JOT Week 1 - Be For Yourself

[JonW]

It's almost like a breathing space, just taking a few seconds out to notice what has arisen in the mind. And, as Fee says, realising that we don't have to accept every thought as a fact. I'd wager that very few thoughts are facts. Even the thoughts that I assume are facts (e.g. Banjo is the world's greatest spaniel) are actually entirely subjective when investigated closely.
I'm fond of quoting Jon Kabat-Zinn who says, "Thoughts are mere secretions of the mind."
That's all they are.
No more power than a soap bubble unless we empower thoughts in such a way.

[Gareth]

Banjo isn't the worlds greatest spaniel?

[betty.etal]

"Being mindful can mean letting go of desires and being free of ego.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?"
To my mind, it's not so much about letting go of desires and being free of ego, but rather being less attached to those things. Desires will always arise. The ego (the self) is inescapable. It's a question of how we relate to those things.

I agree it's not about letting go of desires or doing anything with them, it's about just watching them. Easier said than done, but as mindfulness builds it seems to become easier. :0)

Betty

[Steve]

I came across this quote from JKZ about mindfulness and thought it appropriate for this week's topic:

"We befriend ourselves. We learn how to drop in on ourselves, visit and hang out in awareness."

Steve

[Metaphysical Me]

Oh dear... The JOT book is starting to annoy the living daylights out of me.

Initially, when I picked it up, I found the *amount* of instructions annoying. I posted about this in the general JOT thread at the time - the amount of explanations and instructions seemed to run so against the grain of "just one thing". Hmm.

Also, the whole worksheets/ videos/ emails stuff also really annoys me - again it runs totally counter the "one thing" idea - and also to the idea of mindfulness, as far as I'm concerned...! I mean, how many of you go around filling in worksheets during mindfulness stuff?? Ugh!

So, despite these initial disappointments, I decided to ignore all that and just focus on the core excercises, so that I wouldn't let a few flaws in the book/ concept stop me from benefitting from it's core intent.

But now, I've found week 1 a *terrible* disappointment - I just think it was an AWFUL choice of theme/ topic for the starting week! I'd have been happy to do this kind of task at, say, week 10 - but as the opening topic, it's totally misguided, IMO.

So, yesterday I decided to "let go" of week 1 - no point in frustrating myself with something that doesn't sit right, I figured - and decided to read the infos in the book for week 2, so that I could focus on something more positive.

However, weeks 2 and 3 are also annoying me... as are many of the other weeks' excercises I skimmed today.

I don't know how to explain this, exactly, but they are so... un-neutral. They're so "moral"... He's always picking the "positive" side of something and telling us to focus on that. That really irks me. To me, mindfulness is about observing what IS, not about trying to force the focus on to "the positive".

I just checked out last year's book, to see if that was any better, or the same, and from what I can tell, it was *much* better. For example, in "How to train a wild elephant", Week 1 was simply the (neutral) excercise of "using your non-dominant hand". Far better!!

I'm not sure where I want to go with it... On the one hand I'm tempted to just stop using the JOT book, cos it's managed to disappoint me badly 4 times right off the bat. So, I could use the "Elephant" book instead. But, as I assume no one else here is doing that book (anymore) this year, it'd have no really viable thread... I guess I could just go and read the comments in the thread that were left to each topic last year...

Alternatively, I'm considering just using the names of the weeks' themes/ topics, from the JOT book's contents page. Maybe if I just take the vague, general idea, without all of R. Hanson's (to my mind) unfortunate comments, that will be a bit more neutral and sit better with me...

[betty.etal]

Metaphysical Me - have you considered using this as an opportunity to watch mind in action - to simply watch with nonjudgmental awareness all the thoughts around how annoying the book is? It sounds like an amazing opportunity to be mindful of how mind always wants something to be different to how it is. I grew up in an incredibly judgmental household and always thought that my judgment of other things was valid, but the more I meditate and become mindful, the more I personally see that it is my reaction against that is causing me the suffering, rather than the facts of what I'm judging. Life seems to be becoming a lot easier as I watch my reactions without judging.

Just thought I'd offer this from my experience in case anything resonates - obviously if it doesn't, just let it go as a crazy idea from Down Under!

Best wishes,

Betty

[MaggieMckernon]

Can you keep me in the loop here, are we changing today to Week 2,do we post week 2 comments here or is that on a separate thread, and if so how can I locate that please?

[Metaphysical Me]

Hi Betty, are you from Oz too? (I'm living in Europe right now tho.)

Yep, I do get what you mean, and yep, I've been giving that a go too, but I'm at the point where I'm ready to just call it an annoying book, for me.

It's like that teaching on when you are thirsty, don't meditate on the feeling of thirst for too long - go and get a glass of water.

So yeah, I am trying to find a viable solution for myself with this, without just "running" from this book, because my first impressions have been rather... crap.

At the same time, one of the things I've loved about growing older and wiser (in my mid-thirties, haha) is *knowing* what works for me and what doesn't... I shudder to think back to my 20s and the agony of so often not knowing "what do I want", "what works for me", "is it me or is it ............" etc, etc.

So, I'm pretty sure that it *is* the book that's not well written and not well conceived (IMO) that's giving me the ****s and not an internal judgement that I'm having.

(Ugh, hope that makes sense... Just got woken by the dog for a 2:30 am walk and not feeling very lucid! )

[Metaphysical Me]

Can you keep me in the loop here, are we changing today to Week 2,do we post week 2 comments here or is that on a separate thread, and if so how can I locate that please?

Hi Maggie, yeah, I think we're changing every Sunday... And nope, there's no week 2 thread yet, but I guess you can start it (with the same title as this one, except a "2" instead of a "1" and the title of Week 2's excercise) if you're ready to start posting!

[betty.etal]

Metaphysical Me - Wow, interesting time to be walking the dog. :0)

It's fascinating isn't it how individual books are, and one that is great for one person is a total annoyance for another. Maybe the best way to be for yourself is to let go of this book entirely since it's annoying you so much!

I'm from over the ditch from Oz - I'm a Kiwi.

Betty