On Mindfulness

I had a nice and relaxing Christmas holiday. Nevertheless there were moments of confusion and stress and in such a moment I broke some plates. They were old and rare pieces that I kept for special occasions. So I felt particularly strong regret of breaking them.

When I make a mistake, when an accident happens, when I lose something I immediately look for explanation, justification or guilty parts. Or rather my intelligent mind engages, it takes over and creates stories trying to explain and process the situation. It thinks. It also tries to think positively according to the fashionable trends. So I was telling myself that these plates were only material things, probably destined to be destroyed anyway and that I should not attach myself to the material world particularly that I am a mindfulness practitioner.

But this is a misunderstanding of mindfulness and meditation. It is not about thinking, it is about being with what is present. So what is really present in such a moment? The truth is that thoughts come later and what is and stays is a pang of pain, anger, disappointment, sadness and irritation. I use my mind to name these feelings but they appear first not on my mind but in my body; my energy system is reacting with bodily sensations to the “tragedy” of losing something precious. It feels. And to “process” it, to console it I have to turn to my body not to my thoughts.

So I sit with these feelings. I meditate. I allow myself to sense the pain, the anger, the sadness and the grief without judging and explaining it intellectually. And I can also go even further: I can allow for what has happened to happen. I can face, recognize and feel a discomfort of losing something. I am very grateful to my teacher GP Walsh for this training. It is not easy and it takes some practice and preparation to get there. But due to that I can let the energy do its stuff, I can let go of sorrows and sufferings that would keep me in the past for days, months or years. I don’t need to dwell on feelings intellectually because I allow myself to experience them, to acknowledge them and be with them as long as they and not my ego need. And this acknowledgement is a way to approach a situation of losing something. It doesn’t mean that I will forget, it means that my life and body will not be paralyzed by that memory whenever it appears. There is no judgement in meditation, there is only unconditional acceptance.

2 thoughts on “On Mindfulness”

  1. Izabela L-Sletner

    Hi Doris. Thanks for your comment. I write about things I experience. Obviously I will have to write about forgetting things too (the MB). I will come to Mijas meeting, but I don't know if I manage the next one. See you anyway.

  2. Hey Izabela, I know who GP Walsh is, although I haven´t studied anything of his. I´ve studied with one of his mentors, Margaret Lynch. He´s also a musician, right? And you DO have a way of really getting in touch will thought processes and feelings coming up in you and putting it into words.

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