at other times. The first time she used the word “control” she reported, “I wanted to show my kids that I am in control of myself.” Seems she had told them of her plan, knew they were old enough to remember.

In essence, Sarah decided it was better to be controlled by (her own desire to be a good role model for) her kids, than by (her own phobia for) not being controlled by ANYONE.

Ownership. Accountability. Such dreary words for getting out of the prison of procrastination.