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]

"The most soul-searching meditation on ethics leaves the world intact; a single word or deed can fransform it forever."

~ Stephen Batchelor

[PartTimeBrewer]

""Be neither glad nor regretful when sadness and gloom appear within the heart. Look on them as mental conditions that must be investigated, as things that arise, cease, and come out from the heart."

~ Ajaan Mahā Boowa Ñãṇasampanno, translated by Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto, “Mãgha Pūjã”

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Healing isn’t about closure. It is about openness. It is about a profound vulnerability that releases us from the need to hide from anything, and that ultimately leads us to freedom."

Bonnie O’Brien Jonsson, “Opening Up to Grief ”

[PartTimeBrewer]

At each moment the toxins we encounter may be either compounded or abandoned..

Andrew Olendzki