Mindfulness

[PartTimeBrewer]

              I am starting a new thread here mainly for purposes of my own catharsis. It is my intention, at least at this point, to make regular contributions. Of course, if anyone else has anything to add, they are more than welcome. If you have any input, please contribute.

              Over a year ago I decided to deal head-on with my self-diagnosed adult attention disorder, (ADD). The inability to stay focused was becoming too stressful. I found myself sitting around watching the clock tick, yet I couldn’t keep “on task” with any project I started. Nothing was getting done and just starting something was becoming depressing.

              The smart thing to do was probably to get professional help, so instead I decided to try to heal myself, at least as a first try. Cognitive therapy and pharmaceuticals (UGH) might be the approved way to go but I decided to try meditation first.

              18 months and countless self-help books later, I still can’t bring myself to a regular, formal meditation program. But, along the way, I discovered informal mindfulness. Yes, I know it is the “Fad” right now. It is hard to navigate modern social trends without “tripping over” somebody extolling the benefits of mindfulness.

              Let me add my voice to the chorus.

[PartTimeBrewer]

Kierkegaard makes a difficult (for me) distinction between depression and despair, the former being psychological and the latter spiritual. He goes on to suggest that despair is the consequence of realizing that we are not who we want to be and would rather be someone or something else; that perfect person who has everything that we manufacture in our imagination.

This is where the mindfulness perspective helps. When we recognize that we are constantly creating a mental narrative about ourselves, and that narrative is just a fiction, we are given the room to see how unrealistic it is and encouraged to accept ourselves, as is, without a panoply of judgments.

[PartTimeBrewer]

"The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground."  ~  Chogyam Trungpa

[PartTimeBrewer]

Except when there is. Sometimes I get irritated with these quotes. The implication is if you throw yourself at life, it will all be OK. I'm not arguing with the "go with the flow" advice, but there can be no promises of results. Mindfulness can't clear the path of obstacles, but it can help you face them with equanimity. 

I posted this reply with the original quote 11 hours ago. I don't know where the original version got to, somewhere out in the ether.

[PartTimeBrewer]

I'm still having trouble getting posts to go  in where and when they should. Got to get off the Kindle and work on the laptop.

[PartTimeBrewer]

"The art of living...is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists of being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and receptive."  ~  Alan Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

Remember that mindfulness is not just a tool to feel good when you don't feel good.

[PartTimeBrewer]

It can be that, but it is a tool that can be used at any time with any emotion, good, bad or neutral. In fact I try not to think of it as a tool to alter my emotional state. It is a tool to observe my emotional condition, whatever it is. If, as a consequence, I feel any better, well I guess I'll have to live with that.

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them."  ~  Jon Kabat-Zinn

[PartTimeBrewer]

Preconceived notions about other people's actions and emotions can be very misleading.  It is enlightening sometimes to just stop and focus on the signals they are actually sending out, rather than listening to the stale chatter going on in the mind.

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.  ~  Rumi

[PartTimeBrewer]

OK some things are just wrong and some right. But it is liberating to realize that sometimes it is not necessary or even helpful to parse everything into a Good/Evil dichotomy. Playing with nonjudgment allows me to just let things be when they do not need to be a burden.

[PartTimeBrewer]