My mindfulness

[AnnabelLee]

So way i work with mindfulness is bit different. I focus on feeling/ emotion/ thought and try to recognise and name it. But then i also try to find reason behind that particular lets say emotion.

So as example lets say I suddenly ( with or without real life trigger, that doesn’t really matter) have that crippling feeling of anxiety and insecurity. So I recognise it and then i become aware where is it coming from, what my inner child is trying to communicate with me. In this case it would be something like: I’m feeling insecure because i feel I cannot be worth loving, i cannot be enough, i feel that any other person is better than me and has more to ‘offer’.
So now the problem i come across. With some feeling like missing, longing, certain sadness i feel like i cannot realise whats the reason behind it. It doesn’t have to be missing persons, it can be longing for past, feeling nostalgic etc.
Now i know the mindfulness itself doesn’t analyse. Just acknowledge it. But analysing it after actually is a way to go for me as it simplifies it for me. Once i realise whats the root of that feeling/ emotion it goes away. I don’t force it to go away. I just break it down, realise how unreasonable it is and then i no more have need to feel like that. I hope I explained it well.

But cannot get to to bottom of missing/ longing. Because it’s just what it is. You feel sad because certain event, time of your life, person passed and you just simply miss it. But inability to explain it messes with my head. Because I’m stuck in that loop of that feeling.

[therising]

Hi AnnabelLee

Personally, I love mindfulness exercises with one of my favorites being Automatic Writing. Writing down a question and just letting the answer flow onto the paper without any obvious thought has provided many a revelation over the years.

When it comes to missing/longing, I have found that in acknowledging that I function on 3 levels can help me make some sense of things. For eg (when it comes to us missing a person):

• Mentally, we may miss the way they excite our brain in so many ways - through the smell of their perfume, their aftershave, their cooking. We can miss the sound of their voice or the sight of them. Not being able to feel their touch or embrace them feels like a form of deprivation. Even food can taste different when they're not there to share a meal with us. When the references which excite the neurons in our head are no longer present in our life, we can be left in a state of constant craving or longing (for excitement).
• We can miss their physical presence and what it represents to us, including the physical stimulation it provides for us. Sometimes we can underestimate the real physical impact people and environment have on us. Just the sight of a person can cause either stress or intense feelings of love, which have the power to impact the health of our heart, our mind, our nervous system etc.
• Spiritually or energetically, we can miss the soulful connection with a person; that connection which gave us the opportunity to feel truly alive in a variety of ways. We felt a connection to life and our self through them.

I believe the missing bit comes down to missing certain elements within mind/body/spirit (or energy). Seeing these elements help us in the way of defining or relating to who we are, this may go toward explaining why some people proclaim 'Who am I now, without this person in my life?'

With environment and past experiences also holding the ability to have us connect with our self and life in certain ways, a loss can often leave us longing for a sense of re-connection, especially with our self, if that makes sense. Personally, I think the toughest thing to face with the missing/longing aspects in life involves having to redefine our self, in some way. There are many stories out there which involve survivors of crime redefining their self through being of service to others. Having a reference to a positive form of identity helps make some difference.

Take care AnnabelLee on your journey of mindfulness and enlightenment

[quirkywords]

AnnabelLee

Thanks for your very thoughtful post and for explaining how you approach mindfulness. I think we all tend to adapt ways that suit us.

The rising has given a very helpful and comprehensive suggestions about how missing a person can affect us on many levels.

You have explained very well what works for you and why it has helped you.

I find I can’t find a reason or the root of so I try to accept that I will feel like that.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

Quirky