Everyday Mindfulness

Hi All, I have been practicing mindfulness for over a year and a half. It was severe, chronic anxiety that led me to it, and it was the best thing to happen to me - in fact it changed my life! Up until four days ago. I have had a relapse, which has taken me by surprise, and feels all the more awful after such a long, good stretch. I really felt all 'that' was behind me, and I couldn't imagine ever feeling so bad ever again. And I can't help but feel really disappointed - I thought my brain had changed!! I have a formal, daily sitting practice, and make the time for it, give-or-take the odd day. I do understand why I have probably relapsed ( a combination of stuff all happening at once), but I thought my practice would have led me to a place where I could handle those things now. I feel like mindfulness has let me down, as silly as that sounds! I know it is what turned me around before, but I'm feeling strangely resentful. Can anyone relate?
Thanks, L

Hi Loobyloo,
Sorry to hear you've been having a tough time of it.
However regularly we practice, our lives will experience choppy waters from time to time and catch us unawares. But mindfulness is all about facing what comes up in our lives, good and bad. It will never take us to a place where we're able to handle everything easily. To expect that would be striving towards some kind of perfection and would therefore be counter-productive.
Maybe this is a good time to reevaluate your practice? Maybe integrate the body scan and/or yoga into your daily routine. Maybe read/reread a few books (Jon Kabat Zinn's Coming To Our Senses is highly recommended). Maybe consider returning to the 8-week course. Or attending a refresher course. That's not to suggest in any way that your practice has become stale, only that it might benefit from a fresh perspective.
In the meantime, please don't hesitate to post any questions on this forum. We're a friendly bunch and we'll always do our best to help.
Wishing you good things, Jon

Hello loobyloo and welcome to our community.
Jon has both beaten me to it and taken the words out of my mouth, I can only second his suggestions and his recommendation to check out Coming To Our Senses which I am currently reading.

It sounds like you have a lot going on right now but please make yourself at home and feel free to ask questions and share your experiences.

Hi Jon and Feehutch,
Thank you for responding! And yes, you are entirely right, I have been striving for perfection and perhaps using meditation as a 'band-aid' lately, thinking, "Oh as long as I sit every day, nothing 'bad' will happen", as if meditation is a cure-all and will ward off all of life's uncomfortable stuff. I know that striving is the opposite to what I 'should' be doing, and isn't what mindfulness is about at all. I think lately I was just fitting my meditation practice in, without really paying attention Thank you for the book recommendation, I'm going to get it right now - I have taken the day off work, so I can dive right in. In a non-striving effortless way of course...

Hi,

Ezra Bayda, one of my favorite Zen teachers, constantly reminds us that our challenges ARE the practice. They aren't a distraction from practice, or wrong, they ARE what practice is all about. They provide the incentive to go deeper. Lord knows I am a long way from being able to act with equanimity in all situations, but his reminders about the above have helped me a lot.

I also know exactly what you mean about the tendency to think of mindfulness as a magic talisman, able to ward off bad things in life. It's not, as I know you know. It's a way of meeting the difficult stuff head on. Ezra Bayda's teacher, Joko Beck, was very clear on this as well. Her words are also worth checking out, if you like. Look her up or Bayda on Amazon if you care to.

I struggle with some anxiety too, and opening up to it isn't easy or fun, but it has helped me meet some of my own challenges in a more positive manner.

And I concur...I've only been part of this online community a short time, but the friendliness and honesty here are refreshing.

Jeff

I concur with Jeff on Ezra Bayda and Charlotte Joko Beck. Extremely wise writers. And you don't need to be a Zen Buddhist to appreciate them. Toni Packer and Joan Tollifson are also worth mentioning.
I find reading to be an invaluable part of my mindfulness practice. Whether I'm reading about mindfulness, Taoism, Buddhism, non-duality or any other subject, it all helpfully feeds in.
Enjoy your day off, Loobyloo. I've got Andy Pandy on my mind now!
All best, Jon

Jeff - thank you. That has given me some good perspective today - that the challenges we face are all part of the practice - as I am dealing with some intense emotions/physical sensations. I have been trying to 'lean in' to the feelings, but this is so very hard to do when it is only human to feel great aversion towards them! Sometimes you can feel so caught up in the storm you automatically start fighting - but if you were to just let yourself float within the eye of the storm, things would start to settle again.

I will look up Ezra Braydon and Joko Beck - thanks for the heads up. I have dug out my copy of JKZ's 'Wherever You Go, There You Are', and also 'Loving Kindness' by Sharon Salzberg, and 'The Places That Scare You' by Pema Chodron.

Jon, you are right - reading can be of great help at bringing you back on to the right path - thank you.

Lucy

It sounds like mindfulness has been really good to you for a long time, that's fantastic but it might have given you a false sense that mindfulness equates to happiness, which of course it does not. Life is difficult sometimes, and that is never going to change.

This is an opportunity to test your practice however. Don't use this as an excuse to neglect it, instead teach yourself how to be with these negative feelings and emotions but know that it won't always be this way.

Hello Loobyloo

Try to remember that what u are feeling now is temporary & will pass! This is why u have been doing mindfulness.. u have been in training.

It's time to put ur mindfulness training into practice. Do not revert back to how u would have dealt with this before, U can let this go quicker than ever b4 - U are different now - solid like the earth and all the other things around u are fluid and will move on!

Now here's a more educated response:

From the book: 'Fear'
by Hanh, Thich Nhat

It is in moments like this that we stick to our mindful breathing and gently recognise our afflictions whether anger, fdustration or fear. We practice: 'breathing in I know that anxiety is in me, breathing out I smile to my anxiety'

'You cultivate the energy of mindfulness with mindful breathing and walking and with that energy you can recognise and tenderly embrace your worry, fear and anger'

All the Best,

GG

Dear Loobyloo, it may help you to check your intention when going to sit in meditation. My experience as a teacher is that almost everybody - at least to begin with and longer in many cases - approach mindfulness with the hope that it will take their pain away - like a pill.

What I notice is that people meditate in order to get away from their experience and I did this myself for a few years when I started many years ago.

At some point on the courses I will invite people to go "look for trouble" in their mindfulness practice. What I mean and explain here is that mindfulness is about being curious and alive to how things are right now and this includes feelings and experiences we don't want and find painful. So I ask people to look into their experience and notice what is uncomfortable right here and now, and to ask themselves what this something feels like. This something may be obvious like anxiety or fear or it may be something fuzzy and vague on the edge of awareness.

The point I am making here is that mindfulness is about the experience you are having - anxiety, fluttery stomach, tight chest, feelings of panic and not about an ideal state that we imagine we can have. We already know we can be different that is why we practice. But we must learn to turn toward our experience with courage, patience and above all else, kindness.

My sense of you is that you have some knowledge of practice and a good motivation too. Perhaps when you sit in meditation next you could ask yourself - "how can I turn toward difficult experiences?" This is you finding you own way with your own experience which is both the same as everybody else's and unique too.

When I used to feel really anxious or fearful I would ask myself, "what is really so unbearable about this experience right now?" And you know what? I could never find anything that was unbearable except the thoughts that were telling me so.

If you are familiar with Buddhism the First Noble truth is that there is some suffering in Life. The second is the cause of it is wanting and not wanting, so look at how you create suffering by wanting a particular experience and not wanting another. The third is that there is an end to suffering and the fourth is how to end suffering. We end suffering by noticing how we create it.

I hope you find this piece useful Loobyloo, I wish you much love and peace, Happy Buddha