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]

"Human beings have a tendency to scan for what’s wrong, from a slow-moving line to a rut in a relationship, so it’s easy to notice when things haven’t gone our way. But what if we shifted our attention a fraction — toward what hasn’t gone wrong?"   ~  Mindful Online

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Faith is always a gamble because life itself is a gambling game with what must appear to be colossal stakes. To take the gamble out of the game, to try to make winning a dead certainty, is to achieve a certainty which is indeed dead."  ~  Alan Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Learning to befriend all moments places us firmly in the life we are living, rather than the ideal life we are prone to imagine or strive towards."  ~  Everyday Mindfulness

[PartTimeBrewer]

"When we identify our emotions as being closely related to our 'selves,' entwined with our identities, there’s not enough space around them to notice them for what they are: information that arrives, rests, and passes."  ~  Mindfulness Online

[PartTimeBrewer]

"The ability to recognise thoughts that have no connection to reality is important, as it removes power from them."  ~  Everydsy Mindfulness

[PartTimeBrewer]

"What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking it is painful, and that when we imagine we have found it, we don’t like it."~ Alan Watts

[Westerly_2]

Bummer!

[PartTimeBrewer]

"What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously."  ~  Alan Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

"A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money, but it is absurd to take money too seriously—to confuse it with real wealth. In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are “coins” for real things."  ~  Alan Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

"If we want to live fully, it is wise to keep an awareness of impermanence and death by our side. By seeing deeply into the fleeting nature of life, we naturally feel an enormous sense of appreciation for what we have."  ~   Melli Obrien
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[PartTimeBrewer]

"Don’t try to clear your mind. Just notice your mind. One is an act of aggression. The other a gesture of intimacy."  ~  Jason Garner

[PartTimeBrewer]

"love is refining the process over and over again, not until you get it right, but until you learn that “rightness” is not the end goal."  ~  Joel Leon