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Thread: TED talk - 'emotional hygiene'

  1. #21
    Princess Sparkles Paula's Avatar
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    The easiest mindfulness process I found was to focus on the sensations on each part of my body, bit by bit. For instance, how does the chair you're sitting on feel against your back. If other thoughts come in, you acknowledge them and then let them go while you're back to focussing on the chair on your back itms
    The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

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  3. #22
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    Reading your posts, it sounds like everybody sees mindfulness different. As Paula describes it, it's all about distraction and concentrate on the here and now. Mitz, I am really trying to understand what you want to explain, but it's to abstract for me. Let's say my innate awareness right now is self hate. So I am suppose to accept that and just sit with it? I don't think thoughts are just coming and going. We choose what we think, our thoughts are triggered by what ever goes on around us.

  4. #23
    Ok, it's going to be different for everyone the same way depression is different for everyone but it is basically about being in the present, making yourself aware of what is happening and not judging it, just let it be.

    I'll always thought that recovery from depression was all about timing. You can have someone tell you a million times the things you need to do to change but if you aren't ready to change it won't happen. Mindfulness backs that up for me and allows me to say yes I know this situation is not good or these thoughts are unhelpful right now but that's ok cos that's how I feel right now, that's a choice I have made and when I'm ready to move on and make a different choice I can and that is ok too.

  5. #24
    Hugo-agogo
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    I think what mindfulness does is what CBT is often trying to do, which is to help us recognize our patterns of thought that can be like habits we have learned, including such thoughts and feelings as self-hate. The difference is that it is done through directly experience rather than writing things down. Like mitz says it is experiential. Just doing this can help us to see that these thoughts and feelings do indeed come and go. Instead of fighting them, we try to acknowledge them with compassion towards ourselves, then gently bring our attention back to a point of focus in the here and now, which is typically just watching the breath without doing anything special. You try to feel it directly, such as the rise and fall of your belly, from the inside rather than thinking about doing it. The "body scan" meditation Paula describes involves much the same, but the attention moves through the body, and is excellent for grounding in our psychical self, where we are just "being" rather than the constant "doing" of our thoughts, if that makes sense!

  6. #25
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    I am letting those thoughts come and go since month. not fighting them. I am tired of feeling sad. Maybe mindfulness is not the right thing for me, or I am doing something wrong, which is more likely.

  7. #26
    Princess Sparkles Paula's Avatar
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    Hunni, mindfulness is not something you get straight away, it takes practice. Can you talk to your dr and see if there is something in place to refer you to someone who could help you train in it? Alternatively, I found Headspace good https://www.headspace.com and there's a free trial
    The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

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  9. #28
    QPRFan
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    For me one of the things I am particularly brilliant at (and in some contexts its really necessary others it isn't) is over-analysis.

    For me living in the moment and my approach to mindfulness has some of the seven steps prayer in it. That is the bit around accepting what we can and cannot influence. Part of that for me is how I respond to failure. It is not always my fault. Sometimes it is, when it is I need to make the conscious decision to try again. That sounds really easy I know it isn't. I am trying to change my wiring and feelings to make me see positives where I think there are none but also to embrace the negatives and move on. I struggle with this every day.

    Part of it is the listing (either in your head or on paper) of the positive things. Thinking that way forces you to see the positives within a day. No matter how small they are. I will tackle that pile of ironing thats been sitting there is going to be one of mine. Posting here and reading is a positive for me too.

    What I have written probably makes no sense.

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  11. #29
    mitz
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    Quote Originally Posted by Samantha340 View Post
    I am letting those thoughts come and go since month. not fighting them. I am tired of feeling sad. Maybe mindfulness is not the right thing for me, or I am doing something wrong, which is more likely.
    ahh sam, you are not doing anything wrong. the frustration about being sad, is another thought, so you observe this too. the frustration of 'doing something wrong, or 'not getting it' are also just other thoughts, so you observe these too, without trying to describe or analyse them. i don't mean 'just' in a dismissive way. you just try keep coming back to this again and again, whenever you remember too, there is no pressure. the aim is not to get rid of the thoughts you don't like (annoyingly!), though they might go. the aim of meditation is not to find bliss or happiness (unfortunately!) - or to find a set a circumstances, thoughts or feelings to hold into place, so you don't feel sad, or you don't feel any negative emotions. it is about finding stability within all of the emotions and circumstances that might arise. no, not 'finding' stability, but recognising that you already have that within you, , regardless of what thoughts arise. it is all a bit abstract. I get overwhelmed by my thoughts all the time, though talking about it like this, helps to remind me, for a short while at least. try a meditation class, or chat with your GP about referrals like paula suggested.
    Last edited by mitz; 19-10-15 at 06:43 PM.

  12. #30
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    I think it's for me. I need solutions. Getting rid of hate and anger.

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