Our minds matter most because this is where it all starts: our perspective, thinking, judgements, reactions, self worth, happiness. It's about being more aware, grounded in the present moment, with more insight and balance. And this effects our connection to others and to the environment. Yet how much attention do we give our minds? This blog gives an intro to mindfulness and a ton of resources on how it can help individual, social and environmental change.
When asked what the benefits of meditation are - what better to hear than someone's experience:
"The practical elements of mindfulness - as in the meditation - is very useful and grounding. Doing it everyday makes it a lot easier to apply the learnings from meditation to every day life. Particularly the case of the meditation called 'exploring difficulties'. I found it very difficult to do this meditation well while actually meditating but it was very useful when I was actually experiencing a difficulty in real life. As soon as I started to the Exploring Difficulty meditation and it really cut through the tendency to spiral and helped the emotion to dissipate. Even though I was only being aware of the feeling and not trying to make it go away. It just meant that I was left with the issue at hand and not the layers upon layers of thinking that I'd added to it."
Brene Brown is hilarious. And has a real gift of getting a point across. She is a social researcher and a story teller. She has written a book called 'Daring Greatly' (see other posts) following her TED talk which was watched by 11 million people have watched. TED - stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and it brings together people from all over the world to share ideas, insights and experiences and then shares the most innovative, engaging, funny, creative, moving talks on their website (for free). And it seems a lot of us are relating greatly to what Brene Brown has discovered through her research about what vulnerability, shame and connection is.
This video has inspired me to be more honest and talk to close friends about what I feel 'shame' about and what makes me vulnerable (which - by the way - has made me feel better and stronger). So I share it with you now.
So let me summarise her talk and some of the points she makes - but please - watch the video (19 mins) because she makes these points in a poignant, hilarious, engaging way that I am absolutely not going to do justice to:
The difference between those people that have a sense of worthiness, and a strong sense of belonging and those that don't is that the former believe that they are worthy of love and belonging. That feeling of 'belief' is the only thing that separates the two groups.
The one thing that keeps us from 'connecting' with others is our fear that we are not worthy of connection. That we are not enough.
We spend a lot of time feeling that we 'are not ________ enough' (fill in the blank). She calls this 'scarcity'. And the way we deal with scarcity - is often to try and numb these feelings or avoid them by eating, medicating, buying things, using our phones...
The challenge is that we cannot selectively numb. When we numb anxiety, sadness, fear - e also numb happiness, joy and gratitude.
In order to connect, we have to be authentic - be ourselves - even if it makes us feel vulnerable. We have to embrace that vulnerability and not push it away. It can lead to creativity, happiness, feeling balanced, feeling connected.
We can embrace imperfection. We live in a world now that wants to have perfect children. They are hard wired for challenges because they aren't perfect and instead we need to be helping them deal with things not being perfect. We need to teach them how to deal with challenges, vulnerability, fear, not succeeding. Getting through them is a really valuable skill.
Being mindful - which this blog is all about - is very much about being honest, being 'you', being 'enough', leaning into unpleasant feelings rather than rejecting them. Brene Brown reminds us what vulnerability is, how it shows itself and what it can lead to - and the answer isn't always negative as we imagine - it's tough but it is also the key to connecting to others, to creativity, to authenticity, to courage, to dealing with change and pain.
I have recently spoken several times to close friends about the things that I feel really vulnerable about and about what makes me feel most 'shame'. For years, pretty much forever, I hadn't talked about it and that as Brene Brown says, is how shame derives its power - by being unspeakable. It wasn't as easy as just coming out with it and it has taken one year of engaging in mindfulness (both the practice and the theory) to build up to talking about those things - but once you do - you realise you are not alone, you realise it is liberaing to be honest, and it has left me feeling stronger.
She does a follow up video on 'shame' too. Well worth a watch. For more on her, and vulnerability - see my other blog posts about her book which is also referenced on the 'Resources for You' page.
During a meditation retreat, I crawled out of bed at 6.30 to attend the mornings meditation and as my mind woke up, it was slowly overwhelmed by the loss of a great love. I felt very sad. I sat to meditate and let the feeling sit with me, trying to focus on my breathe. Tears rolled down my face as I breathed. I gave myself a 'break' and just let it all be and at the end of the meditation - the teacher read out this poem. I chuckled to myself at its poignancy - the timing was perfect. Heartbreak is hard but all things pass.
All Things Pass - Lao Tzu All things pass A sunrise does not last all morning All things pass A cloudburst does not last all day All things pass Nor a sunset all night All things pass What always changes? Earth...sky...thunder...mountain...water...wind...fire...lake Do man's visions last? Do man's illusions? Take things as they come. All things pass.
There is a reason for the saying 'its what you do today that matters most'. Meditation practice got difficult with 3 weeks to go before vipassana because I got sick and had to finish work and move out. In cases such as these, the teaching is - just as per the practice itself of just coming back to breathe when your mind wanders (without judging yourself) the same applies for not practising for a while. Just start again and don't judge yourself. Sounds good to me! 2 weeks til vipassana and I'm in Thailand heading to an island! Today I meditated on a bus for 2 hours. I don't think my ass has ever hurt so much! The extra 15 mins on top of what I was doing seemed to be solely dedicated to ass pain! The longer mediations are very interesting. So much more comes up and is experienced and needs to be breathed through than in 40 mins. Today, one of my hairs was tickling my face in that kind of way that you just need to immediately move it and scratch it. It is an acute sensation which ordinarily you'd react to straight away. One of the purposes of watching these experiences is to recognise change - impermanence. Sensations are a good example of this and so i watched. Sure enough within about 2 minutes which in meditation time - is quite a lot of 'moments' - the sensation had completely disappeared! This small and seemingly trivial event shows that our reactions to things - often as a result of what feels like a strong sensation or feeling - might be different if we stop and watch for a moment. Reactions after a pause could help in many situations in life. Unfortunately the same disappearing act of sensations cant be said for the pain in my ass! For about the last 30 mins it really hurt. Aside from watching the pain change in feeling, intensity, locality which happens when you watch, I find it interesting that when I put my awareness in other areas of my body - they feel really nice. My feet against my soft flip flops. My back against the seat. The relaxed feeling in my face. Despite the pain, there were other nice experiences to focus on. My whole experience didn't have to be defined by that aspect, as long as my mind didn't just say over and over 'it hurts, it hurst!' The idea of working through the sensation of pain is that we encounter pain in life all the time but there are often two arrows. The first arrow is the sensation of pain in the body or even the mind (for emotional pain). Then there is often a second arrow which is the thinking that goes with it. This second arrow is often resistance - a frustration with the pain - a denial that it is happening or thoughts of annoyance. The pain multiplied by the resistance often leads to quite a lot of suffering. The 'invitation' when meditating is to watch the pain and your thoughts. And try not to just wish the alarm would ring!! In this way, you have pain, but less resistance and therefore less suffering. In life, this helps to reduce suffering and increase acceptance of what is. For the 30 mins, I tried several techniques - softly labelling what was happening (a practice recommended in insight meditation) - followed by 'how long left? When will it ring?!!!), deep breathing (ring!!!), body scan to see how the rest of my body felt (reminding myself that I was probably in last 10 mins), breathing (ring!!!!), calming my mind.... Ding dong, ding dong. Ahhhhh.....welcome back bum!