While I still haven’t brought my mindfulness rock out of its package, I have been viewing videos on mindfulness: ones my counselor published, and a Harvard video. Supposedly, when you succeed at it, you don’t dwell on the past or worry about the future, you just connect with the moment.
You have to breathe, and concentrate, and center yourself. It seems to be yoga minus the physical effort.
In fact, it reminds me of the last few minutes of my yoga course at the MS Society, when we took five minutes to focus on breathing. I fell apart in tears on the last day. I think everyone assumed I would really miss yoga, but actually right before I’d left for yoga Mom and Dave had argued and it was the first moment I’d had to think about it.
I cry during my mindfulness exercises, too. I think that proves I’m bad at it. Strangely, they also make me impatient, as if I need to level up to advanced mindfulness. If only I were a Scientologist and I could just pay my way to Nirvana.
It also reminds me of Gary’s latest enthusiasm, ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. He spends hours watching attractive women whisper and tap books and rustle pages, waiting for his scalp to tingle, or some such sensation. I tried it and found it was like the Magic Eye visual phenomenon, in that the appeal is lost on me even though I focus on it for half an hour.
Well, it looks like my mind is the next body part to get under control.
2 responses to “Losing My Mindfulness”
You could possibly be the funniest human being who ever lived.
Hattie – no, Gary is the funniest human. He was talking today about how the ASMR has made him so much more relaxed. I thought that perhaps the way I was working and worrying and he is not might be the thing that relaxes him but if he wants to give credit to whispering Hindu women, fine.