Practising Mindfulness

Category: Meditation & Mindfulness

  • Escape the Fishbowl

    Escape the Fishbowl

    Round and round the little fish went

    Consider how life is for the goldfish. The environment he lives in is fairly small and constrained, and yet, it’s all he knows. The goldfish is unable to experience what lies beyond his bowl. He knows there’s something else out there; a distorted world of strange shapes and patterns. He can push up against the glass and try very hard to reach this other world, but no matter how hard he tries, entry is forbidden. 

    Can we help?

    We might want to lift him out of the bowl. We scoop him up with our hands and say: “Look at what else there is!” But as soon as we do, he starts to die. His gills are unable to extract the oxygen from the air and his convex eyes are unable to see. Perhaps, in the hope that they might evolve, we could take many generations of fish out of the bowl for short periods only. Their gills and eyes adapting to the air; their fins becoming more like hands and feet.

    Of course I’m partly talking about Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The fish that’s able to survive for the longest, outside of its normal environment, gets to pass on these survivalist skills. Skills that potentially develop into their very makeup; their genes.

    What if we can’t wait for millions of years?

    For this goldfish experiment of ours to work, without millions of years of evolution, we could build an apparatus. This device would enable the goldfish to see and explore the outside world. We could place lenses over his eyes to help him see, we could develop a way to pump oxygen directly into his veins. We could oil his skin so it doesn’t dry out. What then of his brain? Would it not be the case, that his brain would also need some kind of development, to help him fully appreciate his new found world. 

    We would of course need to fully understand how to relate to this fish; to understand how he thinks

    Yes, a form of translation would be needed; methods of communication would need to be developed, and ways of connecting with his perceptions, required. Once we have all of this in place, it might be possible to help our little fish, see beyond, the bowl.

    Most, if not all of us, are living in our own restrictive fishbowl 

    The range of our perception has been adapted to fit our environment. We’re unable to fully appreciate how beautifully minimalist this is. During the millions of years it took for us to reach the stage we have, certain things have been lost, or have evolved in their use. Our gills have become lungs and our fins have become hands. We’ve adapted further have we not? We can now travel back to the water. In order to achieve this we take small pieces of our current environment down with us in the form of SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). So what of us escaping our environment in other ways? Well, we’ve now further proven our cleverness, by surviving for short periods of time in space. So what about escaping the fishbowl of our thinking.

    The expression ‘fishbowl-thinking’ describes how we’re trapped within the environs determined by our beliefs

    Our thought experiment helped our goldfish. We skipped millions of years of evolution through creating an imaginary scenario, and then developed a suitable apparatus, for escape. So in this respect, how extraordinary it is that in reality, we have reversed the processes of evolution, inflicted upon us, by creating SCUBA. In reality we have returned to the sea. 

    In order for us to escape the environs created by our beliefs we must also use tools

    We cannot escape fishbowl-thinking with the same kind of thinking that created it. In other words, we must seek to escape the expectations defined, by our beliefs. We don’t know what we don’t know and can’t believe what we don’t yet believe. As such, we must suspend logical thinking, if we are to escape the environs of our beliefs. The first step toward achieving this, is to suspend our normal, restrictive, thinking.

    At the beginning of the GOLD Counselling Method, a light trance, is induced.

  • Stable and Present (Stability of Mindfulness)

    The Freedman College – Specialist school offering Training Workshops in Mindfulness and Self-hypnosis

    Instability is created when the mind is grasping and craving to be somewhere else. We’re unhappy, restless or bored with what’s happening right now, and so we crave to be somewhere other than the now moment. This creates powerful feelings that drive us to unsettle our situation, in an attempt to satisfy, our craving for stimulation.

    We go out for a drink; we crave the attention of others; we seek any stimulation just to satisfy our craving. We grasp at the next thing, constantly looking ahead, to what we might be doing next. If there’s nothing happening in every moment, we fear that we’re somehow, missing out. We’re never settled, thinking there’s always something better, or someone better to be with. This is instability. Horrible when seen for what it truly is.   

    Stability

    There’s a lot to be said for being stable and living a stable life. Some might associate stable with boring, or worst still, normal. Also, we might need to experience a period of instability, before we begin to seek its opposite. In this vein, we could adopt the view, that it’s instability that has become what’s boring. When feelings of instability are a constant, eventually, we’ll tire of this.

    Routine

    Many of us actually seek to avoid routine. We see routine as monotonous, and the flat, neutral feelings associated, as hard to cope with. Some routine is useful. When we have certain things in life that are regular; timed to occur at regular intervals, we form stability. Meal times are an easy example of this. Some children are raised with no regular meal times and so miss this particular grounding of routine. We need a certain amount of routine. It is important.

    Meditation Leading to Mindfulness

    Learning the art of meditation – in order to improve everyday mindfulness – is a sure fire method of creating greater stability. As with anything to do with self-discipline meditation takes strength of mind and persistence before it becomes one of those positive habits. The ability to bring the mind back into the present moment, time and time again, helps to discipline the mind and steer it away from the craving and grasping, associated with instability. In its simplest form, that really is the nature of instability:

    The mind craving to be in a state it has become accustomed to

    Those of us who’ve grown up in an unstable and insecure environments become accustomed to this. The mind sees it as normal. For there to be quiet and stillness is suggestive of there being something wrong. The ‘quiet before the storm’ is an uncomfortable place for some children.

    For these unstable, insecure children, the quiet before the storm is often more frightening than the storm itself. As a result, it’s even more important for the unsettled adult, to remain in such a state (unsettled) because the quiet has become associated with anguish and fear. Therefore, the adult survivors of such an upbringing, can find meditation, particularly challenging.

    Stability before the plan

    As touched on in previous posts, meditation itself, can have an unsettling effect. When we’ve become accustomed to instability, and indeed this is the method we’ve employed to cope with difficult circumstances, meditation creates a change, the mind will initially fight against. Even so, we must find stability, and control over our impulsive nature, in order to form a coherent plan, to escape difficult circumstances.

    Constant chaos and instability becomes a vicious cycle that’s difficult to escape. If the plan we’ve formed, is simply a reflection of a chaotic mind, it is bound to fail. So in this respect, learning how to still and settle the mind, before we begin to plan our escape, is a must.

    Remember, by firstly understanding how we’re creating instability, we’re able to see what steps are needed, in order to find its opposite: Stability. A beautiful place to be.

  • Protected: Repetition: The Secret to all Learning

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