Everyday Mindfulness

The main reason I’m setting out on practicing mindfulness is to overcome a particularly distressing situation I’ll outline here.

Ten years ago, after a few bouts of depression over several decades arising from failed relationships in the UK, I determined to find happiness and a new lady in my life in Thailand. ‘Okay,’ I hear you say, ‘another old man wanting a young woman to take care of him. Hmm!’ Okay, an understandable reaction. However, to cut a long story short, I did find and marry a lovely Thai lady and retired in Thailand after making a new home from what was no more than a tumbledown wooden shack owned by new wife’s mother in a Thai village. We lived blissfully happy for five years – my in-laws upstairs in an improved home, my wife, her two children and me downstairs in a comfortable two-bedroom home. One day my wife’s uncle, a senior Buddhist monk, became a millionaire after winning the government lottery. Yes, a well-known abbot playing the lottery! He lavished gifts, including new cars, motorbikes, farmland and various luxury items on several members of the family. But not my wife or kids.

Skipping details of events leading to the crunch, eventually it became clear this monk and my mother-in-law didn’t need the foreigner, me, who’d supported them through lean times, and provided new homes, around anymore. Hostility and scheming soon forced me to return to England because I lacked the finances needed to rent elsewhere in order to stay with my wife and her children. It’s impossible under UK law to bring my wife to live in this country due to my lack of sufficient money. I’m now living alone in sheltered accommodation, my wife is currently working elsewhere in Asia to make ends meet. We miss each other terribly but have mustered the strength to survive in separate lives. Despite the fact it was a Buddhist monk who brought about the separation of his niece and her husband, I’ve managed to cling to my respect and belief in the principles of Buddhism, particularly mindfulness. Because my wife is a devout Buddhist I am encouraged to pursue my quest to overcome grief and loneliness through practicing mindfulness.

And it’s working!

Hello and welcome to our community.
Thank you for sharing your story. I feel it's important to be clear that Everyday Mindfulness is a site devoted to secular mindfulness and draws from the work of writers such as Kabat-Zinn, Williams and Penman. If mindfulness from a Buddhist point of view is more your thing, a Buddhist website might be more suitable for you.

It sounds like you've dealt with a lot of difficult and distressing events in your life and it's lovely to hear you feel mindfulness has such a positive impact for you.

I take your point, but I'm sure the secular route found here is the path for me. Thanks you for your suggestions, which I fully understand and appreciate.

dunmoanin wrote:I take your point, but I'm sure the secular route found here is the path for me. Thanks you for your suggestions, which I fully understand and appreciate.

I've just seen your other post about being on week 2 of the Williams and Penman book so we do seem to be 'on the same page' as it were

Absolutely! Cheers!

Lovely to meet you.

This sounds like a very challenging life situation. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

It's amazing the stuff that mindfulness can get you through, so I think you have a good ally on your side.

I’d like to update my progress although still only at the beginning of Mark Willams’ course, Week 2, The Body Scan.
Until a couple of days ago I had no communication with my wife due to the overwhelmingly traumatic situation resulting from us being unexpectedly forced to live apart. Although we did keep in touch via the internet for the first few months back in 2013, gradually the situation seemed more hopeless. So we stopped all lines of communication. Since starting practicing mindfulness I realised trying to pretend my wife no longer existed wasn’t going to help so I emailed her, suggesting we try Skype video & messaging again. This, for me, was a huge challenge but feel convinced – so long as it stays controlled by the realisation we are extremely unlikely ever to be reunited – it has been helpful in feeling a little better with myself, able to recognise that living is now, and the past is only memories. Although hard, in our Skype calls we have managed to chat and reminisce without undue overwhelming emotion preventing that chance. We’ve also exchanged photos and E-cards. It’s too early to say if things will continue this way, but at this moment it’s a wonderful opportunity to enjoy.

It sounds like you are really putting mindfulness in to action

I’ve just completed week 6 of Mark Williams’ Mindfulness course, Finding Peace In A Frantic World. I’m astounded and truly grateful that I’ve stuck with it thus far. The benefits are amazing and hugely helpful. Some who might have read my story at the beginning of this post just might have thought I was being a bit premature in saying I had already seen a marked improvement of how I was dealing with a particularly difficult life-changing situation as early as week 1. Well, I’m delighted to confirm it was no false start . . . no speculative statement. It was real and as I continue to follow the course regularly and with determination I can honestly say my life has improved dramatically. Gone are the feelings of hopelessness and depressing, dark moods. In their place is a real awareness of being in the present moment, recognising that thoughts are only mental events that come and go like clouds crossing the sky. I’ve taken it all on board and am practicing daily to recognise the difference between the mind being in the ‘doing mode’ rather than the ‘being mode’. I encourage all who seek to overcome difficulties to stick with it. It’s so worthwhile.

Great to see you back here, dunmoanin, and great to hear it's all going well.
All good things,
Jon