Asked the question, “what is the one thing that you wish people understood about building a mindfulness toolkit before they started looking for one,” I was a little stumped (and, yes, the pun is intended).  What I think about in terms of a toolkit is what resources and supports can you teach yourself or equip yourself with that will make your tree flourish, using the tree as an analogy for opportunity, nourishment, growth and sustained health of the mind and body. 

A tree starts with roots, which are difficult to change and embedded deeply into the ground, and from there sprouts the trunk, which strengthens pending the nourishment from the soil and external environmental factors (pollution, climate, animals, and soil).  The trunk sprouts branches in all different directions; these branches are opportunities for growth of more branches and for leaves, flowers, or fruits to blossom.  Sometimes one branch may become infested or ill, and die off, but this does not necessarily mean the whole tree is infected spreading to the trunk and infiltrating into the roots, killing off the effective nutritional supply to the whole tree, leading towards the tree dying.  One branch may fall off, and the rest of the tree may not be affected. 

The job of the any toolkit is to make sure that one infestation/damage of a branch or one insult to the tree does not lead to the whole tree’s demise.  A toolkit enables individuals to weather storms and eventually to recover.  The toolkit enables individuals (like palm trees in a hurricane) to make it through and to survive so that the individual can be resilient.  A resilient individual (or any living thing) is not necessarily one that goes back to where they were before an insult or challenge threatened them, but is something that goes towards a pathway that is equally fulfilling, though possibly different, from where they once were or thought they would be.  The toolkit is key to survival and renewal; this is why having things in one’s toolkit that are directly related to recentering or resetting the self are so important. 

Before anyone thinks about their toolkit, they need to pause, step back, reflect, and reset before they continue the process.  As they go through the exercise of pausing, resetting, and then moving forward to build their toolkit, they learn what it is that allows and facilitates their ability to take a step back and see their situation from a bird’s eye, observing view. 

I use the analogy of the inner being as a composition similar to a tree, however, it is also analogous to any physiological system in our bodies; there is a large branch and stemming filtrations from the branch that affect smaller muscles and organs.  For instance in the circulatory system, which allows oxygenated blood to flow to organs, tissues and muscles necessary for functioning and the return of deoxygenated blood back to the heart to pick up oxygen from the lungs (it’s complicated, but just try your best), cutting off supply to a small capillary (small blood vessel, similar to a stream from a larger river) may lead to a cut off of supply to a tiny muscle, but this will not cut off the supply to the entire body.  The capillary is downstream from the main source (artery).  A threat to the aorta (the main artery/source or trunk of the circulatory system with oxygenated blood being siphoned off to various smaller branches of blood vessels and arteries) is a threat to the whole body and system. 

The key as a physician in circulatory analogy is to make sure that the body does not get to the point where the main artery is challenged; the key is to prevent such resistance that might threaten the efficacy of this main artery.  Obviously, acute trauma to the main artery (car accident, blunt-forced trauma, etc.) imminently puts the individual at risk.  This is the same if someone with a saw started to cut down the large trunk of a tree.  If caught in time, there might be a chance to repair, but if the damage is too deep and too much, the tree gradually falls down and eventually dies, just as the individual soon loses supply to organs necessary for survival, and slowly the individuals’ systems shut down and they’re literal blood supply and oxygen is cut. 

The analogy of the circulatory system and the aorta as the trunk also applies to many other systems in our bodies; the respiratory system with the lungs and alveolar exchange of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood and the excretory system with the kidneys being the primary component in charge of filtering wastes to form urine that is merely transported through ureters, bladder, urethra.

There are so many ways to think about the importance of keeping the main trunk/organ/part of the human being healthy, soothed, and resilient.  Just like doctors have a repertoire of treatments and toolkits to treat multiple organs and systems of our body, we need to have the tools to treat our ability to relate and regain perspective of the world in order to persevere through challenges and be resilient. 

So, back to the question, “what is the one thing you wish people understood about building a mindfulness toolkit before looking for one,” the answer is that people need to understand what is simply necessary for their survival and how to weather a storm.  Individuals need to think about a moment that threatens their survival and sense of being and they need to understand what it is that they need to survive that moment.  People, who are severely injured and their bodies are in states of shock from pain as well as difficulty trying to maintain all organ systems, are sometimes put into a medically-induced coma.  This means that their bodies are put into a resting state the limits their metabolic needs, which allows their organs and systems to work less hard and, thus, over time gives them the chance to heal. 

A mindfulness toolkit is not about helping you thrive in the future, but it is a first aid tool that is simply able to patch you up and enable you to survive the threat in the moment and to minimize the damage.  It is resetting oneself back to the easiest state, the least stressful state, in order for the body to just focus on basic survival.  Because, once you survive such a threat, you will know that you can thrive and be resilient.  The toolkit is basic, survival, and your first aid kit. It’s a form of pausing your systems (like a coma) and allowing yourself to heal in the moment before taking on more stressors.  Let yourself heal.  Be in the moment, then you can think about how to thrive.