Are we getting mindfulness wrong?

Let us begin with a question.

If someone asked you to explain what mindfulness is, what would you say?

a) It’s all about meditation and doing yoga

b) It’s basically people who are able to be zen and calm all the time – not sure how though.

c) You know, hippie that eat organic and eat vegan food

d) Basically anything Tony Robbins says and reading lots of self help books

It’s actually not a very easy question to answer.

I think that whilst those things listed above can be a part of a mindful life, it’s actually a lot more practical than people probably think.

Being mindful is just another way of engaging with self-awareness.

There’s this part of us that is conditioned to survive – it’s down near the brain stem and it’s called the amygdala.

Helpful in when we are being hunted down by a hungry lion – not so much when it flicks on, and we are stuck in traffic or engaged in a conversation with someone we just don’t like.

And what has been happening in the modern world – especially in the last few years – is one epic, chaotic shit show after another and this has “switched” our survival mode to feel permanently ON.

Arg! Exhausting.

In essence, our consciousness is doing the right thing – it’s defining the world around us and constantly on the lookout for potential threats.

Only, we aren’t in any physical danger – we are just not evolved enough to chemically understand that.

We defend concepts – what we believe to be true – which can be dangerous because we usually base that on our own experiences.

And as you know – my experience and perspective on the world probably isn’t the same as yours.

Defending a concept – essentially a thought – is NOT the same as being in a real life or death situation.

In the book “Language of emotions” – Karla McClaren talks about our fear being considered a negative emotion. But Fear is our emotional response in a moment of true crisis, where we don’t have time to over think our response.

An example she uses, is when a car suddenly pulls out in front of you and you REACT – your fear takes over and gives you clarity. It releases the hormones adrenaline to sharpen your senses and get you out of harm’s way, without any consciousness of this all happening, within a micro second.

It’s only later that we begin to think with our frontal lobe (logic) about the “what ifs” and engage with our anger about the what happened – who was at fault, how serious it could’ve been etc…

In the moment of real danger, we are not feeling anger or irritation – our fear took over and did its bloody job. It saved our life. After that, we just start defending the concept of who was right and who was wrong.

So here we are in 2022, being confronted with a body that’s likely feeling flooded by hormones and chemicals we have not had enough time to adapt to in this modern world – even in these strange times – many of us don’t understand what it’s like to go without food, water, shelter… facebook – yet we are more stressed, more anxious, more depressed, more overweight and more isolated than we have ever been.

Why?

Because we are setting our default emotional state to “REACT.”

There’s no empowerment in that – it usually just feels like we are bracing for the NEXT thing to happen and even if its disproportionally minor, we can turn something as unimportant as someone’s opinion into a huge emotional reaction.

Survival becomes so normal that it’s hard to get back to a place of equilibrium and a state of feeling empowered or proactive.

Mindfulness is an exclusive way of saying “ I am seeking ways to understand myself and how my emotions create my behaviour.”

And that can happen by sitting in lotus pose and chanting – I enjoy this myself – but it only part of the overall solution.

Healing, recalibrating, and managing hormones is not simply going to a few yoga classes.

And it’s definitely not a destination. There’s a constant need to keep reflecting and examining your responses to situations that pop up in your life.

You are not going to always get it right – but that’s the beauty of mindful self-awareness – if you foof it up it’s an opportunity to learn.

Unresolved emotion is like toxic waste to our bodies and cells. The longer we continue these cycles, the more layers we must work through to find our way back to “calm.”

Modern mindfulness has created this idealised version of a particular person who embodies hemp clothing and living off the land. And that may well be the case for some people. But true mindfulness is learning to understand your emotions before they create a reaction – or behaviour.

We have been operating in a culture that keeps us distracted and a society that doesn’t teach or encourage truly empathetic, conscious interactions with others.

To be mindful is this modern age is to check-in on yourself, recognise and identify emotions and understand the triggers they create within you.

And most of us have been doing it half arse or not at all.

So maybe some of that made sense?

Maybe it sounds like I might know some stuff?

If you’ve gotten this far, then why stop now?

Stay awesome.