In my previous post, I wrote about trauma voice—the voice that stems from the wounded child. Trauma voice makes us become the worst version of ourselves. But trauma voice is not the only voice that can colour our inner world. There is another voice, one that I call conditioned voice.
Continue reading “Don’t let your conditioned voice override your inner voice”
Meditation teaches us to observe the various narratives running through our minds on a moment to moment basis. For me, when I observe these narratives, I realise that most of them do not serve me. They’re rarely peaceful and calm. My own streams of thought mostly centre around defensiveness, a sense of impatience, or worry. These are nagging and tend to stifle focus and creativity but they are not hugely destructive. On the other hand, every once in a while an exceptionally destructive narrative comes along. These narratives are different. Not only are they more dangerous to my well-being, they are often also routed in trauma.
Continue reading “Don’t let your trauma voice override your inner voice”Our thinking when it comes to destructive patterns is often: I’ll deal with this later.
This is a bad approach because destructive patterns are rarely things that can be contained in neat little boxes. These patterns, whether its something dark and consuming, or something small and less concerning, has the irritating tendency to bleed into other areas of our lives.
Continue reading “Destructive Patterns”
There is this idea these days that we just have to power through all our discomforts to get to a space where we feel okay with ourselves. We need to do more, be more, become more. We need to smash all of our weaknesses and achieve as much as possible. We have to follow a strict diet and an even stricter exercise regime.
But maybe we don’t need that.
Continue reading “Maybe we don’t need more discipline. Maybe we need emotional growth”
I’ve written a few posts on rushing because I know that when I bring repeated awareness to the tendency of rushing, it diminishes the frantic energy around the feeling.
But feeling rushed isn’t the only thing that I’m repeatedly confronted with. During my meditation sessions, I often also become aware that I have a strong tendency to want to solve certain things in my head. This mental looping of problems and solutions, just like rushing, takes me out of the present moment.
Continue reading “The Mental Tendency to Solve”
It seems like all of us, collectively and individually, are trying to get somewhere. But I don’t know if we know where or what the destination is.
The other day I saw a person overtake four or five cars because the car at the front of the line was driving very slowly. This was on a Sunday and I remember thinking, Where are you trying to get to? Truthfully, that wasn’t the only thing that went through my mind. I was the one in the oncoming lane, and so, I was also momentarily taken in by my own anger. Who knows how much time that person eventually saved by rushing, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Does it make up for the carelessness though?
Continue reading “Where are you trying to get to?”
Rushing can be such a default state for me that I sometimes don’t realise that I’m in it. I still have days that I have to bring repeated awareness to my rushing. Recognising rushing does diminish the intensity of the feeling to some degree.
Continue reading “Recognise Rushing”
I like the Buddhist idea of living skillfully. The word skillful isn’t weighed down by dogma. It doesn’t have religious baggage associated with it. Also, most people will have a general idea of what it means. A skillful cook prepares tasty food. In the mindfulness context, we are skillful when we can recognise unhelpful emotional states and disengage from it. We’re skillful when we can recognise our own endless wanting and withdraw from that. We’re skillful when we’re kind and gentle. We’re skillful when we’re free from the psychological suffering associated with excessive thinking and worrying. This idea implies that living well is a skill that we can cultivate through practice. It’s something that everyone can learn to do.
In the past, I’ve often been motivated by fear or worry. Worry about health. Suddenly eat better for a few days. Worry about a deadline. Work to exhaustion. Worry about passing a test. Cram for hours the day before. Fear tends to get us going on some level, but it makes a terrible foundation.
Continue reading “Fear is a Motivator—But the Wrong Foundation”
Life is pain.
Life is suffering
This is true on Earth—but truer on Olrania
These are the introductory sentences of Chasing the Sun, a sci-fi novel that took me multiple years to write. I wanted to touch on a universal truth in those sentences. That everyone—no matter who they are—suffers. Also, things can always get worse. This is certainly the case for the crew of the Algora when they crash land on a desert planet. The story also touches on the idea that, as humans, we are often our own worst enemy.
But this post is not about Chasing the Sun. Rather it is about the suffering that we all have to endure while we are here on Earth. It’s about how we can counter that suffering with a strategy of mindfulness, a strategy to stay present even when things get difficult. My view is that mindfulness lessens our suffering in the moment, but it also moves us closer to peace as we cultivate it.
Continue reading “Mindfulness | A strategy for life.”