Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness means to be mindful or aware of our thoughts, feelings, and environmental surroundings. Most of us our lost in our heads, our thoughts run our life, we see through veils of our own beliefs, feelings, and thoughts. Our brain seems to be set up for disaster especially in the case of mental illness. If we let our brains go wild we can become easily disconnected from reality. So the practice of mindfulness and awareness is imperative to our sanity.

The western world

I have often dreamed of living in the wilderness or on my own land far away from society living amongst nature and surviving off the land. I daydream that maybe in that type of environment I would feel at ease and at peace.

I know though that it is not necessarily my environment that causes my discord it is my mind. No matter where I have gone (and I've moved a lot) my mind follows and the same issues eventually arise.

Maybe it is just me, maybe you have felt this way too but I just can't get in the groove of this type of civilization. I see a world run by money, advertising, commerce. Working 9 to 5 jobs, having to be on top of to the do lists. If you slip up it is likely that your safe secure world will crumble or at least be difficult to get back on track.

If you live with a mental illness this reality may have become apparent to you. It is increasingly hard to maintain a functioning life in this society with the ever increasing demands and hoops we must all jump through. Factor in absolutely no down time or down time watching cable TV our minds constantly being hit with more useless information we have no awareness of, well, awareness.

To keep my sanity I do not watch the news, I don't watch horror movies, I do not listen to negative music, I will not keep bad company. Again this is me, these things bother me. To keep my sanity I do not expose myself to any negative situations or environments.

It has taken me years of writing, meditating, and observing myself and my environment to realize these things really do bother me and why. Now I can choose things that will better my moods or keep them stable and my mind clear, well somewhat clear, hey I’m not perfect. Far from it my friend. But I am surely better than I was, so we are off to a good start.

                                                                                  Meditation as a Tool

I recently read an article on the NAMI website talking about tools to create mindfulness and to practice it. It discusses meditation, deep breathing, yoga, and art like writing, painting, sculpting, decorating. You can read the article here as it also has a personal story of someone who has used different techniques to regain his sanity which I found inspiring.

I want to focus on one tool for now; meditation. Meditation is the practice of becoming still. Most people would say it is the practice of clearing your thoughts but the moment you sit down, relax, and become comfortable the first thing that happens is your mind wanders and thoughts race in. Our mind does this. Mental ill or not it is normal. A practice I have found very profound for my well-being is watching my thoughts and letting them be there. Not judging, not following them, just sitting back and watching them breeze by. Just let the thoughts roll by and don't analyze them. If your mind becomes too attached to any one thought or image push it out.

What I find that works best is create your own mental image or word you can focus on. Lets say your mental image is of a flower. If your mind gets too attached to your thoughts or other images go back to the image of a flower and hold it in your mind for a few seconds and let it go which means your not trying to force the image to stay in your minds eye. It can stay or it can leave it doesn't matter. What matters is is allowing your mind to be still and allowing it to flow. It's like watching a river, your sitting on the edge of the embankment watching the water flow by. You get entranced by the calmness of the water. You can do the same with the thoughts and images in your head just watch them flow by and become entranced in the calmness.

This type of meditation practice watching and observing is one of the most beneficial I found for my life. The biggest benefit being 'letting go'. If you practice this you can use it outside of meditation. What if you could see the events of your day and watch them exactly as you watched the river of your mind pass by you? Life wouldn't drive you crazy anymore! Well not as bad anyways; we all slip up.

Have you ever seen the movie Peaceful Warrior? The young man in the story meets an old man who he finds intriguing and wise and wants to know how the old man can do the things he does. The old man teaches him to meditate. He makes the young man clean bathrooms and do daunting cleaning tasks and the young boy gets so angry and yells how the hell is cleaning a bathroom going to train my mind? The old man tells him he has to learn that everything we do is a meditation. Once you realize this, once you become fully aware of the present moment, any moment, cleaning toilets or driving your car you can master your mind which means to be present or aware.

The movie is based on true events that Dan Millman experienced who later became a medal winning gymnast and writer. He learned that when he focused on the moment and become fully present and aware he was able to perform better than he normally did. Believe me if I’m present I can not only do things better I can “do things”, meaning I can actually function. Sometimes brushing my teeth is an accomplishment, I don't need to be on New York’s Best Sellers List; I brushed my teeth! Alright, that would be nice too.