Week Six: Trapped in the Past or Living in the Present?

[JonW]

Great minds think alike!
Merging sounds like a beezer idea. Thanks.
Have a lovely Sunday, Jon

[FeeHutch]

OK, I am hoping this makes some sort of sense!

Ah befriending, I struggle with this one! In particular befriending the person I am having difficulties with I was struggling with this person a year ago and I am struggling with them still. This week I made a concerted effort to be with this person and be open and found myself yet again not challenging unacceptable behaviour instead. This lead me back into absorption in past grievances and ended up feeling back at square 1.

Having continued with this practice for the rest of the week I have come to the conclusion that I can wish ease of being to all, including all beings in the world that I don't know (and there are quite a few) but it doesn't mean I have to force myself to maintain relationships that are emotionally damaging to me. I also chose this person as the recipient of my 'good deed' and noticed that despite all my internal angst that still felt like the right choice to have made.

[James123]

Started this week yesterday and I'm hoping this is where it really kicks in for me like it did with Jon.

Is it just me though or have they made a couple of minor mistakes with the formal meditation? They advise you to practice track 1 or 4 (with or without the CD) before the main meditation (with the CD) which is fine. But whether you use the CD or not you still have to stop after the 'grounding' meditation to press play or forward on to track 7. This can't be conducive to getting the best out of the practice, surely?

Also, why does Mark say the phrases so quickly? You haven't got a cat in hells chance to listen to one's reactions of the thoughts/feelings/bodily sensations after imagining you have dropped a pebble down a deep well.

Or am I doing it wrong?

[piedwagtail91]

i've just had a quick listen to this track and agree he doesn't leave long enough for me to repeat the words to myself.
i've not done this course but find it odd to ground yourself and then have to set a track running, going from being to doing and then having to ground again.

if this does really bother you kristin neff does it all in one go with her 'loving kindness' meditation,http://www.self-compassion.org/guided-self-compassion-meditations-mp3.html it's more or less the same, she uses less words and gives plenty of time between them.

i'm not trying to lead you astray or away from the course, give it a listen first without 'doing it' to see if you're ok with it.

i've asked my mentor why this track isn't in our course and she's baffled as well!!!

personally i'd class this as a self compassion or loving kindness/self compassion practice, but thats just my opinion.

[James123]

Thanks Mick. Just had a quick listen for 3 mins so will give it a full listen later when I'm back home.

Still think it's very strange than after thousands of these books sold and together with this forum that a) it's not been mentioned before and b) they could make such silly mistakes.

[piedwagtail91]

I'll never understand it either!
The main difference between Mark Williams and Kristin Neff is in the words they use.
MW will obviously guide mindfuly with lots of words ending in 'ing' which softens the guidance. Lot's of'the' instead of you or your.
KN will not use 'ing' she just says guide or bring instead of guiding or bringing.
So it can sound a bit harsh sometimes.
It makes it sound more'bossy' , which if you're prepared for it may make it less of a possible problem.
The practices, other than that, are the same.

[purplyworply]

Thank you for this forum. I am in a far-away, developing country at the moment with little professional support & it's wonderful to read the posts here. I have started Week 6 & am finding self-compassion hard even to understand. I feel completely cold when encouraged in the meditation to extend these feelings to myself. I see that being kind to yourself is not synonymous with buying yourself a cake or other indulgence. And surely it can't be an excuse not to try hard when things get challenging eg. in my work. Yet I can also see that all my life I have forced myself to do things I've personally found terrifying, in the interests of stretching and building myself. I'm sure it has worked: I have had my successes. But last January I had a dramatic moment. Increasingly unable intellectually or emotionally to do even the simplest of projects I just stood up from my desk and decided I couldn't stand it any longer. I was giving up: retiring, the end, no more achievements, just downhill towards death (I am mid-40s). I haven't worked since & I still have no understanding of what has happened to me, though I have managed to emerge from the wretchedness that engulfed me for a few weeks, into a state where I'm robust enough to take on the Mindfulness course. But Week 6 makes me wonder whether a lifetime of pushing myself with self-criticism and fear, rather than kindness and compassion is at the root of things, although I can't really see what the practical difference would be. I hope this post is not off-topic or too personal, sorry if so.

[JonW]

Not off-topic at all. Or too personal.
I can easily relate to the idea of a lifetime of pushing myself with self-criticism and fear, rather than kindness and compassion.
Mindfulness turned all that around for me.
But "unlearning" all that conditioned behaviour requires time and patience.
The eight-week course is designed to give us a firm grounding in mindfulness. As Kabat-Zinn says, the ninth week is the rest of our life.
Some of the concepts in mindfulness take longer to embed themselves than others. It depends on the individual.
By embarking on the course, you've already demonstrated your ability to be kind to yourself. That's a huge step forward.
Try not to rush towards achieving results with this. Just do it. Try not to think about it too much.
As Kabat-Zinn often says, mindfulness is simple but it's not easy. The "not easy" part of it is keeping up the practice.
It sounds to me as if you are doing admirably.
All good things,
Jon, Hove

[piedwagtail91]

"But Week 6 makes me wonder whether a lifetime of pushing myself with self-criticism and fear, rather than kindness and compassion is at the root of things, although I can't really see what the practical difference would be. I hope this post is not off-topic or too personal, sorry if so."

as jon says it's not off topic.
the difference as i see it is that when you beat yourself up, judge and criticise all that you do you're pushing yourself down, would you say the same things to a close friend who needed help, how would that make them feel?
it can have the same effect on you when you say those things to yourself. if you're depressed or have anxiety problems then you start believing them and it can make things worse.
by using kindness and compassion you can get things done by encouraging yourself, and feeling better about yourself in the process.
you can achieve all the same goals and have a better quality life and begin to believe in yourself again.

as jon says the change isn't easy.
it took me around 12 months or maybe more before i could even sit though any form of compassion meditation without wanting to turn it off.
good luck
mick

[JonW]

I feel it's also worth adding that mindfulness has nothing in common with any "self-help" approaches which are usually based around getting from A to B by practicing Z within Y (a certain time frame).
The simple beauty of mindfulness is that it's not about getting anywhere. It's largely about learning to be more present right now, rather than ruminating on the past or worrying about the future. So much of our lives are spent wishing that the present moment was other than it is, when it is the only moment we actually have. So we spend our lives grasping at pleasurable experiences and pushing away the experiences we don't like. With practice, we might be able to see that there is nothing wrong with the present moment if we're not thinking about it.
If we ask ourselves "Am I doing it right?", it implies that we are turning mindfulness into yet another self-judgment. But mindfulness keeps its own hours. Patience and self-compassion are at its very heart. It helps if we see the 8-week course not as a way of achieving a goal, a getting from A to B, but as a way of grounding ourselves in a practice that we will honour for the rest of our lives. To honour it, we only need to practice regularly with self-compassion with no specific goals in mind.
When I completed my 8-week course, I found that further reading helped me enormously in terms of deepening my understanding and firming up my commitment. My reading list included mindfulness books by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mark Williams & Danny Penman, Oli Doyle, Ed Halliwell, Thich Nhat Hanh, Richard Gilpin and others. The list also included books by Charlotte Joko Beck, Joan Tollifson, Toni Packer, Eckhart Tolle, Ramana Maharshi, Alan Watts, John Wheeler, David Carse, Jeff Foster, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and others.
If I was asked to nominate one book to read after the course, I'd probably go for Jon Kabat-Zinn's Coming To Our Senses.
As I've probably mentioned before, I run a mindfulness meet-up group here in Brighton which now has close to 100 members. It's cheap to run (about £1.75 a week) and a great way of getting to know like-minded people. If there's no mindfulness group in your area, it might be worth considering starting your own. https://secure.meetup.com/create/
All best,
Jon, Hove