Dropping Anchor
+ Why meditation is not just about the breath
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Meditation Myths
There is a persistent myth about meditation that you have to focus on the breath while meditating
I was asked recently after an online session for people with chronic pain why I had offered other areas like the feet, sit bones, hands and sound as areas for people to focus on at the beginning of the meditation and to come back to throughout and not just the breath.
The person who asked had found it very helpful to be given other options to focus on (we often refer to these as anchors) as they had some health issues that made a focus on the breath uncomfortable.
They had done some meditation before but were always told to focus on the breath and not given other options so they asked why I had done it differently.
The answer was simple - it’s not “my way” of teaching meditation but it’s recognised as best practice to give options besides the breath and encourage the sense of having choices while meditating. David Treleaven has lots on this in his book “Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness”.
This over-emphasis on the breath without giving other options is something I find frustrating because I feel it puts a lot of people off meditation. For various reasons the breath can be very uncomfortable or unhelpful for people to focus on.
To be clear the form of meditation I talk about and teach is secular mindfulness meditation - there are other forms of meditation and ways of teaching mindfulness and they will do things differently. Plum Village Zen tradition founded by Thich Nhat Hanh is one I highly recommend checking out.
Dropping Anchor
Given that we have all these different options or anchors to focus on such as
Feet
Seat
Hands
Sound
Breath…just to name a few
……what do we do with them?
At the beginning of longer meditations we might cycle through a few of these to help us settle and ground ourselves but connecting with these anchors (or even just one) is also something worth doing on its own.
This “dropping anchor” as Russ Harris calls it can become a short mindfulness exercise that can be done anywhere, even for a brief few seconds, as a way of giving ourselves a sense of stability when difficult thoughts or emotions come up.
An important point here is that an anchor does nothing to try and get rid of a storm - it provides a ship with stability and safety until the storm passes.
So the practice isn’t about running away from difficult thoughts or emotions or pushing them away. We begin by acknowledging what is present and try to see that clearly. We are not distracting ourselves.
Mindfulness is not about tuning out it is about tuning in.
We don’t control the storm and can waste energy trying to. Dropping anchor allows us to gain a sense of stability even in difficult circumstances - to observe turbulent sensations and difficult thoughts or emotions from a place of stability. This is something we can learn to give ourselves.
Some times when it might be helpful to do this:
If struggling to focus
When leaving work or home (or arriving)
When we sense the beginning of difficult thoughts/feelings.
When we realise we are on autopilot and not present with what we are doing
Before a difficult conversation/meeting/presentation (or even a very brief version during)
Practice
Below is a short anchoring practice for you to try out.
If you’re new to meditation feel free to call this one a “mindfulness skill” or “mental skill” if it feels more comfortable for you. The important thing is how we engage with these practices - with an open mind and a willingness to try something new.
See how it goes and notice whether some anchors are easier for you to focus on than others or if you find one in particular feels like it will be useful. To get the most out of a practice like this try it maybe once or twice a day for a week and make whatever adjustments you find helpful.
A handy way to remember the structure for this is the acronym ACE
A - acknowledge whatever is going on in the mind
C - connect with the body via anchors (or the environment through sound)
E - engage in what you’re doing
I guide this practice as a still one but you can also intentionally move the body (press the feet into the floor, flex the hands, roll the shoulders etc.) as another way to do this.
Experiment with this and see what works best for you - the aim is to be able to observe our thoughts and feelings, connect with the body as a way of grounding ourselves in the present moment and then engaging mindfully with whatever we are doing.
If you try this exercise and want to share your experience or ask a question feel free to leave a comment below or get in touch by email.
If this is something completely new to you it is best to try on a day when things feel ok. It can be very difficult to learn these skills when there is a lot going on for us.
P.S.
I offer a free 30 min 1:1 session online that you can book here.
I always aim to give people something practical they can take away from the first session whether that is a recording of a guided meditation or some other skills they can try out for themselves day-to-day.