this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Mindfulness and Breathwork! Mindfulness is an incredibly valuable practice that can be a game changer for mental health and anxiety. Breathwork goes a long way as a fundamental technique.
There are a variety of free tier apps like InsightTimer that have beginner courses in meditation. Working to create space in your life between things like work and family give you breathing room. Starting to live in the moment allows you to step out of the anxiety of the past and worry of the future.
I'm not saying mindfulness can't have serious benefits. However, I would caution anyone who's into it to read the book McMindfulness. A lot of the "science" behind it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, there can be genuine drawbacks to it, and it's often used in unethical ways--like to make CEOs of ruthless companies more able to shove aside their feelings of guilt, or to sharpen the minds of soldiers for killing.
Wait, there's people making money off of this shit‽ Like, my therapist and I work on mindfulness, but for me that just means being present in my body (not escaping into books/games/videos), considering my wants and needs, and listening to my emotions (even when they're unpleasant). Is there some other definition? I like talking to people about it, but I'll have to be more specific about what I mean in the future if there's someone out there selling something.
FWIW, this was a new issue to me. I’ve only encountered mindfulness practices like you’ve described.
Gratitude journaling, breathwork, meditation. Pulling yourself into the present to avoid things like lingering anxieties or future worries. I combine this with exercise and really prioritizing sleep to good effect for me.
I think there’s always gurus trying to sell something but like most things there is no easy roads or short cuts. And it’s interesting to hear others perspectives.
Good luck on your mindfulness journey. Do you have any practices that work for you?
I do, but a lot of it is focused on dealing with fairly intense childhood trauma. Mindfulness for me might mean being aware that I'm feeling worse, until I help myself. Small techniques are deep breathing (4 seconds in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold), going to my comfort places and trying to pick out as many details as possible (I'm lucky and have a backyard with a pond and a lot of birds), and in extreme cases, I'll smell tea leaves. That last one is more about getting out of a traumatic disassociation rather than getting into a state of mindfulness, but disassociation and mindfulness are mutually exclusive, so it's sort of a mindfulness thing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Like, before I worked on my mindfulness, I'd hide from my problems for months or years. Hell, I'd be so zonked out of the world that I wouldn't know I needed to use the bathroom until I started to feel physical pain. I could numb and hide my feelings so well that I just ghosted through life. Now, I can't do that and I don't want to. Things hurt, things are stressful, things are miserable. Things are also joyful and happy, or are deep and meaningful. I get to have the full gamut, rather than just snark, sarcasm, and nothing. It's probably not comparable, and on further reflection I'm glad that most people will never have to go through the process I went through. Trauma sucks and the recovery sucks too.