Mindfulness: What Is It? (Even if you dont know please post so we can help grow the forums accordingly)

[blondguy]

Hi Everybody

This is only the basic dictionary definition...

"Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment without judgement"

• Please be as blunt you wish....If you dont have an idea about mindfulness it would be great if you could let us know
• If mindfulness hasnt worked/or is too broad a concept for you it would great if you can let us know your thoughts too
• If mindfulness has helped you, please help others to help themselves by posting how you have embraced this mindset

It goes without saying that the forums are a judgement free zone and I really hope that everyone can jump in and have their say

Your input is highly valued no matter how you respond to this topic. There are no experts here...New Posters are Most Welcome!!

My Kindest Thoughts

Paul

[quirkywords]

Sparrowhawk

Thanks for explaining about how you feel.

I think that every time you start generalising when someone may correct you, can you stop, take a deep breath, and decide to stop the negative thing. is it possible to isolate the. I’m ent and just deal with it.

I am so sensitive that I can crynover any comment. I see as critical.

It is hard not to fall back into old ways but to treat each comment by itself and decide whether it is helpful or not.

Quirky

[sparrowhawk]

Thanks quirky. I know I need to remind myself that my reaction is a response to trauma, and that not every criticism will be the same as what I experienced before. Most people who do correct me these days do so much differently to this other person's methods, but it's just the general sense of having done something "wrong" that irks me. I cry as well, though privately. I cry more out of self-loathing than anything else.

[quirkywords]

hello everyone,

Sparrowhawk,

Crying can be therapeutic.

The trouble with self loathing, that some wise person pointed out to me, is that we end up doing to ourselves what we complained other people did to us and us feel so horrible . Someone said to me would you talk to your friend they you talk to and treat yourself.

I have been through the self loathing and it is so destructive. I know you are trying so hard but for me being kind and gentle to yourself and taking time to focus on breathing and the grounding techniques you mentioned , is something I found really helped me.

Quirky

[MyLadyGirl]

Moonstrucks,

Yes we do think at the time and at that moment but everyone has a different option and mindset.

When you say it's completely focussing and noticing the object, place, moment, event, right in front of you...e.g. an inanimate object such as flower, or a view, a man playing with his dog in the distance.....it's thinking, noticing and looking at that...and that alone! Right there, in the moment! Seeing every aspect of it.'

It is more of using the mind of the material world. Mindfulness is not thinking about the material world. It's more of giving inner peace to your self. The phase 'Peace of mind'

Meditation cannot occur as no mindfulness. It's when the mindfulness is empty then you can do meditation. Different people have ways of meditating.

Can you share what or how you define your medication is about?

[MyLadyGirl]

Hi Sparrowhawk,

We all go through the event where we degraded our self thinking low to please other person or even just to make others happy. Well in my concept and realising matters we cannot control them. We need to over come them in a particular way. Divert our mind to something else or useful. When negative thinking happen try to realise something positive have happen to. Stop always looking back at the particular thing. When I degrade myself I pull my self together. Breathing help. I always say that I am a beautiful person, I should not harm myself. I cannot make people around me realise that I am a failure or sad as people around me are happy with me. Yes there are people that are two faces. But who cares. Yes there are people that hurt and make you harm to your self. Do not let them. They don't control me. I do.. Yes it can be your partner betrayed you. I am sorry he does but he lost the beauty in me. yes there are partner that wants to flirt with others to make them happy. Yes cry over it, get worried but have faith.. Everytime I have that feeling I quickly divert my mind.

I admit my mind is still not mindfulness as I think of the material world as I am attached to it. But with my meditation I am more calm and peace.

[blondguy]

Hi Everyone and to New members too!

Hey Quirky.....Thankyou for your complimentary post on the 27th...I am happy that you liked that sentence 🙂

Quirky mentioned......"I feel we need to support each other in real life like we do on this thread and understand someone who finds the concept of mindfulness very difficult" Well said and appreciated Quirky

Hey Moon...always a treat to read your posts and thankyou for zeroing in on the concept of mindfulness when you mentioned "Mindfulness is not thinking about nothing.....it's completely focusing and noticing the object, place, moment, event, right in front of you" Thanks for your wise input....and helping redirect the meaning x 🙂

Hey Sparrowhawk......Great to have your life experience on the forums and thankyou for the complimentary post too 🙂

Sparrowhawk mentioned "I experienced this (overthinking..?) consistently over four years and I think this is now
why I am feeling so down about myself. I think I internalised a lot" Ditto here SH.....I also have been internalising for a long time and its hard hard habit to break.....I hear you loud and clear...Great point!

Hey LadyGirl.....Thankyou for being a part of the discussion...Your input and life experience is always welcome. After having acute anxiety for a long time (now minimal..thank goodness!) I just cant grasp meditation....I understand the health benefits yet my mind does have difficulty finding 'calm' if I try to. I know I have a handle on mindfulness...to a point. When I tend to my roses my mind is at peace...tending to mother earth...so to speak..What is the difference between meditation and mindfulness to you?..I am still working it out

thankyou everyone for helping out so many people that also choose to read the forums too without posting 🙂

my kind thoughts and appreciation

Paul

[quirkywords]

MyLadyGirl,

i want to thank you for your posts especially your last one.

you seem to have a great understanding of mindfulness and meditation and the difference .

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

ii struggle with mindfulness as you define it as I suppose I have adapted something that helps me.

I can not think of not using or not thinking of the material world.

To me that seems impossible but I will reread your posts as I am interested I’m learning more.

Thanks again for sharing your insights.

Quirky

[sparrowhawk]

Thanks all. Just wanted to say here that yesterday I met with my psychologist and my housemate. It wasn't an easy meeting, I felt very vulnerable. But at the same time, I knew I was really supported by the both of them. I told my housemate I really trust her and I know she was grateful for that. I am going back to the psych next week.

Quirky: I cry most days/weeks. I find it does help. You are spot on about the self-loathing. My GP said the same thing: would you talk to your friend the way you talk to yourself? No way.
I am trying my best to be kind and gentle to myself, but I am not very good at that. I tend to push away my negative feelings because I fear worrying or burdening others. I told my housemate I try to keep myself as busy as possible so that I don't have the opportunity to think and to spiral. She told me that her door is always open for me. The nicest thing she could have said, really.

MyLadyGirl: Yes, I focus on making other people happy and sometimes that means I neglect myself. I think I have simply been conditioned for so long to feel bad about getting things wrong, and to try and fulfil others' expectations (which may be right or wrong), that I am struggling to pull myself out of the cycle.

Paul: Thank you! The experience I was talking about is criticism. I was corrected and criticised in unhealthy ways for years, and so now when I am corrected, even in a good way, I automatically launch into negative self-talk because my previous experience was that if I made a mistake, I was bad, a failure, a disappointment, etc.

[MyLadyGirl]

Hello Paul,

The topic Mindfulness has attracted my attention and I am please to join this discussion. You asked my the different between Mindfulness and Meditation.

Well here goes:

# Mindfulness is allowing your mind to be peace. It's not about concentrating a object or focusing. It's more of making or understanding your state of mind. It's more doing things at the moment one at a time. Yeah you may think it's the same but it's not. It's releasing you to the state on what you are. Example: I usually think that I am unlucky person. Unlucky for everything. Financial, marriage and job. This lead to my depression, anxiety and illness. Realizing that life is not about it, I realize my mind is just playing with me. Attaching my mind to the world giving me to think that this is life. However, I stopped. I started to learned that my mind is controlling me not me controlling the mind. Realizing that this not the end or what life needs to be. Bring peace within yourself. A state to not bother to the world. Better of all a state where we sleep thinking of nothing. Especially when we deep sleep. When we deep sleep we do not know what's happening to the mind. It's like emptiness.

# Meditation is more of a technique of being concentration. Not allowing you mind to wonder around. Having it in a steady mind not wondering and getting connected to the world. Letting go of all you ego, self esteem, you desire in another word - letting go of who you are. Being in a 'bare' condition. (sorry about my language). It's more of concentrating and a path leaning what we experience all the way and letting loose from it. Make us realize the skin is only a skin.. However it's not skin it's a skin where that is beyond then that. It's blood, nervous system, your molecule cell and etc (sorry not a medical person). Some say meditate with focusing on a object while other say its's breath. It's true but to practice meditation, we need to include mindfulness as it is part of it.

However, it's great sadness that people uses meditation an excuse or thing to solves their problem It's where many people uses meditation to over come their problem with the world where some uses in a wrong way. People think meditation solves everything which is wrong. You cannot practice meditation unless you learn the life that we are attached off.

Sorry Paul, I know my explanation does not agree with anyone or understandable by anyone but this is what I learned through my experience.

[MyLadyGirl]

Hello Quirky,

Thank you for your compliment. I appreciate it a lot for you acknowledging me.

In your post you said the following:

I can not think of not using or not thinking of the material world.
To me that seems impossible....

Let me share you an experience that I learned. I always wanted a family or in another word a husband and a child. With my age that has passed that I have neither. Maybe it's my faith or luck (which I always feel I am unlucky to have it even if I have I don't get it) But I learned that this is what I have to go through. See what marriage life and family life is about where there is problems. Learned from it. Then I came to realise that what happen to me let happen. Just don't get too involved. If happen, 'Thankful for it' if not let it go as you will not take it when you 'leave'.

What we do in here is important. Making a name of loving, caring, help the people that needs the most, people knowing you as a person that smile even if you have problems. As the sun comes up all the time not worrying that the cloud will cover it. Not getting stress and tension about the cloud. That's how we should be. There is nothing in life that is impossible. Everything is possible. It's you limiting that.