Mindfulness And 'noting Practice'

[canadianbumble]

The main problem when I'm feeling a bit bettter is that I don't make time for it anymore. Thanks for your posts they always make insightful reading even though my silly brain sometimes can't follow through. Anyways Ta Bumble. x

Bumble,

I think the important thing I have learned about Mindfulness and Loving Kindness Meditation, is there is no right or wrong time to pick it up. It's like coming back to the breath, you just know this is where/how you refocus. Its okay to have a good day or week and not meditate, the objective isn't to be a monk, .

So picking it up when your feeling low is fine, the important thing is to keep returning to it. In a long term sense. I like this about meditation practice. Your practice is good, just as it is now, and it will be good just as it is, next week or year. Remember, the non judging mind.

Sah

Thank s Sah, I guess I overlook what should be what moght be what I feel comfortable with. You're right it is always there to come back to. B x

[Saharah Blue]

So easy to fall in to Bumble, I have so done the same, thinking it is only good when I can be good. Or only good when I need to survive, stay out of H or, stay safe. In reality, it is more like hey, whoa, I have a handy skill, keeping this close to me. Use as needed. Or just to brush up.

Sah

[Miko]

As I am autistic and dyspraxic (a motor and visual-motor condition) and the mental health clinic have excluded me from social care, and because though I spend time at a couple of spiritual groups they don't have scope to lend me practical support, I shan't have the background practical stability to apply any such techniques until further notice (I am in an emergency) and my comunication needs may require me to translate words and concepts for my own use. Fortunately as Sah says one can profitably drop into these things at any time.

[angel tears]

Hiya

Looking at picture 4 of the ox herding kinda feels like where i am in my life and have been for nearly a year and man is it frustrating and depressing because i have understanding of whats going on around me and i see where it comes from but i am at the mo powerless to change it and i am getting quite depressed . How do you get to step 5?........... I wish i had the answer. xx

[hummm_mabbe]

I suppose in a way Ive thrown people a bit of a curveball with the ox-herding pictures. They dont really refer to getting over emotional problems, they refer to the process of meditation. The ox actually represents body/mind duality and learning to maintain concentration so that you can see deeply into the nature of reality. Its not really about overcoming a personality disorder.

In terms of recovery from mental illness, its just a universal truth that intellectual knowledge about a problem does not lead to emotional change. This has a much more prosaic explanation, and it has to do with the nature of our brains. There is the higher, conscious part, and the deeper, emotional part. The higher part deals in words and conscious knowledge. The emotional part deals in impressions, experiences and often deep uncovered emotional 'truths' that arent available to the conscious mind. They are like two separate selves that speak entirely different languages, and it doesnt matter what your higher conscious knows, the emotional mind will carry on regardless unless you speak to it in its own language.

Change doesnt happen just because the concious mind knows something - it has to be fully felt and experiecned with body, mind and all parts of the self. Most importantly, it takes a powerful opposite experience to happen alongisde the old feelings, so that the old feelings suddenly appear redundant. So in short, change really only happens through powerful experiences. How you can come to have those experiences I dont know, it seems to be unique for each person.

Ross