Verified by 
Mindfulness
How to Mindfully Turn an Unpleasant Experience Around
Using mindfulness, you can turn an unpleasant experience into a pleasant one.
Posted July 19, 2015
The most common definition of mindfulness is paying attention, without judgment, to your present-moment experience. I’ve discovered that if I make a conscious effort to pay attention to the full range of my present-moment experience, I can almost always transform an unpleasant experience into a pleasant one, or at least into a mix of pleasantness and unpleasantness.
Note that I said, “almost always.” Let’s face it. Sometimes the present moment is unpleasant and there’s nothing we can do about it except be kind to ourselves and take refuge in the impermanent nature of all things, including our experience. Then we can wait out the unpleasantness with calm acceptance.
That said, here’s an example of how I recently turned an unpleasant experience into a pleasant one. It’s not hard to do; the trick is to remember to do it!
I’d gone to my local lab to get a routine blood test. I checked in with the receptionist and was told to wait until I was called. As I sat down, I noticed that no one else was in the room. This lab doesn’t take appointments, so I assumed I’d be next. That was a pleasant feeling, for sure. Soon, another woman checked in and, a few minutes later, was taken back by the lab tech. I thought nothing of it, but then two other people who’d come in after me were also taken back before me.
Suddenly, my mind began churning in agitation. All I could think about was the dynamics of the waiting room: How many people were in chairs right now? Exactly when had they come in? Did they look like they needed to be seen immediately? The next time the lab tech opened the door, would she call my name?
It had become an unpleasant experience, indeed.
After a while, I became aware of my mental agitation and how it was making the present moment feel extremely unpleasant. That in itself was an important mindfulness moment. Mindfulness doesn’t just refer to paying attention to the sights and sounds around us. One of its principal benefits is that it teaches us to pay attention to what’s going on in our own minds. This enables us to see that we might be taking a neutral situation and making it unpleasant with our stressful thoughts, which usually take the form of aversion to what’s going on around us, even when we have no control over the situation.
Having recognized that my mental reaction to what was going on in the waiting room was making the experience increasingly unpleasant, I asked myself if there was something else I could pay attention to. I closed my eyes and shifted my attention to the physical sensation of my body sitting in the chair.
What did I notice? I immediately felt tension in my neck and shoulders (no doubt brought on by my mental agitation), so I consciously relaxed them. That definitely felt pleasant. I also felt my forearms resting comfortably on the padded arms of the chair. That felt pleasant, too. I could feel deep fatigue in my body, and the thought popped into my mind that I was fortunate to be sitting instead of standing. Finally, I became aware of a lovely silence around me; the room was relatively quiet—almost sanctuary-like—even though there were other people in it.
As I was mindfully examining these sensory inputs, I realized that the present moment no longer felt unpleasant. When I asked myself why, the answer was clear: By becoming mindful of the full range of experiences available to me (and one need not close the eyes to do this), I’d let go of all the unpleasant mental chatter I’d been stuck in regarding “the drama in the waiting room.”
I saw that the unpleasantness I’d been experiencing was not coming from what was going on in the waiting room. It was coming from my own mind. I’d become frustrated and irritated over a situation I did not control—when my name would be called. Sure, I’d prefer not to wait, but waiting was what was on the agenda for my life at that moment. I could turn it into a miserable experience or I could find some measure of pleasantness in it.
Having opened my field of awareness beyond the question of who’d be called next…and when I’d be called, waiting became no big deal. In fact, it became a restful and pleasant l experience, so much so that, when I my name was called, I couldn’t have told you how many more minutes had elapsed.
I’m not suggesting that had my wait for the blood test gone on for too long, it wouldn’t have been appropriate to ask the receptionist what was going on. I’m simply using this everyday, ordinary experience to illustrate how mindfulness can often be used to transform an unpleasant experience into a pleasant one.
To try it, first become mindful of your mental reaction to what’s going on—how you may be adding unnecessary stress and anxiety to a situation over which you have no control. Second, open your sense doors and become aware of what else is going on in the moment—something is likely to be pleasant. In my little waiting room adventure, I wound up relishing the opportunity to simply sit in a quiet environment with no demands being made on me.
© 2015 Toni Bernhard. Thank you for reading my work. I’m the author of four books:
How to Be Sick: Your Pocket Companion (for those who've read How to Be Sick and for those who haven't). May 2020.
How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide (2015)
How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow (2013)
All of my books are available in audio format from Amazon, audible.com, and iTunes.
Visit www.tonibernhard.com for more information and buying options.
Using the envelope icon, you can email this piece to others. I'm active on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
You may also like “How Distorted Thinking Increases Stress and Anxiety.”
