Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Kabat-Zinn reflects on working with people who are suffering from profound physical and emotional pain in his Stress Reduction Clinic. Kabat-Zinn explains that his philosophy, which he calls “the way of awareness,” revolves around living in the moment (5). By sitting or lying quietly, Kabat-Zinn’s students learn “non-doing” by simply paying attention to their experience of a certain moment. Kabat-Zinn believes this type of mindfulness practice helps people take a break from compulsively thinking and doing, consider their lives from a new perspective, and observe their own thoughts more objectively. Kabat-Zinn emphasizes that only regular practitioners will enjoy the benefits of these methods, and that simply reading about them or buying the right tools is not enough.

The author laments that people spend much of their lives thinking about the past or future, or performing rote actions on autopilot, rather than being fully immersed in the present moment. He recommends that the reader sit quietly with one’s eyes closed and focus on their breathing for three minutes. He asks the reader to then consider how many times their mind wandered from their breath. Kabat-Zinn instructs the reader to not dismiss or judge their thoughts, but practice merely observing them as they arise.