Learning from Mindfulness

[MiM]

I am allowed to enjoy this fabulous morning, in this moment, without striving or planning for future tasks, without brooding in the past, without distracting my mind with today's news, social media or whatever.

I am allowed to feel the warmth of the sun and smell the newly broken breeze from the sea. I am allowed to listen to the cries of the gulls and the chatter of the tits.

It is not only allowed, it is good. We can only live in this moment.

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It is not easy. I have to repeat the above over and over again, almost like a mantra, to keep my mind from running away. And when I do, I feel a resistance in all of my body.

[FeeHutch]

That's a glorious photo and post. Thank you for sharing.

[MiM]

Thank you, FeeHutch

[MiM]

Yesterday was not a mindful day. I got trapped into "waiting mode" and accomplished nothing, while feeling stressed the whole day. This morning I started with a meditation and a resolve to make this day more mindful. After my meditation, I decided to accept yesterday for what it was and start building this day into something better. Then I started to think about what steps I needed to take to make this day difefrent... Which leads me into my topic...

How to be mindful of the past, the present and the future?

I believe I might have fallen into a common beginners confusion about mindfulness and have been conflicting "being in the present" with "learning from the past" and "planning for the future".

My thoughts have been like "If I need to be in the moment, how can I learn/plan..." or "These good moments of inner tranquillity, I have always used them for contemplative thinking and planning (good and important stuff)... do I now need to change them into just being..." and so forth...

I made some internet searching, and among others I found one article, that basically sorted this out for me. How to Be Present and Still Create Your Future

The essence in what I learned from that article is in this (edited) quote (but please read the full article, I believe it is a good one and it is fairly short too):

... mindfulness is [not] about thinking of any one time frame. Mindfulness is about being consciously aware of thoughts and feelings that are happening in the present moment, as opposed to being in default mode...

The reality is we can only experience thoughts and emotions in the present moment; it is the only place we exist. However, in the present you can, with conscious awareness, think about any time frame, past, present, or future. If your goal is to lead a fulfilling life, then how you allocate your thoughts in these time frames matters. The past is gone. We can never bring it back, except by bringing our attention to it. The present, no matter how awful or sweet it may be, is constantly leaving. It is what just passed. Holding on to it is impossible. The future, however, is constantly arriving. The arrival of the future and the now we live in are one and the same.

For the most part, what arrives in our present to become a lived experience is not an accident. We have the power to greatly influence the future by consciously making present-moment choices that are consistent with the future we want.

So no. Mindfulness does not require me to stop planning my future or learn from my past (how silly a thought is that, anyway . I just need to make an effort to be mindfully conscious when I do it. Those "good moments of contemplative thinking", that I referred to above, have actually been perfectly ok, or at least they have been about as close to mindfulness that I have been able to come, without explicit training.

And now I can also choose to allocate more time to being in the present moment, something I have definitely done too little in the past.

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Even if this is in the "Mindfulness&Me" section, any comments on the above are more than welcome

[MiM]

Today is three months since I attended my first mindfulness course session and except for the very first week I have been doing 30 minutes of meditation or yoga (almost) daily. I've been thinking about keeping some kind of mindfulness diary, to follow my own progress, but I am absolutely hopeless at keeping diaries. So I thought I'll maybe attempt to scribble something into this thread, every now and then, instead.

Lately I have been getting strong body sensations when doing meditation on breath. A couple of times I have felt like constantly falling in emptiness and during the last few days meditations my hands have felt completely weird. Something between vanishing altogether and feeling hugely swelled. These sensations have been accomplished by a great feeling of calm and I have often felt quite reluctant to break out of meditation, when my bell has rung, as well as eager to start my sessions. When my minds calms in this way, it is sometimes harder to stay focused on breath, but on the other hand, if the mind starts to wander too much these sensations and the calmness will quickly lessen, to return only if I get my focus back on breath.

Some googling tells me that this is probably quite alright and what I am experiencing is a sign of reaching a deeper level of relaxation, which certainly fits my own experience. I've enjoyed meditating right from the start, but this definitely has moved it to a new level. As a small backlash, I have experienced a few nights with bad sleep, where I believe this mindfulness stuff has been at least part of the reason. However I am used to getting disturbed sleep whenever I feel exited about something new, so I am confident this will soon pass.

LucidMind earlier envisioned a feeling of euphoria during meditation like "maybe similar to doing hard drugs". I don't know about that, but the calm I experience during meditation now definitely surpasses the best calm/buzz of lighting a cigarette or sipping the first sips of a cold beer (and I've done enough of those in my days, to know what I am comparing to, even though I quit smoking decades ago and drink almost nothing today). Can one get addicted to meditation?

[JonW]

"Can one get addicted to meditation?"

I think there's a danger in becoming addicted to the highs of meditation. If that occurs, then striving for particular results has won out.
But regular meditation practice isn't addiction. It's just regularly checking in with ourselves. It's a good habit.
Jon

[MiM]

Thank you, Jon. I believe you gave a similar warning to LucidMind, and I do take that one seriously.

[healthyhappymind]

I agree with Jon. Striving for results can affect the real benefits of meditation/mindfulness.

For me, the real benefits of mindfulness come from the small moments in which I realise I am present. Those spaces during the day in which I find myself not searching for a future plan, or pining for a past. I don't require a special situation, or time for these moments. They tend to come as I go about my day to day activities.

[JonW]

"For me, the real benefits of mindfulness come from the small moments in which I realise I am present."

Yes, exactly this.
Those moments are the fruits of all the practice.
Jon

[MiM]

I all too easily fall into telling a narrative about myself, especially if I consciously try to be present. E.g. I can start thinking about how I would describe the moment in text, like on a forum.

It is kind of weird, because then I am actually observing myself closely, but on the other hand at least half of me is not in the moment, but in the narrative.