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]

Things and conditions can give you pleasure but they cannot give you joy - joy arises from within. ~ Eckhart Tolle

[PartTimeBrewer]

“We tend to think of life as a long journey, but life is a succession of small moments. If we notice them, the ‘doing’ of life can become less of an automatic chore and more of a conscious engagement with our hearts and the world around us.”

~ THE MINDFULNESS PROJECT

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

[PartTimeBrewer]

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."

~ Rabindranath Tagore

[PartTimeBrewer]

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

~ Robert Frost

[PartTimeBrewer]

The bad things in life open your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. ~ Good Will Hunting

[PartTimeBrewer]

“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

[PartTimeBrewer]

Healing comes from letting there be room for everything: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. ~ Pema Chodron

[PartTimeBrewer]

We may have all come in different ships, but we're in the same boat now. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Life does not come with instructions on how to live, but it does come with trees, sunsets, smiles, and laughter, so enjoy your day." ~Debbie Shapiro

[PartTimeBrewer]

"We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe."
~ Alan Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

"It is not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather an unlearning of wrong habits and opinions. As Lao-Tzu said, “The scholar gains every day, but the Taoist loses every day.”

~ Alan Watts