Mindful Thoughts
We are first going to use a combination of relaxation, mindfulness and cognitive behaviour adaptation or alteration. This is NOT being brain-washed, sometimes rather brain ‘washing’ or brain ‘refreshing ourselves. But constructively and fully in our OWN control and time!
Mental therapies are difficult to apply if we are bodily tense, emotionally very upset or have interfering distracting thoughts.
We first need to be bodily relaxed and in a relaxing environment, away from stressful situations.
When we were children, when we fell or tumbled, our bodies naturally relaxed often avoiding us serious hurt. As adults, with larger frames, and having grown up out of childhoodness, if we fall or tumble we usually stay tense and hurt more as a result!
It is the same emotionally, after a bad emotional or mental fall. We can either fall or tumble gracefully or fall very hard indeed on our feelings or mental response to a very difficult, often imposed on us situation. We can be sailing along seemingly very smoothly and safely with barely a feather ruffled, but we can’t sometimes predict the future, especially in regard to unexpected events.
Mindfulness is about learning to fall or tumble gracefully when for instance our emotional or mental legs are pulled unexpectedly from supporting ourself.
To do this we need to be able to resort to various techniques, often firstly and naturally, withdrawing into ourselves. We have to then adapt to our new situation which is often never easy, sometimes eg after a parent passing on, it can be the most difficult adaptation of our lives. This can take a LOT of time especially where a life circumstance eg a previously thought secure job ‘disappearing’ occurs, often suddenly or very suddenly right out of the blue. Sometimes there is the need to make a fresh start, but as we get older, or depending on our circumstances may not always be attemptable, let alone possible!
So while mindfulness may make us try to be positive and think positively, it also revolves around the constraints of others or our circumstances, and hence being realistic in our expectations or actions. Yes, fit and healthy people have survived and climbed Mount Everest but they have often taken enormous risks, and a very real chance of sudden weather deterioration, so in a sense they have often pushed their luck to the extreme and extremes.
They probably haven’t had young families to look after or impaired health or more serious effects of aging to contend with. And many have failed and a not inconsiderable number of them have died in the attempt.
It’s a little like this in life. Sometimes even our best attempt isn’t good enough, and even in retrospect we know e couldn’t have changed or change certain outcomes. BUT mindfulness can help to make our attempts at least best attempts however fruitful (or not) the outcomes. And mindfulness can help greatly in coping when we do meet failure, or drastic circumstance changes.