Hi

[Seneca]

Hi to all who browse this section,

I found mindfulness through taking an 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course about 18 months ago and it inspired me to make some much needed changes in my life, largely through helping manage my anxieties and perspective.

I moved to a new country in January of this year and have found my practice to be up and down. There have been weeks where I've happily meditated every morning and felt liberated through the practice, but more recently I've been struggling to find a point of connection with the practice. It doesn't feel vital like it used to, but logically I know I have a responsibility to practice for my own health and well-being.

One reason I've decided to try and sign up for this forum is because since moving to my current location, I've been quite socially isolated and haven't felt any wider connection or motivation with my practice. I suspect this is a factor for why it has felt so abstracted from my daily life at times. I hope it should be easier to feel engaged with mindfulness and meditation when one is reaching outside oneself for resources and motivation.

I'm usually more of a lurker on forums, but I'd like to be a regular poster here, as it seems like it would be a great resource for something I want to be a big part of my life and would enable me to better practice articulating my own thoughts and beliefs about the practice.

Hope to be inspired and motivated from reading everyone else's thoughts on their own journey and maybe even be able to help others where I can

Thanks for reading this

[MiM]

Hi Seneca,

I (also) signed up on this forum a few weeks ago, with the hope to find a bunch of people for casual talk around mindfulness. I haven't moved or anything, but I have no IRL friends who are into this.

It seems, though, that this forum isn't a very chatty one. You will get great answers to any specific questions you might have, but if you are also looking for a social context, this might not be the place? I have been wondering a bit about why, as it seems people here are generally super friendly and welcoming. Does mindfulness make people more careful with what and when to write? Do newcomers feel uncertain about commenting on each others questions? (I know I do). Is meditating too private to open up about on a public forum?...

Anyway, welcome here. At least I am still lurking around here to see how things develop, maybe there are others too?

[JonW]

Hi Seneca,
Welcome to the forum.
As MiM points out, you'll get plenty of help with queries here on the forum but it's not the chattiest place.
One option is to start a mindfulness meet-up group in your local area. My group is two years old now and we're up to 340 members. We meet occasionally in my local pub.
http://www.meetup.com
Very easy to set up and cheap to run. Mine costs less than a tenner a month.
Cheers,
Jon

[FeeHutch]

Hello and welcome to the forum

I have tried to encourage more chat on the forum since we began but it has evolved in such a way that it seems people do use it primarily to ask questions, garner opinions. Most forums I use for a variety of things usually have some sort of 'general' or 'off topic' board where people might talk about The Great British Bake Off or the football or anything else that takes their fancy.

We have always tried to let the forum develop without too much interference from us but at the same time we are always open to suggestions and ideas. Do you have any thoughts on encouraging more chat here Seneca? Don't worry if not of course, this isn't a test

I think Jon is spot on about finding a local mindfulness group too if you can

[Gareth]

Maybe mindful people aren't very chatty people? Perhaps it will come with time and more members. I hope so.