Hi everybody, and thanks for the welcome
I found myself in a pretty awful state of mind recently, in fact for the last few years. Basically I realised I was becoming a pretty horrible, bitter person. Now I blamed it on external things, living in a place where I never encountered (and still don't to be honest, but I can deal with this effortlessly now I'm concentrating on my breath a few times a day
) any of the higher human qualities like empathy, consideration for others, self-awareness etc but I was falling deeper and deeper into disdain for others and sheer anger and relentless frustration was my default mode of being
Reading a weightlifting fórum I came across some writings by a former angry-head who wrote about breathing techniques that helped him massively and then a lot of others jumped in, contributing some wonderful anecdotes about how they changed their lives round, all thanks to breathing techniques, mindfulness etc. Off I ran to YouTube, and here I am, dealing with the fact that I never get my soul nourished with human interactions in real life, but I know that getting myself sorted internally can help enormously. Already I have been confronted with a few situations that would have set me off in the past...and in the moment I realised that I wasn't reacting like a mad-man
Instead, I was seeing that, yes, the individuals involved were thoughtless and inconsiderate and blahblahblah, but I was able to accept it and not suffer. I controlled my side of the situation and chose to simply get on with my life, not even thinking of it again. Very nice feeling, it must be said.
Now all I have to do is get the OH practising some mindfulness as well, as she's still suffering with some violent reactions to what we encounter here. The important thing is she's seen the change in me so it should only be a matter of time before her mindfulness career kicks off in earnest