None striving

[GirlcalledGed]

I love mindfulness and it has brought many benefits to my life.
I first learnt about the practice with an online course over 3 years ago now. There were some amazing radical shifts. I had the experience of 'no mind' when i meditated. I really saw things for the first time, a blade of grass, or the raisin meditation. I was able to suspend judgment and hold my feelings in awareness.
I think this was because I came to the practice with no expectations and i literally had a beginners mind.
I find none striving so difficult. It goes against a life time of conditioning and cultural expectations.
I haven't been mediating as regularly as I used to but when I do thoughts seem continuous. I felt that I was simultaneously aware of my breath and my thinking but maybe I was kidding myself.
Is this normal? i feel that I have been going round in circles for a long time. Do I just keep practicing awareness and letting go of the striving or is there something I am missing?

Thank you
Ged xxx

[JonW]

"I haven't been mediating as regularly as I used to but when I do thoughts seem continuous."

I think we have the answer. If practice lapses, the chatter soon returns with full monkey-mind force.
Also, try not to get too hung up on the idea of "no mind". We don't meditate to achieve a particular state. We meditate on what is arising in the moment - good, bad or indifferent. At least that's the mindful way. If we start striving for a state of bliss or whatever, we quickly become undone.
Maybe go back to the start of the 8-week course and reconnect with beginner's mind.
Let us know how you get along.
Cheers,
Jon

[MindfulnessRVA]

Try this - When the desire of intent to practice non-striving arises, try to notice how this desire arose? Was it a physical sensation, emotion, or thought? What is present in your body that makes you want to even practice non-striving? For example, when someone is angry it is often suggested to practice compassion, but why? If somone has selfish desires they are encouraged to be selfless, but why is this? To practice something that we are not is not to know ourselves, it is avoidance. When anything at all arises in the mind, just watch the mind judge, change, or try to avoid what it doesn't want. Watch the mind 6th to constantly avoid what it is, what is true desires are. Please consider why it is that you even are trying to practice non-striving? Try your best to look at what is driving your interest in this practice. Any practice that we engage in is because we want something from that practice, this is the root of the problem. It is so hard to stomach this, it is not fun, it yields no pleasantries - it is The Self-Negating Way. There is nothing to find in non-striving, turn the other way and find all the myriad ways of striving first!

[JonW]

"Try this."
No thanks.

[GirlcalledGed]

Thank you both
I have taken to the meditation stool more regularly since writing the last post.
I am not going to start another course just yet.

I am 'striving' to achieve 'non striving' because i understand it to be fundamental to mindfulness and I can see how much misery striving and non acceptance brings me.
Striving arises in thoughts from the moment i wake. I recognise it now but struggle to let the thoughts float by. The recognition that 'non striving' will help comes next as thoughts so I try to accept the situation.
I am missing out on my life and always have been.

I am frustrated because I 'know' mindfulness is the 'cure' but I am missing something fundamental. I have read a lot on the topic and have done 3 courses. One online, a breathworks course a year ago and an NHS one. I know the theory and I know it 'works' from my early experiences and I am so frustrated with myself to still be in this position. I am tormented by self loathing and my 'failures'.
What have I done wrong?

I guess I am not accepting anything at all. Why is it so hard for me? I have spent so many years hating myself and feeling the need to change everything about myself true self acceptance is a complete mystery. I have read about it but I can't feel it.
where do I start? Sorry to moan. Thank you xx

[MindfulnessRVA]

I have spent so many years hating myself and feeling the need to change everything about myself true self acceptance is a complete mystery. I have read about it but I can't feel it. where do I start? Sorry to moan. Thank you xx

The most important thing I can encourage you to do is come back to the breathing. Feel the breath move in the body and out of the body. Experience your breathing and find a difficulty in your life (a 10 pound weight not a 100 pound weight as the MBCT teachers like to say). Sit with breathing and sit with that difficulty. Experience the difficulty in the body, experience the difficulty AND your breath. Breathing is a way to be WITH ourselves, not to change ourself.

For example, I was once talking to a parent of a patient. That parent was taller than I, better looking, quite built, had much more money and a large company. I felt intimidated. Now, I could think about many reasons I shouldn't be this way, but that is what I was in that moment. I am almost always practicing Mindfulness as I observed that intimidation for me was chest tightness, pressure, warmth, tingling in my stomach that rushed up my abdomen through my neck. For just a moment, I realized that I was ok to feel these "unpleasant" physical sensations and thus I was ok to be intimidated. I did not need to change this moment, I did not need to have self-esteem in this moment or any other. In that brief moment, a significant portion of my thinking STOPPED participating in the race for or against self-worth, self-improvement, self-importance. This is simply because it was ok to sometimes feel intimidated!

It seems to be very difficult for us and Mindfulness teachers to stop trying to get students to feel "ok about themselves" or happier, better, or less anxious. We are ok as we are. It is ok to not feel good, to seek help for our depression, to feel and experience difficulty. These are just empty words - The practice is to moment-by-moment come back to the physical experience of the breath. To breathe AND feel sad or to breath AND feel happy. Whatever sensations ares, breathe AND experience them. If you find you are judging and wanting them to change or be better, explore what the physical sensations of judging is like. What is it like to breath AND have judgmental thoughts ore emotions.

To practice this way is True Observation and over time it can lead to what people calll spacious awareness - an experience that suffering is a cloud passing in the sky of openness. This sounds so great and wonderful, but this only happens when we DO NOT want the suffering or difficulty to go away. When we invite it in and breathe WITH it.

Mindfulness practice is the practice of allowing, of AND or being WITH....when people practice to try to change their emotions or life, they have stopped being WITH things and started to try to get rid of something. Mindfulness gets rid of nothing!

[piedwagtail91]

"I felt that I was simultaneously aware of my breath and my thinking "
As long as you're not participating in your thoughts I'd say that's ok.
It's not failure.
That's how I'd describe some of my practice.
Sometimes it's fairly quiet with few thoughts ,sometimes it's crammed full of thought.
Noticing lots of thought is actually good. It's more opportunity to develop awareness,so it's not a problem though it can be frustrating at first.
I see mindfulness as a bit like an umbrella.
Just as an umbrella doesn't stop the rain , but allows you to stand in it without getting soaked, so mindful awareness allows you to notice the thoughts without getting drawn into them.
Perhaps a better term than 'non striving' is 'non doing' or being?
Try not to read too many books.
Once you've got the basics then practice is key.
Mindfulness is experiential, not theory.
All the books in the world aren't much help without practice.
As Jon says going over the course could help you.
Maybe not doing it in full but reading the handouts? Getting back to basics.

[JonW]

'Just as an umbrella doesn't stop the rain , but allows you to stand in it without getting soaked, so mindful awareness allows you to notice the thoughts without getting drawn into them.'

Beautifully put, squire.

[piedwagtail91]

Thanks Jon.

[Gareth]

I love the umbrella metaphor.