Overcoming challenges by being mindful

Can Mindfulness be Interesting?

“Do you find mindfulness interesting or boring?”, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) Trainer Calvin Onn Yee Han questioned the participants. With the aim to learn about mindfulness to reduce stress, improve concentration and regulate emotions in daily life, a workshop titled “Can Mindfulness Be Interesting?” was organised on 16 January 2021. It was organised by UTAR Department of Student Affairs of Sungai Long Campus’ Counselling and Guidance Unit (CGU) via ZOOM.

Having been a practising lawyer for almost two decades before quitting and taking a new career path as a Mindfulness coach, Calvin Onn started practising mindfulness since the age of 14. He has travelled to many places around the world, participating in various silent retreats including a month-long retreat in the USA led by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. On top of that, he has also completed the fourth level of MBCT with Oxford Mindfulness Centre. He holds a Master Degree in counselling psychology from the National University of Changhua, Taiwan. He is also the author of the Mindfulness handbook, Practical Attention System.

“Some people may find Mindfulness boring or never interesting simply because thinking about the past or future is interesting but staying in ‘nowness’ is boring. To a certain extent, mindfulness requires us to stay in ‘nowness’ where we rest our mind on certain objects,” said Calvin Onn.

While sharing a brief introduction on Mindfulness and its history, he said, “Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) collected a group of patients in the hospital; the majority of them were terminally ill. He taught them to practise mindfulness. After eight weeks of practice, most of the patients recovered from their fear of illness and death.  Since then, it was developed by institutes, hospitals and organisations in the United States and the United Kingdom. Three professors from Oxford University, one of them being Prof Mark Williams, were inspired by him and they developed MBCT to help the patients with depression.”

Providing insight on mindfulness by giving a demonstration, he said, “Listening and embracing whatever that comes to us is one of the important gists of being mindful. We are here to be attentive and be observant. According to scientific research, doctors estimate that we have 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. This is especially when we have unconscious thoughts. It pops out in our mind when we are not conscious and it will decide our feelings, emotions and reactions.”

Practising mindfulness to understand “Thought is not fact”

Meanwhile, he explained the interesting facts of practising mindfulness through two video clips. He said, “Since we have a lot of thoughts in our mind if we practise mindfulness, we will be able to discover the three interesting facts. The first one is ‘Thought is not fact’. Many of us think that our thought is the reality, which in fact is not. It happens in our daily lives and most of the time it happens without us being conscious, without us realising the truth. In MBCT, according to scientists, when we have a thought and we do not check it with sufficient mindfulness, it will result in sensations that will come with emotions. In the end, we will react to what we think automatically without judging the facts, which later becomes a habit. Hence, to break this habitual pattern, we need to practise mindfulness to help us see clearly.”

Our thinking pattern is not voluntary

“Secondly, ‘Thinking pattern is not voluntary’. Many people think that their thinking pattern is fixed and it cannot be changed, but actually, our thinking pattern is not voluntary, it is without our control; it is habitual. In MBCT, we name it ‘auto-pilot thinking’. Because our thoughts are not facts, if we have many thoughts, it will become a thinking pattern. Sooner or later, we will assume that our thinking pattern is created by ourselves, which is not true. Moreover, our thinking pattern is actually controlled by our previous experience, our previous judgement and previous rationale. Hence, by practising mindfulness consistently, we can use our mind mindfully to check the facts and react accordingly,” said Calvin Onn.

Scientists found that a person averagely has fifty per-cent of negative emotions, thirty per-cent of positive emotions and twenty per-cent is neutral

While explaining the last point “Negative emotion is not bad”, he said, “People do not like negative emotion because it is always an issue. However, our emotion is just an emotion, but our mind will automatically judge and criticise it.” He then gave an example and said, “Currently, we are suffering due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so we have a lot of negative emotions; we have so much fear and worry. But from another point of view, negative emotion is a good thing. Negative emotion protects us from getting a virus because we are worried, we are scared, so we will wear a mask and sanitise our hands. Hence, negative emotion is not necessarily a problem, it is neutral; it depends on how we judge and react to it. So, do not blame negative emotion.”

When asked, Calvin Onn said, “By practising mindfulness, we will be able to fully understand ourselves better. We will be able to see and have better confidence in the things we do. While practising mindfulness, we will become happier and our work productivity will improve because the stress is released.”

He then explained two ways of practising mindfulness which is “mirror-ing” and “spa-ing”, “Basically, mindfulness is like a mirror; mirror-ing our six senses, namely eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin and thoughts. All these are the reflection of our mindfulness. The reason why we could not stop our mind from wandering is because we think too much, our auto-pilot is too powerful, hence too many assumptions and too many judgements in our mind. Besides, we also need to practise spa-ing. Anything that comes to us, comes to our ‘mirror’, we just do nothing to it. Spa-ing means to do nothing.”

Calvin Onn explaining the theory of mindfulness after practising mirror-ing and spa-ing

He then demonstrated the practice of mirror-ing and spa-ing. He said, “The theory of mindfulness after practising ‘mirror-ing’ and ‘spa-ing’ is our awareness will become stronger and we will become confident. Indirectly, we will remove our entire mental problem. Hence, I would suggest practising mindfulness for about five to ten minutes every day. We can do it twice; a short moment every time we do but do it more frequently. When we are more familiar with the mindful state, we will see it becoming more interesting.”

The workshop then wrapped up with an interactive Q&A session followed by a group photo session. It was attended by more than 190 participants.

Calvin Onn (top row, far right) with participants

Group photo 2



Wholly owned by UTAR Education Foundation Co. No. 578227-M        LEGAL STATEMENT   TERM OF USAGE   PRIVACY NOTICE