Mindfulness Isn't for Everyone!

"Mindfulness Isn’t For Everyone!"

I’d finished around 5 years of studying and training when my Dad dropped this one on me. We were out walking along the Wirral Way and in his jovial way he said “Mindfulness Isn’t for Everyone!”  He dropped it into the conversation as a sort of self defence strategy, maybe harbouring some deep fear that I’d drag him off to Yoga for a soul cleansing.

But you know what - I sort of got it. I thought to myself well who am I to be standing on my little soap box telling everyone to meditate.  Who indeed.  Dad is one of the calmest people I know, he literally drifts through life without a care in the world so maybe he is right.  Maybe he’s enlightened. Let’s leave that there for a minute or two.

There are too many years to put down on paper where I’ve struggled with so many things.  Narcissism, self worth, striving, emotional abuse, stress, depression, anxiety, if it’s related to the emotional system, then it’s probably on my bingo card.  For me this was normal life, I never imagined there was any other way to get through life or to feel.  Yet on another level, I sort of hoped that I could get fixed, that there was some miracle cure for whatever it was that just stopped me from being happy.  I came close on the Yoga mat.  Not the moving bit, but the lying down at the end, sometimes followed by tea and biscuits.   My yoga teacher told me to meditate but I just didn’t get it.  I felt great during the visualisations but what was the point of feeling good during a meditation. What about the other 23 ½ hours in the day?

I now realise that I was missing a piece of the jigsaw. Meditation time is more than time out, it’s a retraining of our minds and our emotional system. We waste so much life drifting along at the mercy of our emotions but when we learn to “notice” we get real insight into how we operate. We get insight into how we react and behave, who and what triggers us.  It is this training that helps us to become less reactive and to take a step back. This is the true journey of mindfulness.

Getting less caught up naturally creates a little bit of calm and with less going on, the mind naturally finds the space to settle and lose some of its noise. 

This is where the true magic happens, because space in the mind frees it up for all sorts of realisations.

Now we begin to see the root cause of our personal patterns.  We see the coping strategies we've adopted and how they lead us down the same path again and again.

Let me explain that. For many years I had this idea that I had to prove myself at work. I’d take on more and more responsibility until I had to work at such an intensity to keep up, I would literally burn out. I used to call this stress.  It was always easy to blame the workload, but in some ways I sort of attracted it. Seeing this pattern was so powerful because now I don't have to fix it, I just avoid going down that path. 

This is the true power of a consistent mindfulness practice.  I know that people struggle with the intensity of life and I know there are some who want something different.  I’m not here to fix, because everything we experience in life becomes our teacher. However, if I can remove the pain from someone’s life; if I can give them hope that they too can fulfill their aspirations, then my purpose has been served. 

So, if you're curious about whether mindfulness can change your situation but you’re not sure where to start, come along to a forthcoming retreat.  It's a simple start, just take a little time out and get a feel for the practice.