Tag: potentiality.

Insights from Mindfulness

Matthew Brensilver teaches about the relationship between mindfulness and mental health based on his many years of research into treatments for addiction and resultant behaviours.  In one MARC meditation podcast he offers two key insights that derive from mindfulness.

In the podcast, he suggests that meditation practice itself is a form of training that opens us up to the potentiality of mindfulness.  It enables us to pay attention to our everyday experiences, getting in touch with our sensations and thoughts.  Matthew describes mindfulness as accepting our human condition in all its facets with openness and equanimity.  He maintains that this mindful stance generates two key insights.

Insight 1 – the difficulty of being human

If we learn through meditation to accept whatever comes our way, taking things as they are, we come to realise how difficult it is to be truly human.  This openness to experience from one moment to the next means accepting what is with equanimity – even if this involves challenges to our sense of self, career disappointment, interpersonal conflict or ill health.

It takes real courage to face the reality of our lives with full awareness, not hiding in denial or diverted by resentment.  Life often turns out to be very different to what we imagined or hoped for. Matthew states that mindfulness demands that we “make peace with the human condition” and live our lives with genuine acceptance moment to moment.  This is hard to do, even if we are able in the midst of things to express gratitude for what we do have or for the positive experiences we have had in our lives.

Insight 2 – we underestimate the capacity of our hearts and minds

Matthew suggests that our innate capacity is often obscured by aversion to difficulties, striving for “success” or the negative emotions generated by the everyday challenges of work and life.  Fear, for instance, can stop us from being creative and pursuing opportunities for personal growth and development.

Matthew argues that “sustained intention and attention” that develops with mindfulness enables us to tap into our real potential, including the ability to offer unconditional love and appreciation.  If we are able to maintain “continuity of awareness” we are able to access our full potentiality.

For Matthew, mindfulness involves not only being aware of our thoughts and emotions from moment to moment but also the ability to “pour awareness into our body” so that we are in touch with our bodily sensations as well.  He suggests that meditation helps to build this awareness because it offers the opportunity to “experience the dignity of upright posture” while, at the same time, feeling “the pull of gravity” on the rest of our body.

As we grow in mindfulness, we come to realise the difficulty of facing our human condition with equanimity, while at the same time experiencing the depth and breadth of our human potentiality.  Meditation practice helps us to accept what is and to more readily realise our full potential.

 

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of ernestoeslava on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Who Are You Really?

You might identify yourself with one of the many roles that you have – mother, daughter, wife, sister, aunty, grandmother – or a past role, e.g. ex-wife.  Alternatively, you might describe yourself in terms of your profession.  However, you are more than your many roles or your profession.

You might identify with a demographic characteristic such as your race, age, gender, socio-economic status or nationality.  However, you are more than any demographic characteristic or the sum of those characteristics.

You could identify yourself in terms of a disability or a perceived deficiency such as disorganised, clumsy or lacking flexibility; but you are not your disability or your deficiency – imagined or real.

Jon Kabat-Zinn maintains that you are not your thoughts – you are not the narrative in your head or your negative self-evaluation.

So, who are you really?

Consciousness – more than your brain.

Scientists have identified the many parts, functions, and conditions associated with the complex organ – your human brain.  They have been able to highlight the impact of perceptions and emotions on various parts of the brain.   They can show how your brain interacts with your senses and interprets sensory data.   However, you are not your brain or any  characteristic of it – you are more than your brain.

While scientists are increasingly gaining intimate knowledge of the brain and its functions, they have not yet been able to explain what your “consciousness” or “awareness” is.  Numerous articles have been written about consciousness but each has failed to provide an adequate theory to explain the nature of consciousness – which is considered to be “the last frontier of science“.  Scientists struggle even to explain why consciousness is so baffling.

You can be conscious of your own thoughts or your connection with other people and with nature or be aware of the existence of your sub-conscious and its impact on your thoughts, memories and creativity.

Getting to know who you really are is a lifetime pursuit of self-awareness as you delve into the depths of your consciousness and explore the vast “spaciousness” that is involved.

Jack Kornfield suggests that you can narrow your awareness to an experience, such as listening to the birds in the tree, or expand it by opening “the lens of consciousness so that it can become like the sky or space”.

As you grow in mindfulnes through mindfulness meditation, you can deepen your self-awareness and explore who you really are – beyond the boundaries of your self-limiting identification.  It’s in this expanded awareness that you can find happiness, creativity and calmness.  Otherwise, you cannot realise your full potentiality.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of johnhain on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.