Author Archives: evelynoconnor

This speech first appeared in the Irish Independent Written Word Supplement on Monday 26th January 2015

First, I wrote a feature article on mindfulness. Then I looked at how I would need to change the style of writing so that it stopped being a feature article and read like a speech instead. I recommend you read the feature article first [click here].

To help you to appreciate the stylistic difference between the spoken and the written word, I’ve used the same topic, the same structure and the same ideas but I’ve transformed it into a speech. Your task is to spot the differences between them.

There are 7 significant differences as well as lots of subtle rephrasing so that it sounds like spoken language – something to be listened to rather than read off a page.

Speech on Mindfulness

Hi everyone. You’re very welcome. If this is your first time attending a meeting of the Literary and Debating society, please give us your email details on the sheet we’re passing around so we can contact you about future events. In the meantime, it’s my great pleasure to welcome Susan Mullane to the podium. Susan will be speaking to us today about mindfulness.

Hi everyone, I’m Susan as you’ve just heard. I’m studying to be a journalist and I recently wrote a feature on mindfulness that I’m currently trying to get published.

Before we debate the merits of mindfulness I’d like you to experience them, so you can pass judgement actually knowing what it is we’re talking about. So I’d like everyone in the room now to close your eyes. I need everyone to do this so no-one feels silly. Now breathe in. Feel the oxygen flood your core. Feel it flow into your limbs. Cleanse your mind of all thoughts. Now focus your attention, slowly, on each part of your body in turn. Become aware of your feet. Now move your awareness up to your calves… into your thighs… now your abdomen… your hands… arms… chest… shoulders… neck… head… face. Listen to the sounds in the room. The tick of the clock. The breathing of the person beside you. The birds outside the window. Allow your thoughts to wander and as each new thought appears, let it flow away. Focus on the now. Be aware of your body. Become aware of your breadth. Slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. And repeat. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Now when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes.

Ok, how do you feel? (giggles in response)

Can you share with the room? (pointing to someone in the front row). Silly, ok! Anyone else? (taking a show of hands) Yep, in the third row? Relaxed… sleepy. Anyone up the back? Cynical. Ok, so you don’t think this works? Who else is a cynic? (show of hands)

Well, let me assure you you’re not alone. Lots of people, when they hear the term mindfulness, the first thing that springs to mind is hippies in a Volkswagen camper van. It’s all a bit touchy-feely isn’t it? The second major criticism of mindfulness people have is that as it’s entered the mainstream, it’s lost any real connection to its roots in Buddhism. So critics say it’s no longer about the quest to discover what it means to live a moral life and that corporations have just put on a show of caring about how their employees feel but really they just want to get more work out of you. As in, reducing stress via ten minutes of mindfulness a day boosts your employees productivity and that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than hiring extra staff! In fact, critics of the way mindfulness courses have been churned out by consultants to big business have given it a new name and labelled it McMindfulness (click to show image of a cow meditating outside a well-known fast food chain on screen. Pause for laughter)

But the question I want to ask today is does that matter? There is no doubt that mindfulness is a full on craze. It’s been brought into schools and nursing homes and even prisons. But just because something is popular, does not make it worthless. And just because it’s been adapted from its original form does not make it toxic.

So I decided I’d focus instead on answering one basic question: DOES IT WORK?

I’ve going to play you a little video now. It’s full of vox pops from people who reckon it does work:

Video: Direct to camera: ‘Hi I’m Karen Miles. I’m the founder meinmind.ie and I’m a big believer in mindfulness. Here are some of the things Irish people who use my site have said about practising mindfulness in their daily lives’.

Quotes accompanied by soothing classical music “I’ve seen it transform my own life” Clare, 52, Mayo. “I am so glad I did this. I find I get a lot less stressed about the small stuff” Annette, 35, Louth. “Feeling calm. Have been following the tips on your site for four months and I don’t know myself” Jennifer, via facebook. “@seanlala Thanks @meinmind Your site helped me to get through the stress of my exams” Sean, 17.

I’m going to stop the video there because it goes on for three more minutes but it’s really just more of the same. Now there is an argument to say that the placebo effect could play a role here. If you try something and you believe it’s going to make you better, then chances are it will have a positive impact on your health. So the next thing I did was look for research studies. There are a lot of studies out there on meditation, but not as many on mindfulness. But I did find a metaanalysis collecting together all of the mindfulness studies that do exist. It was created by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and they concluded only last year, in 2014, that mindfulness does indeed have an effect. They say, and I quote “Following a mindfulness programme reduces many of the most toxic elements of stress, including anxiety and depression”.

Of course they also include a warning about the limitations of this practice. So there’s no evidence that it alters your eating habits, helps you lose weight or to sleep better. And it’s not better than exercise or behavioural therapies. To which I reply, who cares? Singing daily doesn’t make me better at playing the piano but that does not negate the joy of singing in my life. If I can find something that I can work into my daily practice and build into my life, that makes me less anxious, less stressed and less likely to become depressed, then hallelujah, bring it on.

So having debated the pros and cons my conclusion is this. If you can afford behavioural therapies, by all means do that too. Eating healthily and getting exercise remain important, but this isn’t an either or scenario. Do it all if it makes you feel better.

My mother used to say ‘Everything that helps, helps‘. When I was a teenager, there was one day I was prowling the house, completely stressed out about the Leaving Cert, and I guess I was annoying her because she suddenly went to the press, hauled out a stack of old plates and said ‘would you ever go and smash those. It might calm you down’. So I did. And it was wonderful. I wish I had a whole stack of plates I could give you right now so we could go outside and have a plate smashing festival. I’ll never forget the liberating joy of wilful destruction I experienced that day. I was aware of my body, I was aware of my surroundings, I was caught up in the present moment and I felt a hell of a lot better afterwards. It didn’t last forever, that feeling, but it did last for a couple of days.

So those are the conclusions I came to, which is that it won’t do you any harm and chances are it will do you a lot of good! Now I need to ask you to show a thumbs up or a thumbs down for mindfulness, and then we can all launch into a more detailed debate, but before we do that there is one more argument in favour of mindfulness that I haven’t mentioned. I think here in Ireland it’s something we need. I think we’ve been severely challenged these last couple of years by austerity, and by high unemployment and by emigration. And I think embracing mindfulness has not been about pretending everything is fine. I think its popularity is a sign that we know everything’s not fine and we’re trying to do something about it and find coping mechanisms that’ll help us to get through it.

So before we vote, will everyone again please close your eyes. Breathe in. Feel the oxygen flood your body, feel it flow into your limbs. Focus your mind on your feet… calves… thighs… abdomen… hands… arms… chest… shoulders… neck… head… face. Listen to the sounds in the room. And now you can open your eyes. Thanks for your attention.

I think you’re ready to vote!

*For the list of the most significant differences between the article and the speech, click here.

This article first appeared in the Irish Independent Written Word Supplement on Monday 26th January 2015.

Meditating on Mindfulness

Hocus Pocus or Miracle Cure?

Susan Mullane

Close your eyes. Breathe in. Feel the oxygen flood your core, flow into your limbs and cleanse your mind. Focus your mind, slowly, on your feet… calves… thighs… abdomen… hands… arms… chest… shoulders… neck… head… face. Listen to the sounds in the room. Allow your thoughts to wander and as they appear, let them flow away. Focus on the now. You are, I am, we are. Body. Breadth. Sensation.

For some, buying into the promise of mindfulness seems like a Volkswagen camper van too far. It’s all a bit touchy-feely, hippy-dippy, thanks but no thanks, I’d rather have tea and a scone to relax. For others, it is the infiltration of mindfulness into the popular consciousness that they find unforgivable. If it had remained a minority pursuit, imported after one too many trips to Buddhist temples in Nepal, at least it would have retained some essence of its roots. But, critics argue, divorcing mindfulness from the quest for a moral life makes it an exercise in accepting the status quo, something that plays into the hands of the very forces, mostly corporate, who have popularised it for their own machiavellian purposes. Reducing stress via ten minutes of mindfulness a day boosts your employees productivity and that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than hiring extra staff! McMindfulness indeed!

But if mindfulness has made self-help gurus rich, as they pump out books promoting their expensive residential courses, does that in and of itself negate the benefits of a craze that has penetrated so deeply into our communities, reaching into schools, prisons and nursing homes? For me, the logic here is absurd. Just because something is popular, does not make it worthless. Just because it’s been adapted from its original form does not make it toxic. It may have made men rich, but perhaps that’s because it works.

I spoke to Karen Miles, a staunch advocate of mindfulness and founder of popular website meinmind.ie. “I’ve seen it transform my own life” she enthuses “and that’s why I set up the website. I wanted others to experience the same joy, but I realised that first they’d have to believe it’s worth bothering with”. Trawling her site, facebook page and twitter account,  the proliferation of testimonials could well make a believer out of this agnostic. Rather than grandiose claims, simple messages dominate. “I am so glad I did this. It was hard to keep it going by myself at first, but now I practice mindfulness everyday and I find I get a lot less stressed about the small stuff” says Annette, 35 in Louth. “Feeling calm. Have been following the tips on your site for four months and I don’t know myself. Thanks Karen” comments Jennifer on the facebook page. “@seanlala Thanks @meinmind Your site helped me to get through the stress of my exams” tweets Sean, 17. There’s plenty more in this vein, expressing simple gratitude for a coping mechanism that seems to genuinely reduce stress and anxiety in those who need it most.

Nor is mindfulness a new concept, despite what the cynics would have us believe. The earliest reference to myndfulness dates back to 1530 as a translation of the French word pensée. Indeed, Pascal’s book of the same name contains ideas which echo the core message of simply being that still resonates so powerfully with people today. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” he maintains. Perhaps the enduring appeal of every approach that embraces the now, from yoga to pilates; and from meditation to massage, is that it allows us to forget our anxieties, our worries, our fears and to enter into that state of flow which allows us to unconsciously feel at one with the universe.

If all of that feels a little saccharine, perhaps now is an opportune moment to turn to science for some truth. Does it work? Or are we just wasting our time, handing over our hard earned cash to men in expensive suits who simply re-package the wisdom of the ancients for our modern secular age?

Whatever the original source, research by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality concluded in 2014 that mindfulness does indeed have an effect. Following a mindfulness programme reduces many of the most toxic elements of stress, including anxiety and depression. Of course there’s a warning about the limitations of its effect. There’s no evidence that it alters your eating habits, helps you lose weight or sleep better, they add. It’s not better than exercise or behavioural therapies. To which I reply, who cares? Singing daily doesn’t make me better at playing the piano but that does not negate the joy of singing in my life. If I can find something that I can work into my daily practice and build into my life, that makes me less anxious, less stressed and less likely to become depressed, then hallelujah, bring it on.

If you can afford behavioural therapies, by all means do that too. Eating healthily and getting exercise remain the cornerstones of a healthy life, but this isn’t an either or scenario. ‘Everything that helps, helps‘ my mother used to say and she was a woman full of wisdom. In my teens, as I was prowling the house one day, stressed about my impending mock exams, she suddenly went to the press, hauled out a stack of plates from the very back and said ‘would you ever go and smash those. It might calm you down’. She also handed me a plastic bag and a dustpan and brush so I could tidy up after myself. I will never forget the liberating joy of willful destruction I experienced that day. I was aware of my body, aware of my surroundings, caught up in the present moment and relieved entirely of my despair. It didn’t last forever, but I got a few days grace from the experience, the memory of which carried me through many future moments with a smile.

Remember, also, that a societal focus on positive mental health is a wonderful development for a country whose wellbeing has been severely challenged by years of austerity, high unemployment and emigration. Embracing mindfulness is not a pretence that all is fine; rather it reflects an awareness that when all is not fine we need to build our resilience; to learn strategies that help us to cope. As we emerge into better, more hopeful times, retaining our hard earned wisdom to stay connected to that which matters should stand us in good stead in the future, provided me remember to focus on the now.

And how does it work?

Close your eyes. Breathe in. Feel the oxygen flood your core, flow into your limbs and cleanse your mind. Focus your mind, slowly, on your feet… calves… thighs… abdomen… hands… arms… chest… shoulders… neck… head… face. Listen to the sounds in the room. Allow your thoughts to wander and as they appear, let them flow away. Focus on the now. You are, I am, we are. Body. Breadth. Sensation.

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Writing a feature article: here is the process I went through to create this piece.

Preparation

1. Choose a topic
2. Brainstorm ideas
3. Decide a basic paragraph plan & sequence for your ideas.

Writing –  a step by step guide

HEADLINE + SUB-HEADING

BYLINE (journalist’s name)

INTRODUCE AN IDEA = try to grab the readers’ attention from the get go.

PARAGRAPH 2 =  outline the ‘things people say’ about this topic

PARAGRAPH 3 = make your own stance clear

PARAGRAPH 4 = testimonials from people you’ve interviewed

PARAGRAPH 5 = look at the history of this topic or issue

PARAGRAPH 6 = ask some pointed questions

PARAGRAPH 6 = establish what our current understanding is

PARAGRAPH 7 = personal anecdote(s)

PARAGRAPH 8 = Irish context and potential impact on our society going forward

CONCLUSION = come full circle by returning to the original idea from the start of the article
REMEMBER: an article will likely include facts & statistics, rhetorical questions, contrast, anecdotes, quotes from interviewees etc…