Luisa, a woman in her late twenties, called our Mindful Awareness Research Center, asking for some help with her Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). “My mind is all over the place,” she confided. “It’s constantly in motion. I forget things all the time, am always behind, and I firmly believe I’m a hazard on the road. I wouldn’t want me driving!”

A few years ago our center piloted a small study on mindfulness and ADD and found mindfulness to be remarkably helpful for those struggling with attention issues. So by phone, I recommended she start on a basic program to meditate daily, beginning with just five minutes a day. She was also given an informal practice: I asked her to try to be mindful, in any way possible three times during the day. It could be for one second. I also suggested trying to be aware of her body at least once while she was driving.

She came to see me a month later. “It’s been impossible for me to do,” she said the second she walked in the door, “my mind goes all over the place. I can barely be mindful of one breath.”

“That’s really not a problem,” I told her. “In fact it’s what most people’s minds are like. We’re conditioned to be distracted. We’re taught to multi-task, thrown information at us constantly. Our culture is ADD, in a sense.”

“Yeah, life just seems busier, crazier these days. I don’t remember it being like this when I was a kid, I feel overwhelmed all the time.”

“I know. So no wonder when you meditate your mind wanders. But we can change it. It’s like building a muscle, the more you practice it, the stronger it will be and the more your ability to return to the present moment will improve. In fact, people with ADD are lucky; they have thousands of opportunities to practice bringing their minds back to the present moment, more so than people without ADD!”

Luisa laughed and felt a little more relaxed.

“Most important thing,” I said, “is not to get mad at yourself for having a wild mind. It’s normal, natural. Can you be kind to yourself and bring your attention back to your breath in a caring way. Rather than: ‘Get back to the breath! You Jerk!’ How about, ‘Wow, I’m lost in thought, no problem, now return to the present moment.’ Why don’t we try it right now?”

So we meditated together in my sunny office, I had her become aware of one breath at a time and when her mind wandered, she’d gently but firmly bring her attention back to her breath. After about five minutes, suddenly Luisa looked up at me with surprise. “Wow, something just happened,” she said.

“What?”

“I think I had a moment of peace.”

I hid a smile. “What was it like?”

“Well, I felt good, kind of slowed down; my mind wasn’t everywhere… oh my God, what’s going to happen now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never felt like this before in my life!”

“Yes, well, moments of peace are a little unusual for a lot of people.”

“I don’t know if I can handle this.”

Again, I suppressed a smile. “Actually, believe it or not, it’s something you can get used to. In fact it’s possible that down the road you can get so used to it that peace, ease, relaxation, and happiness become your natural state of mind, sort of like your default setting.”

“Wow, that’s really weird. If I do this meditation practice, I’m going to have to learn how to handle moments of peace.”

“It’s a really good insight to see how uncomfortable we are with these moments; how far removed they seem from our ordinary mind. It’s much easier for us to feel anxiety, anger, overwhelm… it’s a lot less familiar to feel peace and ease, which we usually skip over, looking for the next familiar high or low. But when we have peace, it’s kind of amazing. What do you feel like right now?”

“I feel, um, I don’t know… kind of sort of good. Peaceful. It’s completely different than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

“So stop for a moment and let yourself feel it. It’s real. Imagine our minds are big and blue and vast like the sky, but there are all these storm clouds in the way. Meditation, allows us for one moment to part the clouds and get in touch with the blue sky underneath. You did it, just now.”

Luisa closed her eyes again and returned to silence. Her face visibly softened. Her breathing began to slow. And then a big smile crossed her face. “Wow, I feel so at ease.”

Then her eyes bolted open. “But it also feels really weird, I guess I’m just going to have to get accustomed to feeling peace. But give me a little at a time, I don’t think I could handle it all at once.”

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