#590 Mindfulness is NOT Suppression or Avoidance of Thoughts or Emotions

     Mindfulness practice first helps us become more comfortable with things as they are in the present moment ie helps cultivate a degree of mental stability. Then, with this stability - decreased ego-noise - we're able to have some insight into what's actually going on.
     So mindfulness is NOT about suppressing or otherwise avoiding thoughts, emotions, or any other aspect of life. We don't suppress thoughts. We do let go of habitually entertaining them, wrestling with them, being hijacked by them, identifying with them. The same goes for emotions. Thoughts and emotions remain, but become quieter & quieter background noise, no longer controlling & distorting our life.

     "Fully plumbing the depths of mindfulness requires time and exploration. There is a wealth of meaning and nuance in the experience of mindfulness that can enrich our lives in unimagined ways." 
       Goldstein J. "Mindfulness. A Practical Guide to Awakening." Sounds True, Boulder, 2013. 

Stephen Bright   www.dpreview.com

#558 NEITHER Avoiding, Stopping, NOR Pushing Away

     "The reality is that we are a river - a living energy system of sensations & sights & sounds, an energy system of changing feelings & thoughts. And the point of meditation and mindfulness isn't to stop the river - which you can't do.

                    "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."

     That's really the point of mindfulness and meditation - to allow the experience you're having, which is always changing - and to find your composure in it."

       Jack Kornfield: The Case for Mindfulness and Wisdom in Law
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLV4Cty06Q4

 

#516 Strength, Vulnerability & Reality

     We're all, at some level, aware of our own weaknesses, shortcomings, vulnerabilities. The effect this awareness has on us varies tremendously from person to person, as well as for each of us under different circumstances and over the span of a lifetime.
     Dysfunctional, yet all too common ways of dealing with the reality of our human condition include various types of: 
          overcompensation eg tough guy / gal, workaholism, narcissistic personality disorder;
          suppression eg pretending everything's always happy-happy; and 
          decompensation eg paralyzing anxiety / fear / depression.

     A healthy way of living in reality, in all its complexity, unpredictability, high ups & low downs is with a clear, open heart-mind. Does this sound as revolutionary as driving sober? It's common sense, yet as we all know, common sense is not common at all.
     Mindfulness practice increases & stabilizes metacognition - ability to observe the workings of our own mind: mental, emotional, verbal & behavioral reactions. We learn to clearly see when these are dysfunctional (noise, friction), accept these as they are, and observe their consequences (increased suffering for ourselves & others). As a result of this clear insight & acceptance of ourselves & others as we are ("our common human condition"), we naturally, gradually, at our own pace, let go of dysfunctional compensations, and become progressively healthier & wiser.
     See:  http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/02/490-safe-learning-environment.html

Steve McCurry   stevemccurry.com

#387 Meditation Facilitating Normal Developmental Shift to Healthier Emotion Regulation

     "The challenge is to find ways of regulating our emotions so that we retain their helpful features while limiting their destructive aspects.
     ... two commonly used emotion regulation strategies:
     Cognitive REAPPRAISAL - changing the way one thinks about a potentially emotion-eliciting situation in order to modify its emotional impact; 

     Expressive SUPPRESSION - changing the way one responds behaviorally to an emotion-eliciting event. 

     ... experimental findings show that 

1) reappraisal has a healthier profile of ... consequences (patterns of affect, social functioning, & well-being) than suppression

2) (there's) a normative shift toward an increasingly healthy emotion regulation profile during adulthood (increases in the use of reappraisal & decreases in the use of suppression)."

 

       John OP, Gross JJ. Healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation: personality processes, individual differences, and life span development. J Pers 2004; 72(6): 1301-33.

     Meditation is based on seeing clearly (awareness). The acceptance aspect of meditation involves letting go of prevalent avoidant tendencies such as suppression by accepting reality as it is, rather than demanding that it conform to our preferences.

 

 

#22 Avoidance

     How much of my doing is driven by trying to avoid activities, people, things etc that I presume to be incompatible with happiness?

     Avoidance can present in the form of denial, suppression, sleepiness, boredom, restlessness, compulsive behavior, a sense of being hunted - always having to run away etc.
      “... experiential avoidance does not appear to work well in the long run. Research has shown that ... a heightened level of experiential avoidance is correlated with increased anxiety, depression, substance abuse, worry, long-term disability, high-risk sexual behavior, inability to learn, poorer work performance, lower quality of life, and higher degrees of overall psychopathology.”
        Ciarrochi J, Mayer JD. "Applying emotional intelligence: A practitioner's guide." Psychology Press, NY, 2007.

     Mindfulness is about fully experiencing reality - ie the opposite of avoidance. Why? Because engaging directly with our life works. But don't take anybody's word for it - you need to experience this for yourself.

Artist: R C Gorman   http://rcgormangallery.com/