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]

"Do more of what makes you forget to check your phone."  ~  anon.

[PartTimeBrewer]

Today's focus is on being joyful in the moment. My newest granddaughter came into the world yesterday afternoon and today I will meet her for the first time. For today, it is easy to forgive the past and feel good about the future.

[Baia]

This week I am reading out loud to my cat.  I see the words with my eyes and also hear them with my ears.  I don't know whether or not the cat understands the words, but he is comforted by the sound of my voice and I am comforted by the sound of his.  I am grateful for that moment.

[PartTimeBrewer]

I can hear the cat purring.

[PartTimeBrewer]

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose."  ~  Dr. Seuss

[PartTimeBrewer]

"If you live the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion."  ~  Linji Yixuan

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Can we ever actually see another person? If we create an 'other',  we have made an object of a person; we have taken away their humanity."  ~  MindfulnessOnline

[PartTimeBrewer]

"There is so much that is out of your control. Getting comfortable with this lack of control is liberating."  ~  Everyday Mindfulness

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Mindfulness enables us to cultivate a different quality of attention, one where we relate to what we see before us not as an echo of the past or a foreshadowing of the future, but more as it is right now."  ~  Sharon Salzberg

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Your mind is continually trying to guess the future. that's OK, that's it's job. You just need to remember that it's a guess."  ~  Everyday Mindfulness

[PartTimeBrewer]

"In this world

We walk on the roof of hell

Gazing at the flowers."

                  ~  Kobayashi Issa

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Meditation is fasting of the heart in which, for a time, we do not go with our wanting and fear. We cease to attach so strongly to the things of our lives.  When the heart fasts and we don't pursue the world, the world begins to come to us."  ~  Jason Garner