This tweet passed my way earlier today: AgreedRT@rgyatso @Shunyata_Kharg It comes thru Mindfulness & Wisdom. Paying attention, working it out. No magic pill. Hard Work, Compassion.
That cuts to the heart of how I feel about mindfulness. Yesterday may go down as in the top ten challenging days I have ever had. Ever. Pre-mindfulness, I might well have been sobbing on the kitchen floor by 6:45 p.m.
Post mindfulness training, I was not. But was I blissed-out? Did I see sunflowers and happy faces dancing around me as I sat in lotus position?
Not quite. That would have been avoidant. Things sucked at that moment. Big time. But, as I watched the crap flow to me, and watched as I released it, I was calm. I actually laughed a bit as I burnt my dinner, explained to the kids that I was a little distracted, and had had a rotten day.
You can read my steps to mindfulness here
I think there is a misconception that mindfulness = blissed out. I think that is a huge disservice to what it really is. By training yourself to stay with your emotions, non-judgmentally, many things happen
are all things that have been proven to be helped by mindfulness training.
No doubt, when you find yourself without anxiety and overcoming your eating disorder, you may experience untold joy. But the path you will follow is hard work, and does require serious commitment. Good Luck!
Just moments ago, I was feeling pretty uptight. It’s been a rough day, let’s just say. Because I have relied on mindfulness for the past 4 1/2 years, I began to breathe and focus on my breath.
It worked.
Not only did it work, but I was led to a series of interesting insights about mindfulness.
First, there are skeptics. Fair enough. I read a comment on a Scientific American article basically saying there isn’t enough evidence to prove mindfulness works, and to show exactly what about mindfulness is beneficial. Fair enough. Of course, I would remind this guy that studying mindfulness is in its infancy. Give us a few more years. Until then, perhaps I might remind you that mindfulness carries with it no unwanted side effects.
But then there was a comment by a guy who suffers from anxiety who wrote that when he attempts to practice mindfulness, he invariably drifts off. Fair enough.
I imagine it would be extremely difficult to learn mindfulness by yourself if you suffer from anxiety.
However, entering into mindfulness-based therapy with a qualified therapist is a great idea, with lots of potential benefits.
Mindfulness is not as easy as popping a pill, but it carries no unwanted side effects, many extra benefits, and, once learned, it really is not difficult to practice.
In the above video, can you see both numbers? If not, why not try mindfulness practice?
It’s a good question. I almost put “LuLuLemon” in the title, but then I realized there is *no one* who does not want to wear LuLu Lemon in the world. I want to wear Lu Lu Lemon, but I can’t afford it.
Anyway, the answer is “no” you do not.
But the reason I asked this question in the first place is because of all the people around me lately who are becoming aware of the fact that I am really serious about this mindfulness thing, but admit to me they have no idea what it really is.
These people include my mom, my husband and my kids.
Each of them come with their own quirks about why they can’t figure out what mindfulness is, even though it is staring them in the naval, and I would like to take a minute to break a few of these down:
They don’t know what mindfulness is because they have no idea what it is to not be mindful. I think this is the rare person nowadays, but perhaps this is you.
I asked my youngest if he had ever worried about something that may or may not happen in the future. He looked at me blankly. I asked him if he had ever thought about something that had already happened, and this time, he asked his older brother for help. They consulted a bit, and then kind of looked at me with that “why in the heck would I do that? It’s already happened?”
Yeah. They don’t need mindfulness training.
He said, “You know, I’ve read all the papers you’ve written on mindfulness, and I have to admit, I still don’t really know what it is.”
In my opinion, this is because he’s a pretty grounded guy, and though he spends a lot of his time worrying about stuff, he is also pretty good at letting stuff go that he can’t do much about.
He could benefit (as many of us could, I think) from practicing mindfulness and focus for the few difficult things that are easy to avoid, but helpful to growth.
Today, I told her that I was quite happy because when you Google “Wendy Kelly Mindfulness” my name comes up.
She was surprised. I said, “Well, you do realize that this is what I do, don’t you?” She was confused, because I am not yet a practicing counselor. I explained that I dabble in social media (and a tiny bit in SEO) for my paid work, and I have written a few papers on mindfulness.
She said she was pretty sure she knew that it was the same as meditating. I said, “Well, meditating is one way to help you develop mindfulness, but they aren’t the same thing.”
I started to explain some ways you can begin to practice mindfulness and was kind of just getting started, describing soft belly meditation, happy that I had an attentive audience, when she said “Wait, what did you say? I was reading an email while you were talking just then.”
Yes, well. I think she could benefit.
She comes from the same stock as I do. Scattered, slightly manic, prone to doing 1000 things at 100 miles an hour.
I’m really looking forward to diving in to mindfulness, figuring out how to best articulate what it is and how to do it. I hope to be taking an advanced research course this quarter, which will really help me learn what needs to be done and how to best study it.
You don’t need special clothes or a certain yoga mat. You don’t need a guru or a trip to India (or Tibet or whatever). You really just need to sit still.
Here’s how it happened: I am always looking for good descriptions of Nelson to try to explain to the uninitiated why I live where I live.
I go to school online, and at least once a quarter I feel the need to explain that things are different here but never quite find that sweet spot where I feel my classmates “get it”
Same thing with friends from way back, and even not-so-way back. Those from Pemberton and Whistler have been at times confused by our move to “the hinterland” as one Province reporter so memorably described where I live.
Andrea Bell gets it. And she’s so articulate. I had no idea (I mean I had an idea, but not the full idea) until another friend told me that I really had to read her write up of Nelson.
I even stole the picture from her blog.
Okay. It’s a cute video and I like the music.
But I wonder, are books just completely becoming a design element? And, if so, really aren’t there better things to use?
I guess as design elements go, they are one up from random trinkets & Precious Memories, but honestly, if you’re not going to use them to read…why bother having them?
Maybe this is design for Savants…for those of us (not me) who can organize their books completely haphazardly but still find anything they want because of their insanely powerful memories.
I would venture to say that if you are at the stage in your life where you have a ton of books and are honestly wondering what to do with them, reading them is not somehow an option, but you have hours and hours to fill just moving them around in ways that please you, then you need a life.
Unless, of course, this is your life. And then, well, go for it.
But I would suggest that this is not the best way to organize your books. I’m no librarian, just a thought from a concerned book reader.
