Mindfulness: a review.

[SugarSugarplum]

Meditation

Mindfulness

I listened to a mindfulness podcast.

It was about 20 minutes of the sounds of a quietly babbling brook with a throaty woman softly saying little meditations for me to focus on.

I couldn't have disagreed more.

You are wonderful and perfect, just the way you were made to be.

No, I'm not. I need work. I'm a fixer-upper. Anyone who doesn't need to work on themselves has no reason to live, no reason to strive. They can just sit in a lotus position all day and ohhhhhhm themselves into a trance.

Breathe in good energy, breathe out bad energy.

Air is air. Energy is energy. You can't achieve enlightenment by bonding your shortcomings to carbon dioxide molecules and exhaling them. Nor is there virtue just floating around in the atmosphere hoping I'll breathe it in to become a better person.

I know, I know. This is just visualization. I'm manifesting changes to my spirit to become a better person. This, in my opinion is utter crap. It's like wishing to be thinner, or richer, or more self-confident.

A Tale of Want

I was in a video game a long time ago. There was a way for users to craft their own in-game objects. It wasn't easy. You needed skill in Blender, GIMP, and even some coding to make cool, interesting things.

I was a member of a coding user group in the game, and this guy came in asking for help. Except he didn't want help. He wanted someone else to do all the work for him and give it to him. Except he didn't really want it at all. He wasn't willing to pay any in-game money for the time and effort someone would have to expend to create his vision. Not ANY.

In my mind, if you want something, but are unwilling to put out one penny for it: you don't really want it at all. I asked him if he would pay even 1 coin for it. He refused and spent the next hour chiding me for being a greedy bitch.

Anything worth ZERO to you is worthless to you. You don't really want it. Not really.

Self Improvement over Self Esteem

The problem with empty praise from that podcast is that it's unearned. I had not put out any effort worthy of praise. I wasn't marvelous that day. In fact it was hot in the office and that mindfulness podcast made me waste 20 minutes, then fall asleep. Do you think I was worthwhile to my boss that day? I was not.

No, a far more productive use of my time would be learning, honing my skills, shoring up relationships with my coworkers, and finishing projects. Even touching base with my Dad would be time better spent that listening to some lady tell her expensive mic what a faultless angel it is.

Work on yourself. Reject empty praise. Criticism exists to shine light on your flaws so you can fix them and become more than you are. When a boss or anyone tells you that you have fallen short, you should listen and figure out how to be better. If I believed that podcast, I'd get angry and defensive and probably lash out at them for failing to notice what an unapproachable perfection I am.

Don't be a doof. You're flawed, we all are. Make it a goal to get a little better every day. Accept criticism and use it.

Now someone help me up out of this lotus position. My legs are seized. You can find me up in the Himalayas.

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

Well, you were right about one thing: you still have a lot of work to do.


As much as you may not like yourself, mindfulness does work. You need to stop personifying your thoughts as a part of who you are. There are so many things in thought patterns in psychology that make it clear just how little control we have over the stuff we say in our heads. The first thing you think of, in any situation, whether that be judging someone else’s clothes, or looking at your reflection, or taking in any new information, is what you have been taught to think. It’s not you for real, just your brain processing the information its gathered over your life. What you think immediately after that first thought is what you really think. Changing your thought patterns is a challenge and not always a linear journey, but that seems to be the biggest thing holding you back. You’ve been taught, by someone or something, to hate yourself a lot and only value who you are based on what you can materially give to someone else (I assume as much from this post, I can still be wrong). Take your time to think about where that comes from, find the source that tells you you’re not worthy of love or happiness if you cannot produce anything worthy for someone else. In my experience, it’s usually the parents but it could be something else too, I don't know your life lol


Mindfulness does work, but you have to be willing to say nice things about yourself in order for it to work.

[DishLady]

Anything philosophical is hard to get right… You need to have the right text on mindfulness.


No one is “perfect” but the goal of the whole mindfulness thing is to (1) get you to a state where you’re feeling peaceful, aware of happy with yourself so you can make better, clearer, more rational choices.


We can chat on IM if you like. I talk about mindfulness a lot for work, but NI extreme claims about perfection, I promise. 😂

[exitseven]

I gave you a like on this. Does not happen too many times. Mindfulness is more about paying attention the world is the world and pretending it is great is just delusion. Be strong and do as you will and let others set for you your limits.

N

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎

[Anonymous]

Find another influencer to listen to

[strateguy632]

nice take

[Anonymous]

Very interesting myTake, I like it.