Mindfulness

[Anonymous]

Too funny! Here’s one of his You Tube videos about “What Meditation Really Is”. he’s like the Rick Green of meditation masters. Enjoy it!

http://youtu.be/GLjelIPg3ys

REPORT ABUSE

[Geoduck]

LOL! Hey, you know what I just found out? EVERYBODY has an internal dialogue. I thought it was just me. Still convinced that mine is more chatty, due to the ADD. It gets less with the medication, especially at night, when I’m trying to sleep. The inner dialogue occurs in the frontal lobe, where the ADD problem is thought to be. That explains why mine won’t shut the heck up!

Thanks, no_dopamine. I think you’re right about the meditation. You’re not going to experience silent thoughts, as long as you have a brain, but I do agree, you do see spaces, like the inner monologue guy is trying to breathe for once. LOL!

Ever read Eat, Pray, Love (read it, not see it, the movie sucks and misses several good points)? Elizabeth Gilbert is very hard on herself, but she’s a definite ADD candidate. There are several things in the book that stands out, but part of it is regarding meditation. She has real issues with that, because her inner dialogue won’t shut the hell up.

REPORT ABUSE

[quizzical]

Hey, is that true, Geoduck, that everyone has an internal dialogue? Or is it just all ADD’ers?

I’ve been curious about this for a long time, since my own inner voice is so active, and it’s what is always pulling my focus away from the outside.

I once asked my husband what he typically daydreamed about. He surprised me by saying he didn’t daydream at all. “Really?” I said, “you don’t have little fantasies, memories, that sort of thing?” He replied that that while he had thoughts, he wasn’t really aware of them as thoughts, which made absolutely no sense to me. “Not even when you’re just sitting around in some waiting room or some quiet place – you’re not aware of anything going through your mind?” No, he said, not really.

It boggled my mind so much that once when we were on a car trip I had this goofball impulse. We’d stopped at a rest area and I’d gone in to use the bathroom while he waited in the car. Walking back, I decided to catch him in the act of thinking – after all, what less interesting place could you imagine than a highway rest stop? Surely it begs for a long flight of fancy to some far more interesting place and time…..

So I flung open the door, pointed a finger at him, and shouted, “A-HA! What were you thinking about right now?”

After a moment’s pause, he said, “Well….I guess I was looking at the dome light and wondering how I’d replace the bulb if it ever went out.”

Well, at least he was thinking about *something*.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Here’s what the Rinpoche says about mindfulness practice (from the book The Joy of Living):

“In the beginning, you may be surprised by the sheer number and variety of thoughts that pour through your awareness like a waterfall rushing over a steep cliff. An experience of this sort is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of success. You’ve begun to recognize how many thoughts ordinarily pass through your mind without your even noticing them.”

“if you don’t try to stop whatever is going on in your mind but merely observe it, eventually you’ll begin to feel a tremendous sense of relaxation, a vast sense of openness within your mind – which is in fact your natural mind, the naturally unperturbed BACKGROUND against which various thoughts come and go.” [my note – often thoughts and emotions are compared to clouds in the sky, the sky is always there in the background, sometimes obscured, sometimes not]

“The mind is always active, always generating thoughts, just as the ocean constantly generates waves. We can’t stop our thoughts any more than we can stop waves in the ocean. The real point of meditation is to rest in bare awareness whether anything occurs or not. Whatever comes up for you, just be open and present to it, and let it go. And if nothing occurs, or if thoughts and so on vanish before you can notice them, just rest in that natural clarity. How much simpler could the process of meditation be?”

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Geoduck, saw the movie Eat, Pray, Love and didn’t like it. She just seemed too competitive to me, trying too hard to have an experience and write about it. There just seem to be too many of these books and movies, like going for a year without toilet paper, for example. Why not go for a year without a car and not tell anybody? That would impress me more

REPORT ABUSE

[Geoduck]

Yeah the movie sucked and had little to nothing to do with the book. The movie really focused on the physical experiences, while the book was more of an inward spiritual journey. I watched it in Netflix and was glad I didn’t waste money on it in the theater.

I saw an interview where the author was asked about the movie. She responded that it was a story in it’s own right. LOL! Nice way of politely saying she thought it sucked, too.

Really, it’s a hard book to get into, but you can see her transform from a person interested only in physical experiences, into a person more spiritually minded, and realizing that materialism just isn’t where it’s at. The book is set up that way. She’s unhappy, she gets a contract to write about travel, she decides to indulge herself in the first place, find herself in the second place, and become herself in the third. It’s worth the read, as long as you don’t expect it to resemble the movie at all. If you hated the movie, you’ll probably be fine.

REPORT ABUSE

[Geoduck]

Oh, back on topic…sorry, I have ADD

YES, it’s true!!! You may not drift off into a daydream, but there is a voice in your head that tells you when you are doing something stupid, or dangerous, or just talks. You know, like that guy on Scrubs. We’ve all got an inner monologue. I discovered this while watching more videos by that guy I’m not sure I like (Russell Barker..I think)…really think he’s more of a brain injury specialist than an ADD guy. He knows brain stuff, I’m just not sure about his application to ADD.

Still, it was a relief to learn. I’ve asked a few obviously non-ADD friends, and they’ve laughed. “Of course! You really thought you were the only one?” Yup. I did. LOL!!!

Well that’s a load off!

REPORT ABUSE

[Tiddler]

I think you’re right that everyone has an internal monologue – but in my case it just never shuts up and the thoughts bounce around so fast that I rarely follow a thought to its conclusion without having other strands jumping in at the same time.

The stuff I read said I should look out for the pause between these thoughts and that’s the bit I don’t seem to have. There is NO pause. Ever.

Is this an ADHD thing?

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

@Tiddler, I have two internal monologues (sounds like yours). One is this awesome superhuman voice that tells me to bring an umbrella or take the long way to work or call so-and-so to chat. It’s a voice with no logic. When I listen, I am usually rewarded with a surprise thunderstorm that gets everyone else wet, a garage sale with some cool stuff or great news from an old friend.

The other voice is a miserable old curmudgeon who always has logical, negative reasons to not do what the other voice wants. “You don’t need it, it’s not gonna rain.” “No, you’re late already.” “He’s probably at work.” Ugh. It’s usually a coven of curmudgeons that have multiple, logical and all negative reasons for not doing or doing something. “It’s not gonna rain, and that umbrella is broken, and you probably have one in the car, and you’ll look foolish, and….”

So, I’m training myself to decipher the good voice from the bad voice, and it works out really well. There’s something weird at work, intuition or maybe unconscious learning (or quantum non-locality allowing reverse information flow through time). Anywho, it works. Try to listen to the quiet, positive, I-don’t-have-a-reason-just-trust-me voice.

REPORT ABUSE

[caper]

@pete: I think you’d like Blink(Gladwell); it explains the emotional vs logical brain.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Hey Tiddler,

Sometimes there will be gaps between the thoughts and sometimes there won’t be (there are, but they are sooooo small we don’t notice them). The practice is to just try to be aware of the thoughts without getting carried away by them or indulging them. Just be aware of whatever is happening.

It’s hard for everyone, even harder for ADDers.

I have found that since I have been taking meds, meditation and mindfulness is a LOT easier, that is, I can maintain focus on something rather than scattering my attention on anything and everything. So sitting and watching my breath (a classic beginner’s form of meditation that is also practiced by more experienced meditators) becomes sitting and watching my breath, with some distracting thoughts, then gently bringing my attention back to the breath, some more distracting thoughts, and gently bringing my attention back to the breath, etc. Eventually the gaps between the thoughts, which are tiny, get a bit bigger, and my crazy fast mind starts to settle down.

Before it would have been – paying attention to the breath – this is BORING … snore … zzzzz … what’s that sound? … it’s too hot, let me take my sweater off … it’s too cold, where’s my sweater? … I’m thirsty … oh sh*t, I’m supposed to be watching my breath … watching my breath … I’m no good at this … why am I doing this … why didn’t I say *&*&#$ to so-and-so yesterday … got to remember to pick up books from the library tonight … BELL RINGS … oh sh*t, another wasted meditation sitting! 😯

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

@caper, yes, I’ve read a lot of his work, Blink, the Tipping Point and Outliers.

If you like him, try James Suroweicki, the Wisdom of Crowds and Ben Sherwood, The Survivors Club.

If you really want to run off on a tangent, Robin Dunbar’s Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language is dense, but awesome.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

I would try working in a group to get to learning how mindfulness works.

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts