#183 Motivation to practice mindfulness

     Most folks get into mindfulness in order to manage - get away from - stress. Another motivator is to get away from themselves, their situation, and "go to a happy place".
     But the more we desire, the more fixated we are about, and the more quickly we want to reach a specific goal, the less likely we are to succeed! This applies to any method, not just mindfulness. Why? Because the state of being rigidly goal-oriented is fundamentally incompatible with the method used to achieve it. To achieve most goals, one needs to be curios, open and fully engage with a new process, (at least temporarily) ignoring the goal.
     A gardener provides all of the conditions - good soil, water, sunshine, fertilizer, seeds - knowing that the plants will grow just fine - a natural result. So too in mindfulness practice, we learn to loosen our death-grip on what we want, and instead, learn to relax, and simply engage in the practice, letting benefits arise on their own.